From that hour began a real intimacy with Vickars which had a great influence over his own character. Hitherto he had admired the man without understanding his real aims. Now he began to comprehend these aims. Vickars had spoken truly when he described himself as a fanatic, but his fanaticism was so wise and so gentle that it provoked love rather than antagonism. And it had also a certain restful and melancholy quality which was infinitely touching. He did not expect to be heard, and he knew that he would not prevail; yet he would at any time have suffered martyrdom with cheerful courage. Many men have found it not difficult to die for a faith which they believed would move on to triumph by the way of their Golgotha; but Vickars was prepared to die for a faith which he knew must fail. He had no illusions; he saw all things in a clear bleak light of actual fact, knew the world ill-governed and man incurably foolish, but not the less he was willing to sacrifice himself for convictions which the world called absurd. His speech about what he would do were he dictator of the world was not mere rhetoric; it was his genuine belief that life was at bottom a very simple business, and that mankind missed available happiness merely by perverse repudiation of the simplest principles of happiness. So he gave himself in hopeless consecration to the exposition of these principles; and if the martyr is great who can die because he sees the crown and palm waiting for him in the skies, how much greater is he who can die expecting no reward? It was only by degrees that Arthur came to recognise these qualities in Vickars. What he did not recognise at all was that the influence of Vickars was slowly loosening all the moorings that held him to his own former life. Although he had not said it openly, he knew now that he could not join his father in the business. He was careful to frame no accusation of his father even in his own most secret thoughts, but he knew that their ways lay apart. This life his father loved of scheming and of toiling, with its empty wealth and emptier social rewards, had no attraction for him. It was too crude, too barbarous; and beside it the life of Vickars, in its noble poverty, shone like a gem. He did not judge his father, but he judged unmercifully the society in which he moved, especially the church society, with its pettiness of interest, its lack of idealism, and its honour for smooth hypocrites like Scales; and this set him wondering why Vickars went to church at all. He asked him the question one day. "I go for Clark's sake principally," he replied. "He is the one pulpit-man in the neighbourhood who has a real glimpse of truth, and I feel it my duty to support him." "But what about the Church itself?" "You mean, what do I think of it?" "Yes."