At luncheon he talked rather more than usual, especially on literary matters with Robert. Rose, too, was fully occupied in giving Catherine a sarcastic account of a singing lesson she had been administering in the school that morning. Catherine winced sometimes at the tone of it. That afternoon Robert, in high spirits, his rod over his shoulder, his basket at his back, carried off his guest for a lounging afternoon along the river. Elsmere enjoyed these fishing expeditions like a boy. They were his holidays, relished all the more because he kept a jealous account of them with his conscience. He sauntered along, now throwing a cunning and effectual fly, now resting, smoking, and chattering, as the fancy took him. He found a great deal of the old stimulus and piquancy in Langham’s society, but there was an occasional irritability in his companion, especially toward himself personally, which puzzled him. After a while, indeed, he began to feel himself the unreasonably cheerful person which he evidently appeared to his companion. A mere ignorant enthusiast, banished for ever from the realm of pure knowledge by certain original and incorrigible defects--after a few hours’ talk with Langham Robert’s quick insight always showed him some image of himself resembling this in his friend’s mind. At last he turned restive. He had been describing to Langham his acquaintance with the Dissenting minister of the place--a strong, coarse-grained fellow of sensuous, excitable temperament, famous for his noisy ‘conversion meetings,’ and for a gymnastic dexterity in the quoting and combining of texts, unrivalled in Robert’s experience. Some remark on the Dissenter’s logic, made, perhaps, a little too much in the tone of the Churchman conscious of University advantages, seemed to irritate Langham. ‘You think your Anglican logic in dealing with the Bible so superior! On the contrary, I am all for your Ranter. He is your logical Protestant. Historically, you Anglican parsons are where you are and what you are, because English-men, as a whole, like attempting the contradictory--like, above all, to eat their cake and have it. The nation has made you and maintains you for its own purposes. But that is another matter.’ Robert smoked on a moment in silence. Then he flushed and laid down his pipe. ‘We are all fools in your eyes, I know! _À la bonne heure!_ I have been to the University, and talk what he is pleased to call “philosophy”--therefore Mr. Colson denies me faith. You have always, in your heart of hearts, denied me knowledge. But I cling to both in spite of you.’ There was a ray of defiance, of emotion, in his look. Langham met it in silence. ‘I deny you nothing,’ he said at last, slowly. ‘On the contrary, I believe you to be the possessor of all that is best worth having in life and mind.’