"Yes, it has been swift," said Ronder, shaking his head regretfully, "but I think that his position here was largely based on the fact that there was no one else here strong enough to take the lead against him. "My coming into the diocese--some one, however feeble, you understand, coming in from outside--made an already strong modern feeling yet stronger." "I will tell you one thing," said Wistons, suddenly shooting up his shoulders and darting forward his head. "I think all this Cathedral intrigue disgusting. No, I don't blame you. You came into the middle of it, and were doubtless forced to take the part you did. But I'll have no lot or hold in it. If I am to understand that I gain the Pybus appointment only through a lot of backstairs intrigue and cabal, I'll let it be known at once that I would not accept that living though it were offered me a thousand times." "No, no," cried Ronder eagerly. "I assure you that that is not so. There has been intrigue here owing to the old politics of the party who governed the Cathedral. But that is, I hope and pray, over and done with. It is because so many of us want to have no more of it that we are asking you to come here. Believe me, believe me, that is so." "I should not have said what I did," continued Wistons quietly. "It was arrogant and conceited. Perhaps you cannot avoid intrigue and party feeling among the community of any Cathedral body. That is why I want you to understand, Canon Ronder, the kind of man I am, before you propose me for this post. I am afraid that you may afterwards regret your advocacy. If I were invited to a Canonry, or any post immediately connected with the Cathedral, I would not accept it for an instant. I come, if I come at all, to fight the Cathedral--that is to fight everything in it, round and about it, that prevents men from seeing clearly the figure of Christ. "I believe, Canon Ronder, that before many years are out it will become clear to the whole world that there are now two religions--the religion of authority, and the religion of the spirit--and if in such a division I must choose, I am for the religion of the spirit every time." The religion of the spirit! Ronder stirred, a little restlessly, his fat thighs. What had that to do with it? They were discussing the Pybus appointment. The religion of the spirit! Well, who wasn't for that? As to dogma, Ronder had never laid very great stress upon it. A matter of words very largely. He looked out to the garden, where a tree, scooped now like a great green fan against the blue-white sky, was shading the sun's rays. Lovely! Lovely! Lovely like the Hermes downstairs, lovely like the piece of red amber on his writing-table, like the Blind Homer...like a scallop of green glass holding water that washed a little from side to side, the sheen on its surface changing from dark shadow to faintest dusk. Lovely! He stared, transported, his comfort flowing full-tide now into his soul.