"Put it that way if you like," said Ronder seriously, "although I don't think spying is exactly the word. You're perfectly at liberty, I mean, to tell anybody that I've been to see you and to repeat to anybody what I say. It simply is that I don't care to take on all the work that's being shoved on to my shoulders without getting the views of those who know the place well." "Oh, if it's my views you want," cried Foster, suddenly raising his voice and almost shouting, "they're easy enough to discover. They are simply that everything here is abominable, going to wrack and ruin...Now you know what _I_ think." He looked down at his manuscript as much as to say, "Well, good afternoon." "Going to ruin in what way?" asked Ronder. "In the way that the country is going to ruin--because it has turned its back upon God." There was a pause. Suddenly Foster flung out, "Do you believe in God, Canon Ronder?" "I think," said Ronder, "the fact that I'm in the position I'm in----" "Nonsense," interrupted Foster. "That's anybody's answer. You don't look like a spiritual man." "I'm fat, if that's what you mean," said Ronder smiling. "That's my misfortune." "If I've been rude," said Foster more mildly, "forgive me. I _am_ rude these days. I've given up trying not to be. The truth is that I'm sick to the heart with all their worldliness, shams, lies, selfishness, idleness. You may be better than they. You may not. I don't know. If you've come here determined to wake them all up and improve things, then I wish you God-speed. But you won't do it. You needn't think you will. If you've come like the rest to get what you can out of it, then I don't think you'll find my company good for you." "I certainly haven't come to wake them up," said Ronder. "I don't believe that to be my duty. I'm not made that way. Nor can I honestly believe things to be as bad as you say. But I do intend, with God's help, to do my best. If that's not good enough for you, then you must abandon me to my fate." Foster seemed to appreciate that. He nodded his head. "That's honest at any rate," he said. "It's the first honest thing I've heard here for a long time except from the Bishop. To tell you the truth, I had thought you were going to work in with Brandon. One more of his sheep. If that were to be so the less we saw of one another the better." "I have not been here long enough," said Ronder, "to think of working in with anybody. And I don't wish to take sides. There's my duty to the Cathedral. I shall work for that and let the rest go." "There's your duty to God," said Foster vehemently. "That's the thing that everybody here's forgotten. But you don't sound as though you'd go Brandon's way. That's something in your favour." "Why should one go Brandon's way?" Ronder asked.