“I was thinking whether I was going to join the Roman Church,” he said. Lady Sunningdale gave a deep, contented sigh. “That’s the sort of thing I really like,” she remarked. “Poor Bear! Now, why, why, why do you want to do that? Yes, turn Sahara out, Frank; she is so restless. Suez Canal always follows her. And shut the door. Now close your eyes and think, Martin, for a minute if you like, and then tell me why?” Frank said, under his breath, “I thought so,” and returned to his chair almost on tiptoe. Martin did not close his eyes at all, but looked at him. “Frank knows why, I expect,” he said, “though I haven’t hinted it to him till this moment. Why is it, Frank?” “Well, in one word, ‘Beauty,’” said he. Lady Sunningdale was completely bewildered. “Incense? The Virgin Mary?” she suggested, vaguely. Martin frowned. For a moment he looked exactly like his father. “Ah, what is the use of my telling you, if you say that sort of thing?” he asked. “But I really haven’t an idea,” said she. “Did I say anything dreadful?” “Frank, speak. You know,” said he. “I never know what I am talking about when I begin to talk.” “It is only a guess.” “You have guessed right. I believe you are always right.” “Well, get on somebody,” said Lady Sunningdale, with a show of impatience. “All is Beauty,” said Frank, “and knowing this is Love, and Love is Duty.” He smiled across to Martin. “You quoted that, you know, to Helen,” he said, “on the day your father found ‘The Mill on the Floss.’” “What did he find the mill on?” asked Lady Sunningdale. “Oh, I see. George Eliot, isn’t it? How dull! I read a book of hers once, ‘Scenes from Something,’ and thought it so like your father’s house, Martin. But all is Beauty, is it? I should have said almost everything was ugly. Anyhow, what has it all got to do with the Pope?” Lady Sunningdale’s discursiveness, the reader will have noticed, was liable to put in an appearance at any time, even when she was really interested. She herself explained this by the fact that she never thought about less than three things at once. Consequently, when she opened her mouth, any of the three was liable to make its escape. “Yes, that is it,” said Martin, answering Frank’s last remark. “I am a Christian, and I cannot any longer be of a church that leaves out beauty from its worship. Why, if you love a thing, if you believe in a thing, you must approach it through beauty, it seems to me.” He paused a moment, and then the words came as they had never come before. A sudden clearness of vision was his. He saw his own thought with precision, and he could at that moment of self-revelation delineate it very accurately.