He had, in fact, many pleasant qualities and one notable one, which Lady Sunningdale had already mentioned as being characteristic of him, namely, his undeviating pursuit of the first-rate. It was this which turned a character that would otherwise have been rather materialistic into something of an idealist, and supplied a sort of religion to a mind which otherwise, an extremely rare phenomenon, was completely atheistic, not with an atheism into which he had drifted from carelessness or _insouciance_, but with one that sprang from a reasoned and clear conviction that there could not possibly be any God whatever. On all other matters he had an open mind and was extremely willing to adopt any opinion that seemed to him reasonable, but on this one point he was hopelessly bigoted. This reasonableness and willingness to be convinced had led people to suppose that he was weak. But this was not in the least true, he was only fair. Another quality, and a fine one, was his also: he was practically unacquainted with fear, either physical or moral, and would, had he lived in those uncongenial times, have gone as cheerfully to the stake for his entire absence of religious beliefs as he would now blandly uphold his abhorrence of sport on the ground of cruelty to animals in a roomful of hunting-men. His faculty of reverence finally, of which he possessed a considerable measure, he exercised entirely over the talents of other people, on whatever line they ran. He knelt, for instance, at the shrine of Lady Sunningdale’s acute perceptions, he hung up votive offerings to Martin’s music, he even, at this moment, bowed the knee before the village carpenter, whose talent for singing the wrong note was of that instinctive and unerring quality which approaches genius. He was a great friend of Martin’s. Helen he only knew slightly. And, after service, desultory conversation in the church-yard ended in the twins going back to lunch at Chartries. Though Mr. Challoner was opposed on principle to anything, however remote, connected with festivity taking place on Sunday, he raised no objection, merely reminded Helen that her Sunday-school class met at three. Lord Yorkshire, strolling by her, thought he heard a _nuance_ of impatience in her assent, and his question had a touch of insincerity about it. “Don’t you find that charming?” he asked. “I think there can be nothing so interesting as helping to form a child’s mind. It is so plastic--like modelling clay. You can mould it into any shape you choose!” Helen glanced quickly at him. “Do you really want to know if I find it charming?” she asked. “Immensely.” “I detest it. I don’t think they have any minds to mould. Why should one think they have? But they have shiny faces, and they fidget. And I point out Ur of the Chaldees on the map.” He laughed.