"I am afraid so. You see, I have secured Pole-Knox. He has never been permitted to dine here before." "Why not?" "Because I once told Lady Augusta that he was a man for the shortest part of the afternoon--not for evenings, at all. She couldn't forgive this." "Does she forgive it now?" "Yes. She has reached the stage when one may criticise him." "That means a complete cure, I suppose." "Far from it--resignation to the worst that can be said of his character. There is no cure possible then." "Have you had any conversation with Reckage?" he asked. Sara coloured and put her fingers to her lips. "Hush!" said she. "There's a deceptive quiet about him which puzzles me. But I don't think he is sorry to be rid of Agnes. A regiment of relatives drove him into the engagement. Now it has come to an end--let us thank God!" "Your own conscience is easy, I take it?" "You have no right to ask such a question--none at all." "Some men, you know, can be laughed out of their loves," he continued. "Timorous men--yes! Is Reckage timorous?" "You turned that most adroitly." "Thank you. Please sit between Lady Augusta and Aumerle at dinner." The dinner passed most agreeably. As little as possible was said about the Meeting; each talked to his or her neighbour, and although the separate dialogues may have been profound, the general effect produced was one of restful flippancy. Pole-Knox remarked over his fish that England had little to fear--unless through the corruption of her religion, whereupon Penborough declared that religion in the country was a School, not a Church. To this Lady Augusta rejoined that Rome's strength depended merely on Canterbury's weakness. "Forcing a change is a very ticklish business," said Aumerle, studying the menu, and regretting that his digestion was not all it had been. Lord Garrow deplored the fact that Mr. Gladstone had embarked on a very vulgar and very false policy. "But its vulgarity," he sighed, "gives it a very easy reception." "He expects everything except docility," said Penborough; "if the Opposition employ that means, they will embarrass all his calculations." Reckage, meanwhile, was confiding to Sara-- "I turned the horse round, rammed my spurs in, and put him at the rails again!" One statement, made by Penborough, caused a flutter. "If Catherine of Arragon had been immoral and Mary Stuart virtuous, the whole course of European History would have been different. The Reformation, for instance, would have found no favour in England." "That's _very_ advanced," murmured Lady Larch. Sara, at dessert, tried to encourage a debate on the egoism of the Saints compared with the egoism of Montaigne. "They were selfishly bent on pain and renunciation, he was selfishly bent on pleasure and indulgence. Isn't that the one difference between them, Mr. Orange?" Orange refused to be drawn, but he promised to lend her the _Acta Sanctorum_ of the Bollandists in sixty volumes in folio.