Part 28 (1/2)

Father Benwell--”all things to all men”--cheerfully accepted a cigar from the box on the table.

”Father Benwell possesses all the social virtues,” Mr. Winterfield ran on. ”He shall have his coffee, and the largest sugar-basin that the hotel can produce. I can quite understand that your literary labors have tried your nerves,” he said to Romayne, when he had ordered the coffee.

”The mere t.i.tle of your work overwhelms an idle man like me. 'The Origin of Religions'--what an immense subject! How far must we look back to find out the first wors.h.i.+pers of the human family?--Where are the hieroglyphics, Mr. Romayne, that will give you the earliest information?

In the unknown center of Africa, or among the ruined cities of Yucatan?

My own idea, as an ignorant man, is that the first of all forms of wors.h.i.+p must have been the wors.h.i.+p of the sun. Don't be shocked, Father Benwell--I confess I have a certain sympathy with sun-wors.h.i.+p. In the East especially, the rising of the sun is surely the grandest of all objects--the visible symbol of a beneficent Deity, who gives life, warmth and light to the world of his creation.”

”Very grand, no doubt,” remarked Father Benwell, sweetening his coffee.

”But not to be compared with the n.o.ble sight at Rome, when the Pope blesses the Christian world from the balcony of St. Peter's.”

”So much for professional feeling!” said Mr. Winterfield. ”But, surely, something depends on what sort of man the Pope is. If we had lived in the time of Alexander the Sixth, would you have called _him_ a part of that n.o.ble sight?”

”Certainly--at a proper distance,” Father Benwell briskly replied. ”Ah, you heretics only know the worst side of that most unhappy pontiff! Mr.

Winterfield, we have every reason to believe that he felt (privately) the truest remorse.”

”I should require very good evidence to persuade me of it.”

This touched Romayne on a sad side of his own personal experience.

”Perhaps,” he said, ”you don't believe in remorse?”

”Pardon me,” Mr. Winterfield rejoined, ”I only distinguish between false remorse and true remorse. We will say no more of Alexander the Sixth, Father Benwell. If we want an ill.u.s.tration, I will supply it, and give no offense. True remorse depends, to my mind, on a man's accurate knowledge of his own motives--far from a common knowledge, in my experience. Say, for instance, that I have committed some serious offense--”

Romayne could not resist interrupting him. ”Say you have killed one of your fellow-creatures,” he suggested.

”Very well. If I know that I really meant to kill him, for some vile purpose of my own; and if (which by no means always follows) I am really capable of feeling the enormity of my own crime--that is, as I think, true remorse. Murderer as I am, I have, in that case, some moral worth still left in me. But if I did _not_ mean to kill the man--if his death was my misfortune as well as his--and if (as frequently happens) I am nevertheless troubled by remorse, the true cause lies in my own inability fairly to realize my own motives--before I look to results. I am the ignorant victim of false remorse; and if I will only ask myself boldly what has blinded me to the true state of the case, I shall find the mischief due to that misdirected appreciation of my own importance which is nothing but egotism in disguise.”

”I entirely agree with you,” said Father Benwell; ”I have had occasion to say the same thing in the confessional.”

Mr. Winterfield looked at his dog, and changed the subject. ”Do you like dogs, Mr. Romayne?” he asked. ”I see my spaniel's eyes saying that he likes you, and his tail begging you to take some notice of him.”

Romayne caressed the dog rather absently.

His new friend had unconsciously presented to him a new view of the darker aspect of his own life. Winterfield's refined, pleasant manners, his generous readiness in placing the treasures of his library at a stranger's disposal, had already appealed irresistibly to Romayne's sensitive nature. The favorable impression was now greatly strengthened by the briefly bold treatment which he had just heard of a subject in which he was seriously interested. ”I must see more of this man,” was his thought, as he patted the companionable spaniel.

Father Benwell's trained observation followed the vivid changes of expression on Romayne's face, and marked the eager look in his eyes as he lifted his head from the dog to the dog's master. The priest saw his opportunity and took it.

”Do you remain long at Ten Acres Lodge?” he said to Romayne.

”I hardly know as yet. We have no other plans at present.”

”You inherit the place, I think, from your late aunt, Lady Berrick?”

”Yes.”

The tone of the reply was not encouraging; Romayne felt no interest in talking of Ten Acres Lodge. Father Benwell persisted.

”I was told by Mrs. Eyrecourt,” he went on ”that Lady Berrick had some fine pictures. Are they still at the Lodge?”

”Certainly. I couldn't live in a house without pictures.”

Father Benwell looked at Winterfield. ”Another taste in common between you and Mr. Romayne,” he said, ”besides your liking for dogs.”