is due. Constable can write."

"Of course, of course. That is just what I am saying. But he and I
differ too widely in our outlook on life to remain really intimate. He
cares for the big things, ambition, popularity, a prominent position,
luxury. He will enjoy being a personage, and having wealth at his
command. For my part, I am afraid I care infinitely more for the small
things of life, love, friendship, sympathy."

"The _small_ things! Good Lord!" said the Bishop, and his jaw dropped.
He also dropped the subject.

"I ran up against Grenfell last week," he continued immediately. "Do you
see _him_ now? You and he used to be inseparable at Cambridge."

Wentworth became frigid.

Grenfell had accused him at their last meeting of being an old maid, an
accusation which had wounded Wentworth to the quick, and which he had
never forgotten or forgiven. He had not in the least realised that
Grenfell was not alluding to the fact that he happened to be unmarried.

"I can't say I care to see him now," he said. "He has become entirely
engrossed in his career. A simple life like mine, the life of thought,
no longer interests him. He is naturally drawn to people who are playing
big parts."

"What nonsense! He is just the same as ever. A little vehement and
fiery, but not as much as he was. They say he will be the next
Chancellor of the Exchequer to a certainty."

"I daresay he will. He has the art of keeping himself before the public
eye. Being myself so constituted--it is not any virtue in me, only a
constitutional defect--that I cannot elbow for a place, it is difficult
for me to understand how another, especially a man like Grenfell, can
bring himself to do so. I had always thought he was miles above that
kind of thing."

"So he is. So he is. A blind man can see Grenfell's unworldliness. It
sticks a yard out of him. My dear Wentworth, if energetic elbows were,
as you imply, the key to success, how do you account for the fact that
hundreds of painful persons have triumphantly passed that preliminary
examination who never achieve anything beyond a diploma in the art of
pushing?"

Wentworth did not answer.

He firmly believed that in order to attain the things he had not
attained, had never striven for, of which he invariably spoke
disparagingly, but which he secretly and impotently desired, the
co-operation of certain ignoble qualities was essential, sordid allies
whom he would have disdained to use.

"I don't blame