Grenfell," he said at last. "He had his way to make. I
know how blinding the glamour of ambition is, how insidious and
insistent the claims of the world may become. I don't pretend to be
superior to certain temptations if they came in my way. But I happen to
have kept out of their way. That is all."

"You have certainly kept out of the way of--nearly everything."

"For my part, I daresay I am hopelessly out of date, but I value beauty
and peace and simplicity higher than a noisy success. But a noisy
success is the one thing that counts nowadays."

"Does it?"

"And Grenfell has taken the right steps to gain it. If a man craves for
popularity, if he really thinks the bubble worth striving for, he must
lay himself out for it. If he wants a place he must jostle for it. If he
wants power he must discard scruples. If he wants social success it can
be got--we see it every day--by pandering to the susceptibilities and
seeking the favour of influential persons. Everything has its price. I
don't say that everyone obtains these things who is ready to bid for
them. But some do. Grenfell is among those who have. I don't blame him.
I am not sure that I don't rather envy him."

The Bishop could respect a conviction.

"Are you not forgetting Grenfell's character?" he said gently, as one
speaks to a sick man. "Think of him, his nobility, his integrity, his
enthusiasm, his transparent unworldliness which so often in the old days
put us all to shame!"

"That is just what makes it all so painful to me," said Wentworth, and
there was no possibility of doubting his sincerity. "That contact with
the world can taint even beautiful natures like his. He was my ideal at
one time. I almost worshipped him at Cambridge."

"I love him still," said the Bishop. "A cat may look at a king, so I
suppose a poor crawler of a bishop may look at a man like Grenfell.
Don't you think, Wentworth, that sometimes a man who succeeds may have
worked as nobly as a man who fails--you always speak so feelingly of
failure, it is one of the many things I like about you. Don't you think
that perhaps sometimes success may be--I don't say it always is--as
high-minded as failure, that a hard-won victory may be as honourable as
defeat, that achievement may _sometimes_ be the result not of chance or
interest, but of unremitting toil? Don't you think you may be
unconsciously cutting yourself adrift from Grenfell's friendship by
attributing his success to unworthy means