membered his uncle's saying that it took
three generations to make a gentleman: it was a companion proverb to the
silk purse and the sow's ear. "First of all he's the son of a gentleman,
and he's been to a public school, and to Oxford or Cambridge."

"Edinburgh wouldn't do, I suppose?" asked Weeks.

"And he talks English like a gentleman, and he wears the right sort of
things, and if he's a gentleman he can always tell if another chap's a
gentleman."

It seemed rather lame to Philip as he went on, but there it was: that was
what he meant by the word, and everyone he had ever known had meant that
too.

"It is evident to me that I am not a gentleman," said Weeks. "I don't see
why you should have been so surprised because I was a dissenter."

"I don't quite know what a Unitarian is," said Philip.

Weeks in his odd way again put his head on one side: you almost expected
him to twitter.

"A Unitarian very earnestly disbelieves in almost everything that anybody
else believes, and he has a very lively sustaining faith in he doesn't
quite know what."

"I don't see why you should make fun of me," said Philip. "I really want
to know."

"My dear friend, I'm not making fun of you. I have arrived at that
definition after years of great labour and the most anxious, nerve-racking
study."

When Philip and Hayward got up to go, Weeks handed Philip a little book in
a paper cover.

"I suppose you can read French pretty well by now. I wonder if this would
amuse you."

Philip thanked him and, taking the book, looked at the title. It was
Renan's Vie de Jesus.

XXVIII

It occurred neither to Hayward nor to Weeks that the conversations which
helped them to pass an idle evening were being turned over afterwards in
Philip's active brain. It had never struck him before that religion was a
matter upon which discussion was possible. To him it meant the Church of
England, and not to believe in its tenets was a sign of wilfulness which
could not fail of punishment here or hereafter. There was some doubt in
his mind about the chastisement of unbelievers. It was possible that a
merciful judge, reserving the flames of hell for the heathen--Mahommedans,
Buddhists, and the rest--would spare Dissenters and Roman Catholics
(though at the cost of how much humiliation when they were made to realise
their error!), and it was also possible that He would be pitiful to those
who had had no chance of learning the truth,--this was reasonabl