efore his
conversion, and five years later another, in which he had attempted
to turn all his clever jibes against Catholics into even cleverer
innuendoes against Episcopalians. He was intensely ritualistic,
startlingly dramatic, loved the idea of God enough to be a celibate, and
rather liked his neighbor.

Children adored him because he was like a child; youth revelled in his
company because he was still a youth, and couldn't be shocked. In the
proper land and century he might have been a Richelieu--at present he
was a very moral, very religious (if not particularly pious) clergyman,
making a great mystery about pulling rusty wires, and appreciating life
to the fullest, if not entirely enjoying it.

He and Amory took to each other at first sight--the jovial, impressive
prelate who could dazzle an embassy ball, and the green-eyed, intent
youth, in his first long trousers, accepted in their own minds a
relation of father and son within a half-hour's conversation.

"My dear boy, I've been waiting to see you for years. Take a big chair
and we'll have a chat."

"I've just come from school--St. Regis's, you know."

"So your mother says--a remarkable woman; have a cigarette--I'm sure
you smoke. Well, if you're like me, you loathe all science and
mathematics--"

Amory nodded vehemently.

"Hate 'em all. Like English and history."

"Of course. You'll hate school for a while, too, but I'm glad you're
going to St. Regis's."

"Why?"

"Because it's a gentleman's school, and democracy won't hit you so
early. You'll find plenty of that in college."

"I want to go to Princeton," said Amory. "I don't know why, but I think
of all Harvard men as sissies, like I used to be, and all Yale men as
wearing big blue sweaters and smoking pipes."

Monsignor chuckled.

"I'm one, you know."

"Oh, you're different--I think of Princeton as being lazy and
good-looking and aristocratic--you know, like a spring day. Harvard
seems sort of indoors--"

"And Yale is November, crisp and energetic," finished Monsignor.

"That's it."

They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.

"I was for Bonnie Prince Charlie," announced Amory.

"Of course you were--and for Hannibal--"

"Yes, and for the Southern Confederacy." He was rather sceptical about
being an Irish patriot--he suspected that being Irish was being somewhat
common--but Monsignor assured him that Ireland was a romantic lost cause
and Irish people quite