gaging smile.

"You may have heard about me from your husband. I was awfully sorry to
miss you when I called before I went to Norway. I only came back this
morning, but I _made_ Hannay invite me."

Anne murmured some suitable politeness. She said afterwards that her
instinct had warned her against Mr. Gorst, with his restlessness and
brilliance; but, as a matter of fact, her instinct had done nothing of
the sort, and his manners had prejudiced her in his favour. Fanny Eliott
had told her that he belonged to a very old Lincolnshire family. There
was a distinction about him. And he really had a particularly engaging
smile.

So she received him amiably; so amiably that Majendie, who had been
observing their encounter with an intent and rather anxious interest,
appeared finally reassured. He joined them, releasing himself adroitly
from Sir Rigley Barker.

"How's Edith?" said Mr. Gorst.

His use of the name and something in his intonation made Anne attentive.

"She's better," said Majendie. "Come and see her soon."

"Oh, rather. I'll come round to-morrow. If," he added, "Mrs. Majendie
will permit me."

"Mrs. Majendie," said her husband, "will be delighted."

Anne smiled assent. Her amiability extended even to Mrs. Hannay, who had
risen to it, so far, well.

During dinner Anne gave her attention to her right-hand neighbour, Canon
Wharton; and Mrs. Hannay, looking down from her end of the table, saw her
selection justified. In rising to the Canon she had risen her highest;
for the ex-member hardly counted; he was a fallen star. But Canon
Wharton, the Vicar of All Souls, stood on an eminence, social and
spiritual, in Scale. He had built himself a church in the new quarter of
the town, and had filled it to overflowing by the power of his eloquence.
Lawson Hannay, in a moment of unkind insight, had described the Canon as
"a speculative builder"; but he lent him money for his building, and
liked him none the less.

Out of the pulpit the Vicar of All Souls was all things to all men. In
the pulpit he was nothing but the Vicar of All Souls. He stood there for
a great light in Scale, "holding," as he said, "the light, carrying the
light, battling for light in the darkness of that capital of commerce,
that stronghold of materialism, founded on money, built up in money,
cemented with money!" He snarled out the word "money," and flung it in
the face of his fashionable congregation; he gnashed his teeth over it;
he shook his