e was longing for an excuse to get back to town,
where he intended to take rooms; but no excuse presented itself, and so
he stayed on, spending most of his time in the billiard-room, a part of
the house seldom used in the daytime, writing, or trying to write, some
of the articles which Douglas Kelly had suggested. He had sent his copy
in to the _Record_, and each morning, immediately after breakfast, he
strolled down to the little news agent's shop to buy a copy of the
paper--Mr. Marlow took no halfpenny journals--but when Sunday came round
it had not appeared.

The Marlows were regular church-goers, at least Mrs. Marlow was, and her
husband always accompanied her when he was not away at the seaside,
golfing. May took her religion as part of her settled order of
existence. She had been bred up in it, and she would have resented any
attack on it as fiercely as she would have resented the abolition of
class distinctions. She believed in it, and, in a sense, she loved it;
but, with the one exception of her father's tragic death, her way
through life had been so smooth that she had never felt the need of its
consolations, and, consequently, had never analysed it in any way. Doubt
had never entered into her mind, because her creed seemed to suit her
circumstances so admirably. The well-dressed congregation, the
well-trained choir, the cushioned seats and reserved pews, the suave,
optimistic rector, and deferential curates--these were all part of a
nicely balanced state of society which kept motor-cars, or at least
broughams, and paid its tradesmen's bills by cheque on the first of the
month.

Henry Marlow seldom, if ever, gave the matter a thought; but he
subscribed generously when asked by the rector, and he kept the Ten
Commandments scrupulously, so far as his home life was concerned. He
respected the Church, as something which stood for solidity and the
security of property, like Consols and the Mansion House, and he
regarded Dissenters in much the same light as he did outside brokers, as
persons who should be watched by the police. He did not try to worship
both God and Mammon simultaneously; but, wholly unconsciously, he
divided his life into two parts, that which he spent in the City, and
that which he spent outside the Square Mile, and so avoided the
difficulty.

Jimmy, on the other hand, had heard very few services during the last
ten years, and of those the majority had been read by a layman, and had
begun with