en aware of Lady
Sunderbund's presence since first he had met her, but it was only now
that he could observe her with any particularity. She was tall like his
own Lady Ella but not calm and quiet; she was electric, her eyes, her
smiles, her complexion had as it were an established brightness that
exceeded the common lustre of things. This morning she was dressed in
grey that was nevertheless not grey but had an effect of colour, and
there was a thread of black along the lines of her body and a gleam of
gold. She carried her head back with less dignity than pride; there was
a little frozen movement in her dark hair as if it flamed up out of her
head. There were silver ornaments in her hair. She spoke with a pretty
little weakness of the r's that had probably been acquired abroad. And
she lost no time in telling him, she was eager to tell him, that she had
been waylaying him. "I did so want to talk to you some maw," she said.
"I was shy last night and they we' all so noisy and eaga'. I p'ayed that
you might come down early.

"It's an oppo'tunity I've longed for," she said.

She did her very pretty best to convey what it was had been troubling
her. 'iligion bad been worrying her for years. Life was--oh--just
ornaments and games and so wea'isome, so wea'isome, unless it was
'iligious. And she couldn't get it 'iligious.

The bishop nodded his head gravely.

"You unde'stand?" she pressed.

"I understand too well--the attempt to get hold--and keep hold."

"I knew you would!" she cried.

She went on with an impulsive rapidity. O'thodoxy had always 'ipelled
her,--always. She had felt herself confronted by the most insurmountable
difficulties, and yet whenever she had gone away from Christianity--she
had gone away from Christianity, to the Theosophists and the Christian
Scientists--she had felt she was only "st'aying fu'tha." And then
suddenly when he was speaking last night, she had felt he knew. It was
so wonderful to hear the "k'eed was only a symbol."

"Symbol is the proper name for it," said the bishop. "It wasn't for
centuries it was called the Creed."

Yes, and so what it really meant was something quite different from what
it did mean.

The bishop felt that this sentence also was only a symbol, and nodded
encouragingly--but gravely, warily.

And there she was, and the point was there were thousands and thousands
and thousands of educated people like her who were dying to get through
these old-fashioned symbo