spiritual
neuralgia, he killed the nerve of thought."

"How terrible!" said Audrey, though she had no very precise notion of
what was involved in that operation.

"To us--not to him. Yet he talks about doing good work for his
generation."

"Why shouldn't he? He works hard enough."

"Unfortunately his generation doesn't want his work or him either. It's
too irrevocably pledged to reality. There's one thing about him
though--his magnificent personality. I believe he has unlimited
influence over some men and most women."

Audrey ignored the last suggestion. "You seem to find him very
interesting."

"He is profoundly interesting. Not in himself so much, but in his
associations. Do you know, when I saw you in church to-night it struck
me that he might possibly influence _you_."

"Never! I should have to give up my intellect first, I suppose. I'm not
prepared to do _that_." Wyndham smiled again. "Why, what made you think
he would influence me?"

"I'd no right to think anything at all about it, but I know some women
take him for a hierophant."

"Some women? Do you think I'm like them?"

"You are like nothing but yourself. I was only afraid that he might
persuade you to renounce yourself and become somebody else, which would
be a pity."

"Don't be alarmed. I'm not so impressionable as you think."

"Aren't you? Be frank. Didn't you feel to-night that he might have a
revelation for you?"

"No. And yet it's odd you should say so. I have felt that, but--not with
him. I shall never come under that influence."

"I hope not." (It was delightful to have Langley Wyndham "hoping" and
being "afraid" for her.) "He belongs to the dead--you to the living."

What a thing it is to have a sense of style, to know the words that
consecrate a moment! They were crossing Westminster Bridge now, and
Audrey looked back. On the Lambeth end of the bridge Ted and Katherine
were leaning over the parapet; she looked at them as she might have
looked at two figures in a crowd. Lambeth and St. Teresa's seemed very
far away. She said so, and her tone implied that she had left illusion
behind her on the Surrey side.

Wyndham said good-bye at Westminster. Audrey was not quite pleased with
his manner of hailing a hansom; it implied a conscious loss of valuable
time.

"What fools we were to let him catch us up," said Ted as they walked
towards Pimlico. Audrey made no answer. She was saying to herself that
Langley Wyndham had read her, and--