te to so and
so, but I cannot have you becoming friendly with them, you know they are
not _quite_.' I've heard that said over and over again. It's hateful. I'm
not a socialist, not one little bit, but I do think if you like a person
you ought to be able to be friends, even if you happen to be a Duchess
and he's a chimney-sweep. The motto of the present-day world is, 'What
will people think?' People!" snorted Trix wrathfully, warming to her
theme, "what people? And is their opinion worth twopence halfpenny? Fancy
them associating with St. Peter if he appeared now among them as he used
to be, with only his goodness and his character and his fisherman's
clothes, instead of his halo and his keys, as they see him in the
churches."

The two men laughed. Miss Tibbutt made a little murmur of something like
query. The Duchessa's face looked rather white, but perhaps it was only
the effect of the moonlight.

"But, Miss Devereux," said Doctor Hilary, "even now the world--people, as
you call them, are quite ready to recognize genius despite the fact that
it may have risen from the slums."

"Yes," contended Trix eagerly, "but it's not the person they recognize
really, it's merely their adjunct."

"What do you mean?" asked Miss Tibbutt. Father Dormer smiled
comprehendingly.

"I mean," said Trix slowly, "they recognize the thing that makes the
show, and the person because of that thing, not for the person's own
self. Let me try and explain better. A man, born in the slums, has a
marvellous voice. He becomes a noted singer. He's received everywhere and
feted. But it's really his voice that is feted, because it is the fashion
to fete it. Let him lose his voice, and he drops out of existence. People
don't recognize him himself, the self which gave expression to the voice,
and which still _is_, even after the voice is dumb."

Father Dormer nodded.

"Well," went on Trix, "I maintain that that man is every bit as well
worth knowing afterwards,--after he has lost his voice. And even if he'd
never been able to give expression to himself by singing, he might have
been just as well worth knowing. But the world never looks for inside
things, but only for external things that make a show. So if Mrs. B.
hasn't an atom of anything congenial to me in her composition, but has a
magnificent house and heaps of money, it's quite right and fitting I
should know her, so people would say, and encourage me to do so. But it's
against all the convent