ed once to say to
the footman, 'She'll never finish her book. She idles: 'She' being I. At
eleven he went out, and stood in the rain till four, but had the luck
to see a child run over at the level-crossing. By half-past four he had
knocked the bottom out of Christianity."

Agnes looked bewildered.

"Aren't you impressed? I was. I told him that he was on no account to
unsettle the vicar. Open that cupboard, one of those sixpenny books
tells Podge that he's made of hard little black things, another
that he's made of brown things, larger and squashy. There seems a
discrepancy, but anything is better for a thoughtful youth than to be
made in the Garden of Eden. Let us eliminate the poetic, at whatever
cost to the probable." When for a moment she spoke more gravely. "Here
he is at twenty, with nothing to hold on by. I don't know what's to be
done. I suppose it's my fault. But I've never had any bother over the
Church of England; have you?"

"Of course I go with my Church," said Miss Pembroke, who hated this
style of conversation. "I don't know, I'm sure. I think you should
consult a man."

"Would Rickie help me?"

"Rickie would do anything he can." And Mrs. Failing noted the half
official way in which she vouched for her lover. "But of course Rickie
is a little--complicated. I doubt whether Mr. Wonham would understand
him. He wants--doesn't he?--some one who's a little more assertive and
more accustomed to boys. Some one more like my brother."

"Agnes!" she seized her by the arm. "Do you suppose that Mr. Pembroke
would undertake my Podge?"

She shook her head. "His time is so filled up. He gets a boarding-house
next term. Besides--after all I don't know what Herbert would do."

"Morality. He would teach him morality. The Thirty-Nine Articles
may come of themselves, but if you have no morals you come to grief.
Morality is all I demand from Mr. Herbert Pembroke. He shall be excused
the use of the globes. You know, of course, that Stephen's expelled from
a public school? He stole."

The school was not a public one, and the expulsion, or rather request
for removal, had taken place when Stephen was fourteen. A violent
spasm of dishonesty--such as often heralds the approach of manhood--had
overcome him. He stole everything, especially what was difficult to
steal, and hid the plunder beneath a loose plank in the passage. He was
betrayed by the inclusion of a ham. This was the crisis of his career.
His benefactress was