he likes real things, he says."

"He does!" said Mr. Sandys enthusiastically--"that's what he always
says. Do you know, if you won't think me very vain, Howard, I believe
he gets that from me. Maud is different--she takes after her dear
mother--whose loss was so irreparable a calamity--my dear wife was full
of imagination; it was a beautiful mind. I will show you some of her
sketches when you come to see us--I am looking forward to that--not
much technique, perhaps, but a real instinct for beauty; to be just, a
little lacking in form, but full of feeling. Well, Jack, as I was
saying, likes reality. So do I! A firm hold on reality--that's the best
thing; I was not intellectual enough for the life of thought, and I
fell back on humanity--vastly engrossing! I assure you, though you
would hardly think it, that even these simple people down here are most
interesting: no two of them alike. My old friends say to me sometimes
that I must find country people very dull, but I always say, 'No two of
them alike!' Of course I try to keep my intellectual tastes alive--they
are only tastes, of course, not faculties, like yours--but we read and
talk and ventilate our ideas, Maud and I; and when we are tired of
books, why I fall back on the great book of humanity. We don't
stagnate--at least I hope not--I have a horror of stagnation. I said so
to the Archdeacon the other day, and he said that there was nothing
stagnant about Windlow."

"No, I am quite sure there is not," said Howard politely.

"It's very good of you to say so, Howard," said Mr. Sandys delightedly.
"Really quite a compliment! And I assure you, you don't know what a
pleasure it is to have a talk like this with a man like yourself, so
well-read, so full of ideas. I envy Jack his privileges. I do indeed.
Now dear old Pembroke was not like that in my days. There was no one I
could talk to, as Jack tells me he talks to you. A man like yourself is
a vast improvement on the old type of don, if I may say so. I'm very
free, you see! And so you think Jack might do well in commerce? Well, I
quite approve. All I want is that he should not be out of touch with
human beings. I'm not a metaphysician, but it seems to me that that is
what we are here for--touch with humanity--of course on Church of
England lines. I'm tolerant, I hope, and can see the good side of other
creeds; but give me something comprehensive, and that is the glory of
our English Church. Well, you have given me a l