第23章 THE FOURTH - THE SYMPATHY OF LADY SUNDERBUND(3)

"So the church has always called them."

Hoppart showed by a little movement and grimace that he thought the bishop quibbled.

"In every sense of the word," the bishop hastened to explain, "the creeds are symbolical.It is clear they seek to express ineffable things by at least an extended use of familiar words.Isuppose we are all agreed nowadays that when we speak of the Father and of the Son we mean something only in a very remote and exalted way parallel with--with biological fatherhood and sonship."Lady Sunderbund nodded eagerly."Yes," she said, "oh, yes," and held up an expectant face for more.

"Our utmost words, our most elaborately phrased creeds, can at the best be no better than the shadow of something unseen thrown upon the screen of experience."He raised his rather weary eyes to Hoppart as if he would know what else needed explanation.He was gratified by Lady Sunderbund's approval, but he affected not to see or hear it.But it was Bent who spoke.

He spoke in the most casual way.He made the thing seem the most incidental of observations.

"What puzzles me," he said, "is why the early Christians identified the Spermaticos Logos of the Stoics with the second and not with the third person of the Trinity."To which the bishop, rising artlessly to the bait, replied, "Ah! that indeed is the unfortunate aspect of the whole affair."And then the Irish Catholic came down on him....

(3)

How the bishop awakened in the night after this dispute has been told already in the opening section of this story.To that night of discomfort we now return after this comprehensive digression.He awoke from nightmares of eyes and triangles to bottomless remorse and perplexity.For the first time he fully measured the vast distances he had travelled from the beliefs and attitudes of his early training, since his coming to Princhester.

Travelled--or rather slipped and fallen down the long slopes of doubt.

That clear inky dimness that comes before dawn found his white face at the window looking out upon the great terrace and the park.

(4)

After a bout of mental distress and sleeplessness the bishop would sometimes wake in the morning not so much exhausted as in a state of thin mental and bodily activity.This was more particularly so if the night had produced anything in the nature of a purpose.So it was on this occasion.The day was clear before him; at least it could be cleared by sending three telegrams; his man could go back to Princhester and so leave him perfectly free to go to Brighton-Pomfrey in London and secure that friendly dispensation to smoke again which seemed the only alternative to a serious mental breakdown.He would take his bag, stay the night in London, smoke, sleep well, and return the next morning.Dunk, his valet-butler, found him already bathed and ready for a cup of tea and a Bradshaw at half-past seven.He went on dressing although the good train for London did not start until 10.45.

Mrs.Garstein Fellows was by nature and principle a late riser;the breakfast-room showed small promise yet of the repast, though the table was set and bright with silver and fresh flowers, and a wood fire popped and spurted to greet and encourage the March sunshine.But standing in the doorway that led to the promise and daffodils and crocuses of Mrs.Garstein Fellows' garden stood Lady Sunderbund, almost with an effect of waiting, and she greeted the bishop very cheerfully, doubted the immediate appearance of any one else, and led him in the most natural manner into the new but already very pleasant shrubbery.

In some indefinable special way the bishop had been 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.