My experiment, such as it is, stood none of the tests he applied to it.  It appeared to be lacking in all earnestness and zeal.  I was painfully conscious of my lack of earnestness.  ‘Well, sir,’ he said at the conclusion of my examination-in-chief, ’I seem to detect that this business of yours is conducted mainly with a view to your own entertainment, and I admit that it causes me considerable disappointment.’  The fact is, my boys,” said Father Payne, surveying the table, “that we must be more conscious of higher aims here, and we must put them on a more commercial footing!”

“But that was not all?” said Barthrop.

“No, it was not all,” said Father Payne; “and, to tell you the truth, I was more alarmed by than interested in the Minnesota merchant.  I couldn’t state my case—­I failed in that—­and I very much doubt if I could have convinced him that there was anything in it.  Indeed, he said that my conceptions of culture were not as clear-cut as he had hoped.”

“He seems to have been fairly frank,” said Rose.

“He was frank, but not uncivil,” said Father Payne.  “He did not deride my absence of definiteness, he only deplored it.  But I really got more out of the subsequent talk.  We adjourned to a sort of portico, a pretty place looking on to a formal garden:  it was really very charmingly done—­a clever fake of an, old garden, but with nothing really beautiful about it.  It looked as if no one had ever lived in it, though the illusion of age was skilfully contrived—­old paving-stones, old bricks, old lead vases, but all looking as if they were shy, and had only been just introduced to each other.  There was no harmony of use about it.  But the talk—­that was the amazing thing!  Such pleasant intelligent people, nice smiling women, courteous grizzled men.  By Jove, there wasn’t a single writer or artist or musician that they didn’t seem to know intimately!  It was a literary party, I gathered:  but even so there was a haze of politics and society about it—­vistas of politicians and personages of every kind, all known intimately, all of them quoted, everything heard and whispered in the background of events—­we had no foregrounds, I can tell you, nothing second-hand, no concealments or reticences.  Everyone in the world worth knowing seemed to have confided their secrets to that group.  It was a privilege, I can tell you!  We simply swam in influences and authenticities.  I seemed to be in the innermost shrine of the world’s forces—­where they get the steam up, you know!”

“But who are these people, after all?” said Rose.

“My dear Rose!” said Father Payne.  “You mustn’t destroy my illusions in that majestic manner!  What would I not have given to be able to ask myself that question!  To me they were simply the innermost circle, to whom the writers and artists of the day told their dreams, and from whom they sought encouragement and sympathy.  That was enough for me.  I stored my memory with anecdotes and noble names, like the man in Pride and Prejudice.”