“But what did it all come to?” said Rose.

“Well,” said Father Payne, “to tell you the truth, it didn’t amount to very much!  At the time I was dazzled and stupefied—­but subsequent reflection has convinced me that the cooking was better than the food, so to speak.”

“You mean that it was mostly humbug?” said Rose.

“Well, I wouldn’t go quite as far as that,” said Father Payne, “but it was not very nutritive—­no, the nutriment was lacking!  Come, I’ll tell you frankly what I did think, as I came away.  I thought these pretty people very adventurous, very quick, very friendly.  But I don’t truly think they were interested in the real thing at all—­only interested in the words of the wise, and in the unconsidered trifles of the Major Prophets, so to speak.  I didn’t think it exactly pretentious—­but they obviously only cared for people of established reputation.  They didn’t admire the ideas behind, only the reputations of the people who said the things.  They had undoubtedly seen and heard the great people—­I confess it amazed me to think how easily the men of mark can be exploited—­but I did not discern that they cared about the things represented,—­only about the representatives.  The American was different.  He, I think, cared about the ideas, though he cared about them in the wrong way.  I mean that he claimed to find everything distinct, whereas the big things are naturally indistinct.  They loom up in a shadowy way, and the American was examining them through field-glasses.  But my other friends seemed to me to be only interested in the people who had the entree, so to speak—­the priests of the shrine.  They had noticed everything that doesn’t matter about the high and holy ones—­how they looked, spoke, dressed, behaved.  It was awfully clever, some of it; one of the women imitated Legard the essayist down to the ground—­the way he pontificates, you know—­but nothing else.  They were simply interested in the great men, and not interested in what make the great men different from other people, but simply in their resemblance to other people.  Even great people have to eat, you know!  Legard himself eats, though it’s a leisurely process; and this woman imitated the way he forked up a bit, held it till the bit dropped off, and put the empty fork into his mouth.  It was excruciatingly funny—­I’ll admit that.  But they missed the point, after all.  They didn’t care about Legard’s books a bit—­they cared much more about that funny cameo ring he wears on his tie!”

“It all seems to me horribly vulgar,” said Kaye.

“No, it was no more vulgar than a dance of gnats,” said Father Payne.  “They were all alive, those people.  They were just gnats, now I come to think of it!  They had stung all the great men of the day—­even drawn a little blood—­and they were intoxicated by it.  Mind, I don’t say that it is worth doing, that kind of thing!  But they were having their fun—­and the only mistake they made was in thinking they cared about