“You mean that the difference between pride and vanity lies there?” said Barthrop.

“Yes, I do,” said Father Payne, “and it is a pity that pride is included in the deadly sins, because the word has changed its sense.  Pride used to mean the contempt of others—­that’s a deadly sin, if you like.  It used to mean a ghastly sort of self-satisfaction, arrived at by comparison of yourself with others.  But now to be called a proud man is a real compliment.  It means that a man can’t condescend to anything mean or base.  We ought all to be proud—­not proud of anything, because that is vulgar, but ashamed of doing anything which we know to be feeble or low.  The Pharisee in the parable was vain, not proud, because he was comparing himself with other people.  But it is all right to be grateful to God for having a sense of decency, just as you may be grateful for having a sense of beauty.  The hatefulness of it comes in when you are secretly glad that other people love indecency and ugliness.”

“That is the exclusive feeling then?” said Barthrop.

“Yes, the bad kind of exclusiveness,” said Father Payne—­“the kind of exclusiveness which ministers to self-satisfaction.  And that is the fault of the group when it becomes a coterie.  The coterie means a set of inferior people, bolstering up each other’s vanity by mutual admiration.  In a coterie you purchase praise for your own bad work, by pretending to admire the bad work of other people.  But the real group is interested, not in each other’s fame, but in the common work.”

“It seems to me confusing,” said Vincent.

“Not a bit of it,” said Father Payne; “we have to consider our limitations:  we are limited by time and space.  You can’t know everybody and love everybody and admire everybody—­and you can’t sacrifice the joy and happiness of real intimacy with a few for a diluted acquaintance with five hundred people.  But you mustn’t think that your own group is the only one—­that is the bad exclusiveness—­you ought to think that there are thousands of intimate groups all over the world, which you could love just as enthusiastically as you love your own, if you were inside them:  and then, apart from your own group, you ought to be prepared to find reasonable and amiable and companionable people everywhere, and to be able to put yourself in line with them.  Why, good heavens, there are millions of possible friends in the world! and one of my deepest and firmest hopes about the next world, so to speak, is that there will be some chance of communicating with them all at once, instead of shutting ourselves up in a frowsy room like this, smelling of meat and wine.  I don’t deny you are very good fellows, but if you think that you are the only fit and desirable company in the world for me or for each other, I tell you plainly that you are utterly mistaken.  That’s why I insist on your travelling about, to avoid our becoming a coterie.”

“Then it comes to this,” said Vincent drily, “that you can’t be inclusive, and that you ought not to be exclusive?”