That was mere dreaming, of course.  Was it dreaming after Raphael?  After Raphael?  The drowsy mind wandered into a side issue.  Was the picture that had suggested this dream the one in the Vatican where all the Fathers of the Church are shown disputing together?  But there surely God and the Son themselves were painted with a symbol—­some symbol—­also?  But was that disputation about the Trinity at all?  Wasn’t it rather about a chalice and a dove?  Of course it was a chalice and a dove!  Then where did one see the triangle and the eye?  And men disputing?  Some such picture there was....

What a lot of disputing there had been!  What endless disputing!  Which had gone on.  Until last night.  When this very disagreeable young man with the hawk nose and the pointing finger had tackled one when one was sorely fagged, and disputed; disputed.  Rebuked and disputed.  “Answer me this,” he had said....  And still one’s poor brains disputed and would not rest....  About the Trinity....

The brain upon the pillow was now wearily awake.  It was at once hopelessly awake and active and hopelessly unprogressive.  It was like some floating stick that had got caught in an eddy in a river, going round and round and round.  And round.  Eternally—­eternally—­eternally begotten.

“But what possible meaning do you attach then to such a phrase as eternally begotten?”

The brain upon the pillow stared hopelessly at this question, without an answer, without an escape.  The three repetitions spun round and round, became a swiftly revolving triangle, like some electric sign that had got beyond control, in the midst of which stared an unwinking and resentful eye.

(2)

Every one knows that expedient of the sleepless, the counting of sheep.

You lie quite still, you breathe regularly, you imagine sheep jumping over a gate, one after another, you count them quietly and slowly until you count yourself off through a fading string of phantom numbers to number Nod....

But sheep, alas! suggest an episcopal crook.

And presently a black sheep had got into the succession and was struggling violently with the crook about its leg, a hawk-nosed black sheep full of reproof, with disordered hair and a pointing finger.  A young man with a most disagreeable voice.

At which the other sheep took heart and, deserting the numbered succession, came and sat about the fire in a big drawing-room and argued also.  In particular there was Lady Sunderbund, a pretty fragile tall woman in the corner, richly jewelled, who sat with her pretty eyes watching and her lips compressed.  What had she thought of it?  She had said very little.

It is an unusual thing for a mixed gathering of this sort to argue about the Trinity.  Simply because a tired bishop had fallen into their party.  It was not fair to him to pretend that the atmosphere was a liberal and inquiring one, when the young man who had sat still and dormant by the table was in reality a keen and bitter Irish Roman Catholic.  Then the question, a question-begging question, was put quite suddenly, without preparation or prelude, by surprise.  “Why, Bishop, was the Spermaticos Logos identified with the Second and not the Third Person of the Trinity?”