“That’s talking nonsense,” said the Prior.  “You know as well as I do that nobody else except you could possibly be Superior.  But recently I happen to have had a better opportunity than you to criticize our Mother House, and frankly I’m not satisfied with the men we have.  Few of them will be any use to us.  Birinus, Anselm, Giles, Chad, Athanasius if properly suppressed, Mark, these in varying degrees, have something in them, but look at the others!  Dominic, ambitious and sly, Jerome, a pompous prig, Dunstan, a nincompoop, Raymond, a milliner, Nicholas, a—­well, you know what I think Nicholas is, Augustine, another nincompoop, Lawrence, still at Sunday School, and poor Simon, a clown.  I’ve had a dozen probationers through my hands, and not one of them was as good as what we’ve got.  I’m afraid I’m less hopeful of the future than I was in Canada.”

“I notice, dear Brother George,” said the Father Superior, “that you are prejudiced in favour of the brethren who follow your lead with a certain amount of enthusiasm.  That is very natural.  But I’m not so pessimistic about the others as you are.  Perhaps you feel that I am forgetting how much the Order owes to your generosity in the past.  Believe me, I have forgotten nothing.  At the same time, you gave your money with your eyes open.  You took your vows without being pressed.  Don’t you think you owe it to yourself, if not to the Order or to me personally, to go through with what you undertook?  Your three vows were Chastity, Poverty, and Obedience.”

There was no answer from the Prior; a moment later he shut the door behind him, and went downstairs alone.  Mark came into the room at once.

“Reverend Father,” he said.  “I’m sorry to have to tell you that I overheard what you and the Reverend Brother were saying.”  He went on to explain how this had happened, and why he had not liked to make his presence known.

“You thought the Reverend Brother would not bear the mortification with as much fortitude as myself?” the Father Superior suggested with a faint smile.

It struck Mark how true this was, and he looked in astonishment at Father Burrowes, who had offered him the key to his action.

“Well, we must forget what we heard, my son,” said the Father Superior.  “Sit down, and let’s finish off these letters.”

An hour’s work was done, at the end of which the Reverend Father asked Mark if his had been the blank paper when the votes were counted in Chapter, and when Mark admitted that it had been, he pressed him for the reason of his neutrality.

“I’m not sure that it oughtn’t to be called indecision,” said Mark.  “I was personally interested in the keeping on of Aldershot, because I had worked there.”

“Then why not have voted for doing so?” the Superior asked, in accents that were devoid of the least grudge against Mark for disagreeing with himself.

“I tried to get rid of my personal opinion,” Mark explained.  “I tried to look at the question strictly from the standpoint of the member of a community.  As such I felt that the Reverend Brother was wrong to run counter to his Superior.  At the same time, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, I felt that you were wrong to give up Aldershot.  I simply could not arrive at a decision between the two opinions.”