Mark was so much elated to find himself a fully equipped member of the Church Militant that he looked about him again to find somebody whom he could make as happy as himself.  He even considered the possibility of converting his uncle, and spent the Sunday evening before term began in framing inexpugnable arguments to be preceded by unanswerable questions; but always when he was on the point of speaking he was deterred by the lifelessness of his uncle.  No eloquence could irrigate his arid creed and make that desert blossom now.  And yet, Mark thought, he ought to remember that in the eyes of the world he owed his uncle everything.  What did he owe him in the sight of God?  Gratitude?  Gratitude for what?  Gratitude for spending a certain amount of money on him.  Once more Mark opened his mouth to repay his debt by offering Uncle Henry Eternal Life.  But Uncle Henry fancied himself already in possession of Eternal Life.  He definitely labelled himself Evangelical.  And again Mark prepared one of his unanswerable questions.

“Mark,” said Mr. Lidderdale.  “If you can’t keep from yawning you’d better get off to bed.  Don’t forget school begins to-morrow, and you must make the most of your last term.”

Mark abandoned for ever the task of converting Uncle Henry, and pondered his chance of doing something with Aunt Helen.  There instead of exsiccation he was confronted by a dreadful humidity, an infertile ooze that seemed almost less susceptible to cultivation than the other.

“And I really don’t owe her anything,” he thought.  “Besides, it isn’t that I want to save people from damnation.  I want people to be happy.  And it isn’t quite that even.  I want them to understand how happy I am.  I want people to feel fond of their pillows when they turn over to go to sleep, because next morning is going to be what?  Well, sort of exciting.”

Mark suddenly imagined how splendid it would be to give some of his happiness to Esther Ogilvie; but a moment later he decided that it would be rather cheek, and he abandoned the idea of converting Esther Ogilvie.  He fell back on wishing again that Mr. Spaull had not died; in him he really would have had an ideal subject.

In the end Mark fixed upon a boy of his own age, one of the many sons of a Papuan missionary called Pomeroy who was glad to have found in Mr. Lidderdale a cheap and evangelical schoolmaster.  Cyril Pomeroy was a blushful, girlish youth, clever at the routine of school work, but in other ways so much undeveloped as to give an impression of stupidity.  The notion of pointing out to him the beauty and utility of the Catholic religion would probably never have occurred to Mark if the boy himself had not approached him with a direct complaint of the dreariness of home life.  Mark had never had any intimate friends at Haverton House; there was something in its atmosphere that was hostile to intimacy.  Cyril Pomeroy appealed to that idea of romantic protection which is the common