all I can do sometimes not to put in my word and say, ’You stick to it, Rhoder my dear; you stand up to ’em and your mother’ll back you.’  But Rhoder don’t like that.  ‘Mother,’ she says, quite sharp, ’Mother, you don’t know a thing about Art, and they do.  You let be, and don’t put me to shame before my friends.’  That’s what she’d like to say, anyhow, if she’s too good a gel to say it.  Rhoder’s ashamed of my ignorance, that’s what it is.”  This was a furtive whisper, for Peter’s ear alone.  Having thus unburdened herself Mrs. Johnson cleared her throat noisily and said very loud, “An’ what do you think of St. Mark’s?” That was a sensible and intelligent question, and she hoped Rhoda heard.

Peter said he thought it was very nice.  That Rhoda certainly heard, and she looked at him with a curious expression, in which hope predominated.  Was this brother of the Margerisons another fool, worse than her?  Would he perhaps make her folly shine almost like wisdom by comparison?  She exchanged a glance with Vyvian; it was extraordinarily sweet to be able to do that; so many glances had been exchanged apropos of her remarks between Vyvian and Miss Barnett.  But here was a young man who thought St. Mark’s was very nice.  “The dear Duomo!” Miss Barnett murmured, protecting it from Tourist Insolence.

Mrs. Johnson agreed enthusiastically with Peter.

“I call it just sweet.  You should see it on a Sunday, Mr. Margerison—­Mr. Peter, as I should say, shouldn’t I?—­all the flags flying, and the sun shining on the gilt front an’ all, and the band playing in the square; an’ inside half a dozen services all at once, and the incense floatin’ everywhere.  Not as I’m partial to incense; it makes me feel a bit squeamish—­and Miss Gould there tells me it affects her similarly, don’t it, Miss Gould?  Incense, I say—­don’t it give you funny feelin’s within?  Seem to upset you, as it were?”

Miss Gould, disturbed in her intimate conversation with the curate, held up mittened hands in deprecating horror, either at the delicacy of the question called across the table with gentlemen present, or at the memory it called up in her of the funny feelings within.

Mrs. Johnson took it as that, and nodded.  “Just like me, she is, in that way.  But I like to see the worship goin’ on, all the same.  Popish, you know, of course,” she added, and then, bethinking herself, “But perhaps you’re a Roman, Mr. Peter, like your dear brother and sister?  Well, Roman or no Roman, I always say as how Mrs. Margerison is one of the best.  A dear, cheery soul, as has hardships to contend with; and if she finds the comforts of religion in graven images an’ a bead necklace, who am I to say her no?”

“Peggy,” said Hilary wearily across the table, “Illuminato is making a little beast of himself.  Put him out.”

Peggy scrubbed Illuminato’s bullet head dry with her handkerchief (it had been lying in his minestra bowl), slapped him lightly on the hands, and said absently, “Don’t worry poor Daddy, who’s so tired.”  She was wishing that the risotto had been boiled a little; one gathered from the hardness of the rice that that process had been omitted.  Vyvian, who was talking shop with Hilary, sighed deeply and laid down his fork.  He wondered why he ever came in to lunch.  One could get a much better one nearly as cheap at a restaurant.