“He would have founded a monastery had he lived two centuries ago,” said Harding; “but this is an age of concessions, and instead he puts up a few gargoyles.  Time modifies but does not eradicate, and the modern King Cophetua marries not the beggar, but the bar-maid.”

The conversation fell in silence, full of consternation; and all wondered if the two ladies in front had understood, and they were really bar-maids.  Be this as it may, they maintained their unalterable reserve; and with suppressed laughter, Mike persuaded Dicky, who had resumed the ribbons, to turn into the lodge-gates.

“Who is this Johnny?” shouted Muchross.  “If he won’t stand a drink, we don’t want none of his blooming architecture.”

“And I wouldn’t touch a man with a large pole who didn’t like women,” said Laura.  At which emphatic but naive expression of opinion, the whole coach roared;—­even the bar-girls smiled.

“Architecture!  It is a regular putty castle,” said Kitty, as they turned out of an avenue of elms and came in view of the house.

Not a trace of the original Italian house remained.  The loggia had been replaced by a couple of Gothic towers.  Over the central hall he had placed a light lantern roof, and the billiard-room had been converted into a chapel.  A cold and corpse-like sky was flying; the shadows falling filled the autumn path with sensations of deep melancholy.  But the painted legend of St. George overthrowing the dragon, which John had placed in commemoration of his victories over himself, in the central hall, glowed full of colour and story; and in the melodious moan of the organ, and in the resonant chord which closes the awful warning of the Dies Irae, he realized the soul of his friend.  Castle, window, and friend were now one in his brain, and seized with dim, undefinable weariness of his companions, and an irritating longing to see John, Mike said—­

“I must go and see him.”

“We can’t wait here while you are paying visits; who doesn’t like getting drunk or singing, ‘What cheer, Ria?’ Let’s give him a song.”  Then the whole coach roared:  even the bar-girls joined in.

  “What cheer, Ria? 
     Ria’s on the job;
   What cheer, Ria? 
     Speculate a bob.”

As soon as he could make himself heard, Mike said—­

“You need not wait for me.  We are only five minutes from Brighton.  I’ll ride over in an hour’s time.  Do you wait for me at the Ship, Kitty.”

“I don’t think this at all nice of you.”

Mike waved his hand; and as he stood on the steps of this Gothic mansion, listening to the chant, watching the revellers disappearing in the gray and yellow gloom of the park, he said—­

“The man here is the one who has seized what is best in life; he alone has loved.  I should have founded with him a new religious order.  I should walk with him at the head of the choir.  Bah! life is too pitifully short.  I should like to taste of every pleasure—­of every emotion; and what have I tasted?  Nothing.  I have done nothing.  I have wheedled a few women who wanted to be wheedled, that is all.”