“Yes, precisely!  That is just it,—­all the world knows what he is,—­ " and the Abbe rubbed his forehead with an air of irritation, “And I am vexing you by my talk, I can see!  Well, well!—­You must forgive my garrulity;—­I admit my faults—­I am old—­I am a cynic—­I talk too much—­I have a bad opinion of man, and an equally bad opinion of the Forces that evolved him.  By the way, I met that terrible reformer and socialist Aubrey Leigh at the Embassy the other day—­the man who is making such a sensation in England with his ’Addresses to the People.’  He is quite an optimist, do you know?  He believes in everything and everybody,—­even in me!”

Angela laughed, and her laughter sweet and low, thrilled the air with a sense of music.

“That is wonderful!” she said gaily,—­“Even in you!  And how does he manage to believe in you, Monsieur l’Abbe?  Do tell me!”

A little frown wrinkled the Abbe’s brow.

“Well! in a strange way,” he responded.  “You know he is a very strange man and believes in very strange things.  When I treat humanity as a jest—­which is really how it should be treated—­he looks at me with a grand air of tolerance, ‘Oh, you will progress;’ he says, ‘You are passing through a phase.’  ‘My dear sir,’ I assure him, ’I have lived in this “phase”, as you call it, for forty years.  I used to pray to the angels and saints and to all the different little Madonnas that live in different places, till I was twenty.  Then I dropped all the pretty heaven-toys at once;—­and since then I have believed in nothing—­myself, least of all.  Now I am sixty—­and yet you tell me I am only passing through a phase.’  ‘Quite so,’ he answered me with the utmost coolness, ’Your forty years—­or your sixty years, are a Moment merely;—­the Moment will pass—­and you will find another Moment coming which will explain the one which has just gone.  Nothing is simpler.’  And when I ask him which will be the best Moment,—­the one that goes, or the one that comes—­he says that I am making the coming Moment for myself—­’which is so satisfactory’ he adds with that bright smile of his, ’because of course you will make it pleasant!’ ’Il faut que tout homme trouve pour lui meme une possibilite particuliere de vie superieure dans l’humble et inevitable realite quotidienne.’  I do not find the ’possibilite particuliere’—­but this man assures me it is because I do not trouble to look for it.  What do you think about it?” Angela’s eyes were full of dreamy musing.

“I think Mr. Leigh’s ideas are beautiful,” she said, slowly, “I have often heard him talk on the subject of religion—­and of art, and of work,—­and all he says seems to be the expression of a noble and sincere mind.  He is extraordinarily gifted.”