‘I agree with you,’ Godwin replied.

With sudden change of mood, Buckland began to speak of an indifferent topic of the day, and in a few minutes they sat down to dinner.

Not till the welcome tobacco blended its aroma with that of coffee did a frankly personal note sound in their conversation.

‘So at Christmas you are free,’ said Warricombe.  ’You still think of leaving London?’

‘I have decided to go down into Devonshire.’

‘The seaside?’

‘I shall stay first of all in Exeter,’ Godwin replied, with deliberation; ‘one can get hold of books there.’

‘Yes, especially of the ecclesiastical colour.’

’You are still unable to regard my position with anything but contempt?’ Peak asked, looking steadily at the critical face.

’Come now; what does it all mean?  Of course I quite understand how tolerant the Church is becoming:  I know what latitude it permits in its servants.  But what do you propose to yourself?’

’Precisely what you call the work of the civiliser—­to attack sham ideals.’

‘As for instance—?’

‘The authority of the mob,’ answered Peak, suavely.

‘Your clericalism is political, then?’

‘To a great extent.’

’I discern a vague sort of consistency in this.  You regard the Church formulas as merely symbolical—­useful for the purposes of the day?’

‘Rather for the purposes of eternity.’

‘In the human sense.’

‘In every sense.’

Warricombe perceived that no directness of questioning would elicit literal response, and on the whole this relieved him.  To hear Godwin Peak using the language of a fervent curate would have excited in him something more than disgust.  It did not seem impossible that a nature like Peak’s—­intellectually arrogant, vehemently anti-popular—­should have been attracted by the traditions, the social prestige, of the Anglican Church; nor at all unlikely that a mind so constituted should justify a seeming acceptance of dogmas, which in the strict sense it despised.  But he was made uneasy by his ignorance of Peak’s private life during the years since their parting at College.  He did not like to think of the possible establishment of intimacy between this man of low origin, uncertain career, boundless ambition, and the household of Martin Warricombe.  There could be no doubt that Peak had decided to go to Exeter because of the social prospects recently opened to him.  In the vulgar phrase, he had probably ‘taken stock’ of Mr. Warricombe’s idiosyncrasy, and saw therein a valuable opportunity for a theological student, who at the same time was a devotee of natural science.  To be sure, the people at Exeter could be put on their guard.  On the other hand, Peak had plainly avowed his desire to form social connections of the useful kind; in his position such an aim was essential, a mere matter of course.

Godwin’s voice interrupted this train of thought.