‘This stuff here,’ he said, pointing to an open box full of mud, ’is silt from down the Thames.  It’s positively loaded with diatomaceoe,—­you remember our talking about them when you were last here?  I am working at the fabric of the valves.  Now, just look!’

Earwaker, with attentive smile, followed the demonstration.

‘Peak is busy with them as well,’ said Christian, presently.  ’Has he told you his theory of their locomotion?  Nobody has found out yet how the little beggars move about.  Peak has a bright idea.’

They spent ten minutes in the laboratory, then went downstairs.  Two other guests had meanwhile arrived, and were conversing with the hostess, Miss Moxey.  The shy, awkward, hard-featured girl was grown into a woman whose face made such declaration of intellect and character that, after the first moment, one became indifferent to its lack of feminine beauty.  As if with the idea of compensating for personal disadvantages, she was ornately dressed; her abundant tawny hair had submitted to much manipulation, and showed the gleam of jewels; expense and finished craft were manifest in every detail of her garb.  Though slightly round-shouldered, her form was well-proportioned and suggested natural vigour.  Like Christian, she had delicate hands.

‘Do you know a distinguished clergyman, named Chilvers?’ she asked of Earwaker, with a laugh, when he had taken a place by her.

‘Chilvers?—­Is it Bruno Chilvers, I wonder?’

‘That’s the name!’ exclaimed one of the guests, a young married lady of eager face and fidgety manners.

’Then I knew him at College, but I had no idea he was become distinguished.’

Miss Moxey again laughed.

’Isn’t it amusing, the narrowness of a great clerical reputation?  Mrs. Morton was astonished that I had never heard his name.’

‘Please don’t think,’ appealed the lady, looking anxiously at Earwaker, ’that I consider it shameful not to know him.  I only happened to mention a very ridiculous sermon of his, that was forced upon me by a distressingly orthodox friend of mine.  They tell me, he is one of the newest lights of the Church.’

Earwaker listened with amusement, and then related anecdotes of Bruno Chilvers.  Whilst he was talking, the door opened to admit another arrival, and a servant’s voice announced ‘Mr. Peak’.  Miss Moxey rose, and moved a step or two forward; a change was visible on her countenance, which had softened and lightened.

‘I am very sorry to be late,’ said the new-comer, in a dull and rather husky voice, which made strong contrast with the humorous tones his entrance had interrupted.

He shook hands in silence with the rest of the company, giving merely a nod and a smile as reply to some gracious commonplace from Mrs. Morton.

‘Has it come to your knowledge,’ Earwaker asked of him, ’that Bruno Chilvers is exciting the orthodox world by his defence of Christianity against neo-heathenism?’