Walden’s eyes flashed.

“A party in the churchyard?” he repeated.  “Who are they?”

“Who should they be?” And Bainton’s rugged features expressed a sedate mingling of the shrewd and the contemptnous that was quite amazing.  “Worn’t you expectin’ distinguished visitors some day this week, sir?”

“I know!” exclaimed Walden quickly; “Sir Morton Pippitt and his guests have come to ‘inspect’ the church!”

There was a pause, during which Walden, baring his head as he passed in, entered the sacred edifice.  He became aware of Sir Morton Pippitt standing in the attitude of a University Extension lecturer near the sarcophagus in the middle of the chancel, with the Reverend Mr. Leveson and a couple of other men near him, while two more strangers were studying the groined roof with critical curiosity.  As he approached, Sir Morton made a rapid sign to his companions and stepped down from the chancel.

“Glad to see you, Mr. Walden,” he said in a loud whisper, and with an elaborate affectation of great heartiness; “I have brought His Grace the Duke of Lumpton to see the church.”

Walden allowed his calm blue eyes to rest quietly on His Grace the Duke of Lumpton without much interest.  His Grace was an undersized fat man, with a bald head and a red face, and on Walden’s being presented to him, merely nodded with a patronisingly casual air.

“Lord Mawdenham,”—­continued Sir Morton, swelling visibly with just pride at his own good fortune in being able to introduce a Lord immediately after a Duke, and offering Walden, as it were, with an expressive wave of his hand, to a pale young gentleman, who seemed seriously troubled by an excess of pimples on his chin, and who plucked nervously at one of these undesirable facial addenda as his name was uttered.  Walden acknowledged his presence with silent composure, as he did the wide smile and familiar nod of his brother minister, the Reverend ‘Putty,’ whose truly elephantine proportions were encased in a somewhat too closely fitting bicycle suit, and whose grand-pianoforte shaped legs and red perspiring face together, presented a most unclerical spectacle of the ‘Church at large.’

The two gentlemen who had been studying the groined roof, now brought their glances to bear on Walden, and one of them, a youngish man with a crop of thick red hair and a curiously thin, hungry face, spoke without waiting for Sir Morton’s cue.

“Mr. Walden?  Ye-es!—­I felt sure it must be Mr. Walden!  Let me congratulate you, sir, on your exquisite devotional work here!  The church is beau-ti-ful—­beau-ti-ful!  A sonnet in stone!  A sculptured prayer!  Ye-es!  It is so!  Permit me to press your hand!”

John smiled involuntarily.  There was a quaint affectation about the speaker that was quite irresistibly entertaining.

“Mr. Julian Adderley is a poet,” said Sir Morton, whispering this in a jocose stage aside; “Everything is ‘beautiful’ to him!”