Page:Love and Mr. Lewisham – Wells (1899).djvu/254

242 botany was finished, the advanced zoological course—the last lap, as it were, for the Forbes medal—was beginning. She got her best hat from the next room to make certain changes in the arrangement of its trimmings. She sat in the little chair, while Lewisham, with documents spread before him, sat at the table.

Presently she looked up from an experimental arrangement of her cornflowers, and discovered Lewisham, no longer reading, but staring blankly at the middle of the table-cloth, with an extraordinary misery in his eyes. She forgot the cornflowers and stared at him.

"Penny," she said after an interval.

Lewisham started and looked up. "Eh?"

"Why were you looking so miserable?" she asked.

"Was I looking miserable?"

"Yes. And cross!"

"I was thinking just then that I would like to boil a bishop or so in oil."

"My dear!"

"They know perfectly well the case against what they teach, they know it's neither madness nor wickedness nor any great harm to others, not to believe, they know perfectly well that a man may be as honest as the day, and right—right and decent in every way—and not believe in what they teach.