The Hypocrite

er. Never before had he been so free, so unrestrained.

fail; he had fascination, resource-he was utterly

watching the crowd of well-dressed people on the loun

anted the final climax of coffee, and sit

rom him. What should he do?-a music-hall perhaps-he could almost

n to talk in the idle desultory way of two chance acqua

oud tones on the other side of the room, clattering her

at person?

hi

the bun, by t

Lady Mary Aiden Hibbert; she is

Gobion, punning lazily; "she

both kinds is influenced by

ve you ar

tative tone; "yet not so much of a c

ety jou

tired of the higher immorality,

p. "I'm going to the Pal

d the stranger; "

bion. I shouldn't like to be call

the lighted streets, talking a little on the way. When they went into the stalls the hysterio-co

n the time sank into the rhythm of the verse, they sat back in their s

f the words, her wonderful art in singing them, her naughty eyes, the twitching of her somewhat la

ey pay her a week

a, but he said "sixt

certainly is

in wonderful sympathy with her audience, espec

ould invoke the Deity during her turn,"

rage man of the Echo-reading type thinks God is

let us go to t

th which he compounds whimsical beverages is wonderful. Half of him seems impulse and nervous force as he ratt

pleasantly," said Mr. Jo

cobbler, pleas

connoisseur

; I hope

to a place wher

are a science. To a man I knew at Oxford they

many religio

akes an alias and calls itsel

the fa

do you

ft now. I like to be amu

h clubland the stranger permitted himself more freedom of expression, tal

up you must have be

makes you

to my views, and I am

y father's pedigree claimed a larger share of his attention tha

e a strang

position to shady pleasures is her

ntant rake takes Orders from a mere re

with most sed

man outside his experience. Accustomed as Gobion was, in the light of Oxford experience, to feel that he was the cynic and man of the world, he was somewhat doubtful of a man who appeared to him to be a realization of what he might hims

ndermined. This chance meeting with a man weary of life, and not interested in death, a man with an aching, futile soul, whom he never saw again, was f

, or rather journalism, is little more than a big game of bluff. Her remark was quite true. The art of the thing consists in gett

ertain amount of money. Gobion knew this well. The conquest was mean and the reward not far from meagre; but at his age and

ed opinions. It was impossible for him

tly in agreement with both, he titillated the men of a clean and decent life, and amused their opposites, while he borrowed money from both with a cheerful impartiality. As far as he could dispassionately re

ood address, and near most things. He knew enough of London to understand that Bloomsbury was clerk-land, and though cheap, quite impossible. Westminster was better, but not quite central enough. Finally, after some trouble, he took two first-floor rooms in one of the quiet streets running from the Fleet Street en

rities, and nothing to suggest the type he was in search of save rotundity of form. He was loth to think the comic landlady was a fabulous monster, or an extinct one-the lady who says, "Which Mister Jones come tight

ssion. He had dined at the hotel before he left, and when he had unpacked

ar, and the men he knew in town, mostly journal

strength, he sat down at the table and began to review a book for The Pilgrim. It was a collection of essays by a well-known priest on some doctrinal aspects of church teaching that he had before him, and it was sent

rrel. Before it came into his hands it was an unsavoury little print, which published little else but impressionist criticisms of the m

the column headed "The Pilgrim's Scrip" as grossly personal as ever, but th

en who considered themselves clever, and who, under the comprehensive shi

ss Braddon's novels to his wife after dinner. He knew quite well that realism was mechanism, and he never welcomed photography as

some communication with his friends there, and he had heard indirectly that Gobion had received various benefits from

He deprecated and eloquently denounced the new literature of the day. As The Pilgrim was the outward and visible head of what Canon Emeric denounced as

son, who had just come up to Christchurch from Marlborough. Gobion did call, and asked the youth to meet Sturtevant, and the poor boy, dazzled by being in the society of men of whom he heard everyone talking, made a fool of himself and

c review. To the pleasure of creation, always a keen one with him, was added the delight of writing something whi

he column

tion which lies between Canon Emeric and his publisher. That

ok seriously, he would find that all the time he could spare from

o have a last smoke before going to bed. As with so many men, he found that at no time did his

up closer, leaning back and enjoying in ev

ancing firelight, with the handsome young man in the chair lazily watching the blue cigarette smok

f the tape machines, telephones, and fire-calls that are found in the offices of a daily. Heath was seated at a writing-table "making up" the issue for the week, while his assistant, a man named Wild, was looking through a batch of cuttings from Romeike's in the hope of finding what he called "spicy pars" for the front page. Gobion w

dant flabbiness of his cheeks. He was well and fashionably dressed in dark grey, the frock coat, tight-fitting as

ath went out together. Gobion, who, obeying the precept of Iago, had put m

t you five pounds and be far too respectable. No, you shall certai

while the other two were smoking-lounges with a bar in each. Comfort, brutal un?sthetic comfort, was the most obvious thing in all three rooms. The chairs were comfortable, the carpets soft, while big cheery fires burnt in the open grates. No one was i

wn at a table by the fire, a

, and he read the list eagerly. Eating and d

ulk, ordered lager; the other two, simple "halves" of bitter. While the meal was in progress a man came

alists of a non-political kind. Everyone knows everyone else, and Hamilton knows us all by name. An outsider who wanders in here is

with men, mostly young, who all seemed to know one anoth

uid of the loving Mountain-slow music. Well, my fat friend, what wicked scandal do you

Yardly Gobion. He has just been sent down from Exeter." Gobion was welcomed as a

the same impression as he did in Oxford, and he was a pronounce

in their veins, they lived on it; they were "

s a quick interchange of technicalities, a chorus of experts, sharp, clipped, allusive; the latest

onversation, and his lighter side revelled in it. Most complex of all men, he could suck pleasure from every shade of feeling. Lord Tennyson's beautiful line: "A glorious devil large in heart and brain," f

and saw his way to at least half a dozen scandalous paragraphs, which

leasure at seeing any "friend of Mister Heath's and member of the fourth hestate, 'oping as the ple

and they strolled dow

me evening, will you?"

up when you've time. I am at present sharing a flat with Blanche

er not; delighted to com

to the Temple st

t the better, but the finer side of him woke up, and he felt the necessity of a quieting and poetic influence to counteract the clever sordidness of the

wn into a deeper gloom, an added mystery, by the radiance above. A young priest, of the earnest Cuddesdon type, walked in all alone, his steps echoing mournfully on the flagged chance

, Gobion's sweet voice echoin

nded in his turn with a newer sense of the poetry of worship, throwing deep feeling into his voice. It was a keen, ?sthetic pleasure to both of them, though the priest fe

g the building, as a man who had tasted a sweet morsel, wit