words.

"I don't see that there is any necessity to import this note of
--hostility to Lady Sunderbund into this matter." He addressed

himself rather more definitely" target="_blank" title="ad.明确地；绝对">definitely to Lady Ella. "She's a woman of a
very extraordinarycharacter, highly emotional, energetic,

generous to an extraordinary extent...."
Daphne made a little noise like a comment.

A faint acerbity in her father's voice responded.
"Anyhow you make a mistake if you think that the personality of

Lady Sunderbund has very much to do with this thing now. Her
quality may have brought out certain aspects of the situation

rather more sharply than they might have been brought out under
other circumstances, but if this chapelenterprise had been

suggested by quite a different sort of person, by a man, or by a
committee, in the end I think I should have come to the same

conclusion. Leave Lady Sunderbund out. Any chapel was impossible.
It is just this specialization that has been the trouble with

religion. It is just this tendency to make it the business of a
special sort of man, in a special sort of building, on a special

day--Every man, every building, every day belongs equally to God.
That is my conviction. I think that the only possible existing

sort of religions meeting is something after the fashion of the
Quaker meeting. In that there is no professional religious man at

all; not a trace of the sacrifices to the ancient gods.... And no
room for a professional religions man...." He felt his argument

did a little escape him. He snatched, "That is what I want to
make clear to you. God is not a speciality; he is a universal

interest."
He stopped. Both Daphne and Clementina seemed disposed to say

something and did not say anything.
Miriam was the first to speak. "Daddy," she said, "I know I'm

stupid. But are we still Christians?"
"I want you to think for yourselves."

"But I mean," said Miriam, "are we--something like Quakers--
a sort of very broad Christians?"

"You are what you choose to be. If you want to keep in the
church, then you must keep in the church. If you feel that the

Christian doctrine is alive, then it is alive so far as you are
concerned."

"But the creeds?" asked Clementina.
He shook his head. "So far as Christianity is defined by its

creeds, I am not a Christian. If we are going to call any sort of
religious feeling that has a respect for Jesus, Christianity,

then no doubt I am a Christian. But so was Mohammed at that rate.
Let me tell you what I believe. I believe in God, I believe in

the immediate presence of God in every human life, I believe that
our lives have to serve the Kingdom of God...."

"That practically is what Mr. Chasters calls 'The Core of Truth
in Chrlstianity.'"

"You have been reading him?"
"Eleanor lent me the book. But Mr. Chasters keeps his living."

"I am not Chasters," said Scrope stiffly, and then relenting:
"What he does may be right for him. But I could not do as he

does."
Lady Ella had said no word for some time.

"I would be ashamed," she said quietly, "if you had not done as
you have done. I don't mind--The girls don't mind--all this....

Not when we understand--as we do now.
That was the limit of her eloquence.

"Not now that we understand, Daddy," said Clementina, and a
faint flavour of Lady Sunderbund seemed to pass and vanish.

There was a queer little pause. He stood rather distressed and
perplexed, because the talk had not gone quite as he had intended

it to go. It had deteriorated towards personal issues. Phoebe
broke the awkwardness by jumping up and coming to her father.

"Dear Daddy," she said, and kissed him.
"We didn't understand properly," said Clementina, in the tone

of one who explains away much--that had never been spoken....
"Daddy," said Miriam with an inspiration, "may I play something

to you presently?"
"But the fire!" interjected Lady Ella, disposing of that idea.

"I want you to know, all of you, the faith I have," he said.
Daphne had remained seated at the table.

"Are we never to go to church again?" she asked, as if at a
loss.

(17)
Scrope went back into his little study. He felt shy and awkward

with his daughters now. He felt it would be difficult to get back
to usualness with them. To-night it would be impossible.

To-morrow he must come down to breakfast as though their talk had
never occurred.... In his rehearsal of this deliverance during

his walk home he had spoken much more plainly of his sense of the
coming of God to rule the world and end the long age of the

warring nations and competing traders, and he had intended to
speak with equal plainness of the passionate subordination of the

individual life to this great common purpose of God and man, an
aspect he had scarcely mentioned at all. But in that little room,

in the presence of those dear familiar people, those great
horizons of life had vanished. The room with its folding doors

had fixed the scale. The wallpaper had smothered the Kingdom of
God; he had been, he felt, domestic; it had been an after-supper

talk. He had been put out, too, by the mention of Lady Sunderbund
and the case of Chasters....

In his study he consoled himself for this diminution of his
intention. It had taken him five years, he reflected, to get to

his present real sense of God's presence and to his personal
subordination to God's purpose. It had been a little absurd, he

perceived, to expect these girls to leap at once to a complete
understanding of the halting hints, the allusive indications of

the thoughts that now possessed his soul. He tried like some
maiden speaker to recall exactly what it was he had said and what

it was he had forgotten to say.... This was merely a beginning,
merely a beginning.

After the girls had gone to bed, Lady Ella came to him and she
was glowing and tender; she was in love again as she had not been

since the shadow had first fallen between them. "I was so glad
you spoke to them," she said. "They had been puzzled. But they

are dear loyal girls."
He tried to tell her rather more plainly what he felt about the

whole question of religion in their lives, but eloquence had
departed from him.

"You see, Ella, life cannot get out of tragedy--and sordid
tragedy--until we bring about the Kingdom of God. It's no

unreality that has made me come out of the church."
"No, dear. No," she said soothingly and reassuringly. "With all

these mere boys going to the most dreadful deaths in the
trenches, with death, hardship and separationrunning amok in the

world--"
"One has to do something," she agreed.

"I know, dear," he said, "that all this year of doubt and
change has been a dreadful year for you."

"It was stupid of me," she said, "but I have been so unhappy.
It's over now--but I was wretched. And there was nothing I could

say.... I prayed.... It isn't the poverty I feared ever, but the
disgrace. Now--I'm happy. I'm happy again.