Mr Hare did not answer.  He listened like one in a dark and unknown place.  But, as if unconscious of the embarrassment he was creating, John told of the number of masses that were said daily, and of the eagerness shown by the boys to obtain an altar.  Altar service was rewarded by a large piece of toast for breakfast.  Handsome lads of sixteen were chosen for acolytes, the torch-bearers were selected from the smallest boys, the office of censer was filled by John Norton, and he was also the chief sacristan, and had charge of the altar plate and linen and the vestments.  He spoke of the organ, and he depreciated the present instrument, and enlarged upon some technical details anent the latest modern improvements in keys and stops.

They went up to the organ loft.  John would play his setting of St Ambrose’s hymn, “Veni redemptor gentium,” if Mr Hare would go to the bellows, and feeling as if he were being turned into ridicule, Mr Hare took his place at the handle; and he found it even more embarrassing to give an opinion on the religiosity of the music, than on the archaeological colouration of the bishops in the window.  But John did not court any very detailed criticism on his hymn, and alluding to the fact that even in the fourth century accent was beginning to replace quantity, he led the way to the sacristy.

And it was impossible to avoid noticing that the opening of the carved oaken presses, smelling sweet and benignly of orris root and lavender, acted on John almost as a physical pleasure, and also that his hands seemed nervous with delight as he unfolded the jewelled embroideries, and smoothed out the fine linen of the under vestments; and his voice, too, seemed to gain a sharp tenderness and emotive force, as he told how these were the gold vestments worn by the bishop, and only on certain great feast-days, and that these were the white vestments worn on days especially commemorative of the Virgin.  The consideration of the censers, candlesticks, chalices, and albs took some time, and John was a little aggressive in his explanation of Catholic ceremonial, and its grace and comeliness compared with the stiffness and materialism of the Protestant service.

From the sacristy they went to the boys’ library.  John pointed out the excellent supply of light literature that the bookcases contained.

“We take travels, history, fairy-tales—­romances of all kinds, so long as sensual passion is not touched upon at any length.  Of course we don’t object to a book in which just towards the end the young man falls in love and proposes; but there must not be much of that sort of thing.  Here are Robert Louis Stevenson’s works, ‘Treasure Island,’ ‘Kidnapped,’ &c., charming writer—­a neat pretty style, with a pleasant souvenir of Edgar Poe running through it all.  You have no idea how the boys enjoy his books.”

“And don’t you?”