“You haven’t drunk your cocoa,” said the clergyman suddenly.

Frank turned abruptly, took up the cup and drank the contents straight off at one draught.

“And a cigarette?”

Frank took up a cigarette and put in his mouth.

“By the way,” he said, taking it out again, “when’ll you send your ladies round?  The morning’s best, when the rest of us are out of the way.”

“All right.”

“Well, I don’t think there’s anything else?”

“My dear chap,” said the other, “I wish you’d tell me what it’s all about—­why you’re in this sort of life, you know.  I don’t want to pry, but—­”

Frank smiled suddenly and vividly.

“Oh, there’s nothing to say.  That’s not the point.  It’s by my own choice practically.  I assure you I haven’t disgraced anybody.”

“But your people—­”

“Oh! they’re all right.  There’s nothing the matter with them....  Look here!  I really must be going.”

He stood up, and something seemed to snap in the atmosphere as he did so.

“Besides, I’ve got to be at work early—­”

“I say, what did you do then?”

“Do then?  What do you mean?”

“When you stood up—­Did you say anything?...”

Frank looked at him bewildered.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Mr. Parham-Carter did not quite know what he had meant himself.  It was a sensation come and gone, in an instant, as Frank had moved ... a sensation which I suppose some people would call “psychical”—­a sensation as if a shock had vibrated for one moment through every part of his own being, and of the pleasant little warm room where he was sitting.  He looked at the other, dazed for a second or two, but there was nothing.  Those two steady black eyes looked at him in a humorous kind of concern....

He stood up himself.

“It was nothing,” he said.  “I think I must be getting sleepy.”

He put out his hand.

“Good-night,” he said.  “Oh!  I’ll come and see you as far as the gate.”

Frank looked at him a second.

“I say,” he said; “I suppose you’ve never thought of becoming a Catholic?”

“My dear chap—­”

“No!  Well, all right.... oh! don’t bother to come to the gate.”

“I’m coming.  It may be locked.”

* * * * *

Mr. Parham-Carter stood looking after Frank’s figure even after it had passed along the dark shop fronts and was turning the corner towards Turner Road.  Then it went under the lamplight, and disappeared.

It was a drizzling, cold night, and he himself was bareheaded; he felt the moisture run down his forehead, but it didn’t seem to be happening to him.  On his right rose up the big parish-hall where the entertainments were held, and beyond it, the east end of the great church, dark now and tenantless; and he felt the wet woodwork of the gate grasped in his fingers.