“I’ve often told you to let them in, Freddy.”

“So you have, dear!  It was your idea originally.  Well, I must think it over again.”

He thought it over and regretfully came to the conclusion that it could not be done.  Russians were not people of the right kind.  They were not honest.

“Russians are too artistic to be honest,” he declared.

It was a Bon Mot which he had picked up, long ago, from Madame Steynlin, in the days when the lady looked with disfavour on the Muscovite colony.  That Lutheran period was over for the present:  she was orthodox so far as sentiments were concerned.  Nothing could be good enough for the Russians, just then.  An acquaintance with Peter, one of the handsomest of the whole batch of religious enthusiasts, had brought about her psychological conversion and altered her outlook upon life.  Her heart was in the Urals.  But that stupid, malicious epigram had impressed itself on the mind of Mr. Parker, who was hopelessly insensitive to the flaxen curls of Peter.

“No,” he decided.  “They are not honest.  We must draw the line somewhere, Lola.  I draw it at Russians.  At least I think we ought to.  But I’ll think it over again.”

That was foolish of him, she opined.  For the Muscovites would probably have paid their accounts as regularly as other members; and as to their capacity for raising the Club revenues by the destruction of alcohol—­why, many people had said unkind things about them, and yet nobody had gone so far as to accuse them of being unable to stow it away in proper Christian style.  No wonder.  Because there was nothing whatever in their Bible, the golden book of the divinely inspired Bazhakuloff, to prohibit or even limit the consumption of strong waters.  In the matter of dietary he had only bidden them refrain fro the flesh of warm-blooded beasts.

Mr. Parker was always thinking things over and coming to the wrong conclusion.  It was foolish of him.

She knew him too well to say anything more for the moment.  She would have to bide her time because Freddy, of whom she had made an exhaustive study, was a wobbler, and worse than a wobbler.  He was stubborn at the wrong season and difficult to manage.  He needed careful motherly guidance.  All fools, she reflected, were subject to meteoric gleams of common sense.  He was no exception to that rule.  But whereas they received such flashes with thankfulness, he persisted in regarding them as inspirations of the devil.  That was the tragedy of Freddy Parker.  It made him into something quinessential—­a kind of super-fool. . . .

Mr. Keith enquired: 

“You don’t want to become a member of this institution, do you, Bishop?”

The other pondered awhile.

“I am pretty democratic,” he replied.  “We have some warm places in Africa, you know, and I never allowed myself to be beaten by them.  Perhaps I might be of use to some of those poor fellows in there.  But I like to do things properly.  It would entail at first a little friendly drinking, I’m afraid, in order to gain their confidence.  It is not in my character to do one thing and preach another.  I cannot pose as an abstainer after the way I enjoyed your luncheon.  But the smell of the whisky here—­it scares me.  My liver—­”