No More Learning

This conformation of his mind helped to lead him into all manner of
needless contests and to the loss of this last parish among much
else. Did not the world exist for the sake of these hard, crystalline
thoughts, with which he played as with so many bone spilikins,
delighting in his own skill? and were not all who disliked them
merely--the many?

In this way it came about that Sherman's letter reached Howard at the
right moment. Now, next to a new parish, he loved a new friend. A visit
to London meant many. He had found he was, on the whole, a success at
the beginning of friendships.

He at once wrote an acceptance in his small and beautiful handwriting,
and arrived shortly after his letter. Sherman, on receiving him,
glanced at his neat and shining boots, the little medal at the
watch-chain and the well-brushed hat, and nodded as though in answer to
an inner query. He smiled approval at the slight elegant figure in its
black clothes, at the satiny hair, and at the face, mobile as moving
waters.

For several days the Shermans saw little of their guest. He had friends
everywhere to turn into enemies and acquaintances to turn into friends.
His days passed in visiting, visiting, visiting. Then there were
theatres and churches to see, and new clothes to be bought, over which
he was as anxious as a woman. Finally he settled down.
He passed his mornings in the smoking-room. He asked Sherman's leave
to hang on the walls one or two religious pictures, without which he
was not happy, and to place over the mantelpiece, under the pipe-rack,
an ebony crucifix. In one corner of the room he laid a rug neatly
folded for covering his knees on chilly days, and on the table a
small collection of favourite books--a curious and carefully-chosen
collection, in which Cardinal Newman and Bourget, St. Chrysostom and
Flaubert lived together in perfect friendship.

Early in his visit Sherman brought him to the Lelands. He was a
success. The three--Margaret, Sherman, and Howard--played tennis in the
Square. Howard was a good player, and seemed to admire Margaret. On
the way home Sherman once or twice laughed to himself. It was like the
clucking of a hen with a brood of chickens. He told Howard, too, how
wealthy Margaret was said to be.

After this Howard always joined Sherman and Margaret at the tennis.
Sometimes, too, after a little, on days when the study seemed dull and
lonely, and the unfinished essay on St. Chrysostom more than usually
laborious, he would saunter towards the Square before his friend's
arrival, to find Margaret now alone, now with an acquaintance or two.
About this time also press of work, an unusual thing with him, began
to delay Sherman in town half-an-hour after his usual time. In the
evenings they often talked of Margaret--Sherman frankly and carefully,
as though in all anxiety to describe her as she was; and Howard with
some enthusiasm: 'She has a religious vocation,' he said once, with a
slight sigh.