He had been trying to be plain and simple upon the needless
narrowness of enthusiastic laymen. He was still in the Bishop Andrews
cap and purple cassock he affected on these occasions; the Men Helpers
loved purple; and he was disentangling himself from two or three
resolute bores--for our loyal laymen can be at times quite superlative
bores--when Miriam came to him.
"Mummy says, 'Come to the drawing-room if you can.' There is a Lady
Sunderbund who seems particularly to want to see you."
He hesitated for a moment, and then decided that this was a conversation
he ought to control.
He found Lady Sunderbund looking very tall and radiantly beautiful in
a sheathlike dress of bright crimson trimmed with snow-white fur and a
white fur toque. She held out a long white-gloved hand to him and
cried in a tone of comradeship and profound understanding: "I've come,
Bishop!"
"You've come to see me?" he said without any sincerity in his polite
pleasure.
"I've come to P'inchesta to stay!" she cried with a bright triumphant
rising note.
She evidently considered Lady Ella a mere conversational stop-gap, to
be dropped now that the real business could be commenced.
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