If it had been Lady Sunderbund he had had to explain to, instead of Lady
Ella, he could have explained a dozen times a day.
And since his mind was rehearsing explanations it was not unnatural they
should overflow into this eagerly receptive channel, and that the less
he told Lady Ella the fuller became his spiritual confidences to Lady
Sunderbund.
She was clever in realizing that they were confidences and treating them
as such, more particularly when it chanced that she and Lady Ella and
the bishop found themselves in the same conversation.
She made great friends with Miriam, and initiated her by a whole
collection of pretty costume plates into the mysteries of the "Ussian
Ballet" and the works of Mousso'gski and "Imsky Ko'zakof."
The bishop liked a certain religiosity in the texture of Moussorgski's
music, but failed to see the "significance "--of many of the costumes.
(2)
It was on a Sunday night--the fourth Sunday after Easter--that the
supreme crisis of the bishop's life began. He had had a feeling all day
of extreme dulness and stupidity; he felt his ministrations unreal, his
ceremonies absurd and undignified.
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