Philip, not knowing how many incompetent people have found solace in these false notes, was much impressed.
Hayward could never resist the opportunity which Weeks offered him of regaining ground lost on a previous occasion, and Weeks was able with the greatest ease to draw him into a discussion. Though he could not help seeing how small his attainments were be-side the American's, his British pertinacity, his wounded vanity (perhaps they are the same thing), would not allow him to give up the struggle. Hayward seemed to take a delight in displaying his ignorance, self-satisfaction, and wrongheadedness. Whenever Hayward said something which was illogical, Weeks in a few words would show the falseness of his reasoning, pause for a moment to enjoy his triumph, and then hurry on to another subject as though Christian charity impelled him to spare the vanquished foe. Philip tried sometimes to put in something to help his friend, and Weeks gently crushed him, but so kindly, differently from the way in which
he answered Hayward, that even Philip, outrageously sensitive, could not feel hurt. Now and then, losing his calm as he felt himself more and more foolish, Hayward became abusive, and only the American's smiling politeness prevented the argument from degenerating into a quarrel. On these occasions when Hayward left Weeks' room he muttered angrily:
"Damned Yankee!"
That settled it. It was a perfect answer to an argument which had seemed unanswerable.
55
Though they began by discussing all manner of subjects in Weeks' little room eventually the conversation always turned to religion: the theological student took a professional interest in it, and Hayward welcomed a subject in which hard facts need not disconcert him; when feeling is the gauge you can snap your angers at logic, and when your logic is weak that is very agreeable. Hayward found it difficult to explain his beliefs to Philip without a great flow of words; but it was clear (and this fell in with Philip's idea of the natural order of things), that he had been brought up in the church by law established. Though he had now given up all idea of becoming a Roman Catholic, he still looked upon that communion with sympathy. He had much to say in its praise, and he compared favourably its gorgeous ceremonies with the simple services of the Church of England. He gave Philip Newman's Apologia to read, and Philip, finding it very dull, nevertheless read it to the end.
"Read it for its style, not for its matter," said Hayward.
He talked enthusiastically of the music at the Oratory, and said charming things about the connection between incense and the devo-tional spirit. Weeks listened to him with his frigid smile.
"You think it proves the truth of Roman Catholicism that John Henry Newman wrote good English and that Cardinal Manning has a picturesque appearance?"
Hayward hinted that he had gone through much trouble with his soul. For a year he had swum in a sea of darkness. He passed his fingers through his fair, waving hair and told them that he would not for five hundred pounds endure again those agonies of mind. Fortunately he had reached calm waters at last.
"But what do you believe?" asked Philip, who was never satisfied with vague statements.
"I believe in the Whole, the Good, and the Beautiful."
Hayward with his loose large limbs and the fine carriage of his head looked very handsome when he said this, and he said it with an
air.
"Is that how you would describe your religion in a census paper?" asked
Weeks, in mild tones.
"I hate the rigid definition: it's so ugly, so obvious. If you like I will say that I believe in the church of the Duke of Wellington and
Mr. Gladstone."
"That's the Church of England," said Philip.
"Oh wise young man!" retorted Hayward, with a smile which made Philip blush, for he felt that in putting into plain words what the other had expressed in a paraphrase, he had been guilty of vulgarity. "I belong to the Church of England. But I love the gold and the silk which clothe the priest of Rome, and his celibacy, and the confessional, and purgatory: and in the darkness of an Italian cathedral, incense-laden and mysterious, I believe with all my heart in the miracle of the Mass. In Venice I have seen a fisherwoman come in, barefoot, throw down her basket of fish by her side, fall on her knees, and pray to the Madonna; and that I felt was the real faith, and I prayed and believed with her. But I believe also in Aphrodite and Apollo and the Great God Pan."
He had a charming voice, and he chose his words as he spoke; he uttered them almost rhythmically. He would have gone on, but
Weeks opened a second bottle of beer. "Let me give you something to drink."
Hayward turned to Philip with the slightly condescending gesture which so impressed the youth.
"Now are you satisfied?" he asked.
Philip, somewhat bewildered, confessed that he was.
"I'm disappointed that you didn't add a little Buddhism," said Weeks. "And I confess I have a sort of sympathy for Mahomet; I
regret that you should have left him out in the cold."
Hayward laughed, for he was in a good humour with himself that evening, and the ring of his sentences still sounded pleasant in his ears. He emptied his glass.
56
"I didn't expect you to understand me," he answered. "With your cold American intelligence you can only adopt the critical attitude. Emerson and all that sort of thing. But what is criticism? Criticism is purely destructive; anyone can destroy, but not everyone can build up. You are a pedant, my dear fellow. The important thing is to construct: I am constructive; I am a poet."
Weeks looked at him with eyes which seemed at the same time to be quite grave and yet to be smiling brightly. "I think, if you don't mind my saying so, you're a little drunk."
"Nothing to speak of," answered Hayward cheerfully. "And not enough for me to be unable to overwhelm you in argument. But come, I have unbosomed my soul; now tell us what your religion is."
Weeks put his head on one side so that he looked like a sparrow on a perch.
"I've been trying to find that out for years. I think I'm a Unitarian."
"But that's a dissenter," said Philip.
He could not imagine why they both burst into laughter, Hayward uproariously, and Weeks with a funny chuckle. "And in England dissenters aren't gentlemen, are they?" asked Weeks.
"Well, if you ask me point-blank, they're not," replied Philip rather crossly. He hated being laughed at, and they laughed again.
"And will you tell me what a gentleman is?" asked Weeks. "Oh, I don't know; everyone knows what it is."
"Are you a gentleman?"
No doubt had ever crossed Philip's mind on the subject, but he knew it was not a thing to state of oneself. "If a man tells you he's a gentleman you can bet your boots he isn't," he retorted.
"Am I a gentleman?"
Philip's truthfulness made it difficult for him to answer, but he was naturally polite.
"Oh, well, you're different," he said. "You're American, aren't you?"
"I suppose we may take it that only Englishmen are gentlemen," said Weeks gravely. Philip did not contradict him.
"Couldn't you give me a few more particulars?" asked Weeks.
Philip reddened, but, growing angry, did not care if he made himself ridiculous.
"I can give you plenty." He remembered his uncle's saying that it took three generations to make a gentleman: it was a companion proverb to the silk purse and the sow's ear. "First of all he's the son of a gentleman, and he's been to a public school, and to Oxford or Cambridge."
"Edinburgh wouldn't do, I suppose?" asked Weeks.
"And he talks English like a gentleman, and he wears the right sort of things, and if he's a gentleman he can always tell if another chap's a gentleman."
57