Mr. Hutchinson acted up to his host's expectation. He recollected suddenly that he had an aunt in County Cork, and that it was his duty to pay her a visit while he was in Ireland. Minnie, on the other hand, expressed the greatest delight at the prospect of entertaining a bishop.
"There are one or two things I want you to be careful about," Ronald said to her. "When we have a bishop in the house——"
"Don't start lecturing me about the proper way to treat the clergy," said Minnie. "Bessie Langworthy, who is my greatest friend, happens to be married to a canon. I spent last Easter with them and lived for a fortnight in a cathedral close. What I don't know about the habits and tastes of Church dignitaries isn't worth mentioning."
"I suppose he'll want a sitting-room to himself," said Mrs. Mendel. "We shall have to turn your smoking-room into a study, Ronald."
"Sanctum is the proper word," said Minnie. "Bessie Langworthy's husband has a sanctum, not a study."
"I don't see," said Ronald, "how my smoking-room can be turned into a sanctuary without going to enormous expense."
"That remark," said Minnie, "shows how little you know about the clergy. A sanctum is as different as possible from a sanctuary. If you'd ever been inside Bessie Langworthy's husband's sanctum, you'd see the absurdity of what you say."
Mrs. Mendel interposed to save her husband's dignity.
"I hunted about the house this afternoon," she said, "and found a few books that we might put there for him. They were stacked away in the box-room, but I had them brought down and dusted. There are five volumes by a man called Paley, who seems to have been an archdeacon. I glanced into them and they looked all right. They are theology, aren't they, Ronald?"
"They won't do at all," said Minnie. "Bishops don't read books of that sort. What we want in the sanctum is a few novels of a rather—— You know the sort I mean, Ronald. I see that you have got 'On the Edge of a Precipice.' Now that would be the exact thing."
"Minnie," said Mrs. Mendel, "surely you haven't read that book! Ronald, I told you not to let it out of the smoking-room."
"Of course I've read it," said Minnie. "That's how I know the bishop will like it. Bessie Langworthy's busband, who is a canon——"
"I won't give that book to any bishop," said Ronald.
"I'm not asking you to force it on him," said Minnie. "I simply say that it should be left in the sanctum so that he can get it when he wants it. Bessie Langworthy's husband——"
"Bessie Langworthy's husband be hanged!"
"If you swear while the bishop's here, Ronald," said Minnie, "you'll shock him. I must also have a pound of tobacco for the sanctum; not cigars. Bishops don't smoke cigars. The reason is that it doesn't do for them to appear opulent, especially nowadays when people are so down on the Church. I'll have a box of my own cigarettes on the chimney- piece in case he doesn't care for a pipe."
"That reminds me," said Ronald, "that I can't have you smoking cigarettes all over the house while he's here."
"My dear Ronald! Don't be perfectly absurd. Bessie Langworthy's husband supplied me with cigarettes while I was there. Church dignitaries like women who smoke. It's a pleasant variety for them. Their own wives never do. By the way, is this bishop married?"
"Is he married?" said Ronald to his wife.
"Your mother doesn't say." She referred to the letter as she spoke. "Anyhow, his wife, if he has a wife, isn't with him."
"That's a comfort," said Minnie. "I could never have got on with a Mrs. Bishop. Now, if you two will excuse me, I'll go and give some instructions to the servants. There are a few things they mightn't be up to if they're not accustomed to bishops."
"I suppose," said Ronald, "that you know exactly how gaiters and aprons ought to be folded."
"Really Minnie," said Mrs. Mendel, "I think you'd better leave the servants to me."
"Certainly not," said Minnie. "You know no more about bishops than they do. You'd simply make a muddle, and what we want is to give the poor man a really pleasant time while he's with us."
"Ronald," said Mrs. Mendel a few minutes later, "I'm afraid that Minnie——"
Ronald lit a cigar gloomily.
"Your mother," she went on, "won't like the flippant way in which Minnie evidently means to treat the bishop. When she hears about it she'll blame us."
"I rather think," said Ronald, "that I'd better go down to Cork and pay a visit to Gilbert Hutchinson's aunt till this business is over."
"If only Minnie would do that! But of course she won't. She's enjoying herself."
II
Two days later the bishop arrived. It was half past four o'clock when he drove up to the doors. Ronald was out on the river. Mrs. Mendel and Minnie were in the drawing-room waiting for afternoon tea to be brought to them. The bishop was a young man, as bishops go. He did not look more than forty-five, but his face was lean and heavily lined. He gave Mrs. Mendel the impression of being a man of severe integrity, very little inclined to human weaknesses. She greeted him nervously.
"I expect," said Minnie, cheerfully, "that you'd like to wash your hands before tea."
"Thank you," said the bishop; "I've had a long drive."
Mrs. Mendel wished to ring the bell and summon a servant, but Minnie insisted on showing the bishop to his room. Before leaving him she glanced at his clothes, which were dusty.
"I dare say," she said, "that you'd like the loan of a clothes-brush. Ronald's dressing-room is next door. I'll get you one."
"Thanks," said the bishop, "but I see my bag is here, and I have a clothes-brush of my own."
"I thought," said Minnie, "that being a missionary bishop, you might perhaps——"
"Missionary bishops are poor, of course; but I have managed to save up enough to buy a clothes-brush."
"That's not what I meant. My idea was that, having lived so long among people who wear no clothes, you might have got out of the habit——"
"I assure you," said the bishop, "that our Indian fellow subjects dress most decorously."
"How nice of them! You must tell us all about them later on. Tea will be ready in the drawing- room and I mustn't keep you now. By the way, do you object to China tea?"
"No. I prefer it."
"That's all right. I merely asked because I thought you might consider it your duty to drink nothing but Indian tea with a view to attracting the natives to church."
Mrs. Mendel, who was deeply impressed by the austerity of the bishop's appearance, grasped the opportunity of Minnie's absence. She slipped into the smoking-room, removed "On the Edge of a Precipice," and placed the five volumes of Paley's works in a row on the table. She got back to the drawing-room in time to pour out tea for the bishop. He only drank one cup and took nothing to eat. This distressed Mrs. Mendel. She was accustomed to enjoying a solid meal at five o'clock and she regarded the bishop's abstinence as a kind of asceticism. Minnie talked fluently about golf, a subject which seemed only moderately interesting to the bishop. He said very little, but gazed at Minnie with an expression of some bewilderment. When it became quite clear that he did not mean to drink any more tea, she put down her cup and saucer and stood up.
"The bishop," she said, "would like to see his sanctum at once."
"My sanctum!" he said. "Have I one?"
"Yes," said Minnie, "you have. I arranged it for you myself. It used to be Ronald's smoking-room, but——"