the sixth century, or the thirteenth, or the seventeenth or the
eighteenth? He told me the one and eternal Church which belonged as
much to the nineteenth century as to the first. I begged to know
whether, then, I was to hear the Church according to Simeon, or
according to Newman, or according to St. Paul; for they seemed to me
a little at variance? He told me, austerely enough, that the mind
of the Church was embodied in her Liturgy and Articles. To which I
answered, that the mind of the episcopal clergy might, perhaps, be;
but, then, how happened it that they were always quarrelling and
calling hard names about the sense of those very documents? And so
I left him, assuring him that, living in the nineteenth century, I
wanted to hear the Church of the nineteenth century, and no other;
and should be most happy to listen to her, as soon as she had made
up her mind what to say.'

Argemone was angry and disappointed. She felt she could not cope
with Lancelot's quaint logic, which, however unsound, cut deeper
into questions than she had yet looked for herself. Somehow, too,
she was tongue-tied before him just when she wanted to be most
eloquent in behalf of her principles; and that fretted her still
more. But his manner puzzled her most of all. First he would run
on with his face turned away, as if soliloquising out into the air,
and then suddenly look round at her with most fascinating humility;
and, then, in a moment, a dark shade would pass over his
countenance, and he would look like one possessed, and his lips
wreathe in a sinister artificial smile, and his wild eyes glare
through and through her with such cunning understanding of himself
and her, that, for the first time in her life, she quailed and felt
frightened, as if in the power of a madman. She turned hastily away
to shake off the spell.