Milton in the reading-room.'

`The reading-room?'

`Of the British Museum. I go there every day.'

`You do? I've only been there once. I'm afraid I found it rather
a depressing place. It--it seemed to sap one's vitality.'

`It does. That's why I go there. The lower one's vitality, the
more sensitive one is to great art. I live near the Museum. I
have rooms in Dyott Street.'

`And you go round to the reading-room to read Milton?'

`Usually Milton.' He looked at me. `It was Milton,' he
certificatively added, `who converted me to Diabolism.'

`Diabolism? Oh yes? Really?' said I, with that vague
discomfort and that intense desire to be polite which one feels
when a man speaks of his own religion. `You--worship the
Devil?'

Soames shook his head. `It's not exactly worship,' he qualified,
sipping his absinthe. `It's more a matter of trusting and
encouraging.'

`Ah, yes.... But I had rather gathered from the preface to
"Negations" that you were a--a Catholic.'