congregation. People began to cough and to shift about in their chairs. A
lady just beneath the pulpit unfolded a large fan and waved it slowly to
and fro. Mr. Harding paused, gazed at the fan, looked away from it, wiped
his forehead with a handkerchief, grasped the pulpit ledge, and went on
speaking, but now with almost a faltering voice.

The congregation were doubtless ignorant of the cause of their pastor's
perturbation, but Malling felt sure that he knew what it was.

The cause was Henry Chichester.

On the cherubic face of the senior curate, as he leaned back in his
stall while Mr. Harding gave out the opening words of the sermon, there
had been an expression that was surely one of anxiety, such as a master's
face wears when his pupil is about to give some public exhibition. That
simile came at once into Malling's mind. It was the master listening to
the pupil, fearing for, criticizing, striving mentally to convey help to
the pupil. And as the sermon went on it was obvious to Malling that the
curate was not satisfied with it, and that his dissatisfaction was, as
it were, breaking the rector down. At certain statements of Mr. Harding
looks of contempt flashed over Chichester's face, transforming it.
The anxiety of the master, product of vanity but also of sympathy,
was overlaid by the powerful contempt of a man who longs to traverse
misstatements but is forced by circumstances to keep silence. And so
certain was Malling that the cause of Mr. Harding's perturbation lay in
Chichester's mental attitude, that he longed to spring up, to take the
curate by the shoulders and to thrust him out of the church. Then all
would be well. He knew it. The rector's self-confidence would return and,
with it, his natural powers.