book. If you will persist in shining upon him so dazzlingly, you
cannot be surprised if he turns an unseeing eye upon any object you may
present for his inspection. Now, since I have basked longer in your
light, I may perhaps--allow me." He reached for the book and began to
turn over the leaves. She watched his growing absorption with
indulgent amusement, and the comradeship of the two omnivorous readers
was evident. Cardington was frankly reading, oblivious of his hosts, a
liberty which indicated his familiar standing in that house.

"I have a weakness for polymathists of the old school," the bishop
remarked, harking back to his guest's confession of narrower interests,
"of which class I may say that Professor Cardington is almost the only
example within my range of observation. I have noticed that Latin is
becoming as strange to the average graduate as Eliot's Indian Bible."

"But Latin does n't help the modern world to build railroads, or
battleships, or motor cars," Leigh suggested, by way of presenting the
opposite view.

"Always the argument of utility," the bishop returned, with mournful
resignation. "But how have modern inventions added to the beauty or
the dignity of human life? Man is mastered and slain by his own
inventions, and a skyscraper reduces him to the proportions of an ant."

"I am tempted to mention cathedrals as having rather a dwarfing effect
upon their builders," Leigh said.

"I should hope so! Better to be dwarfed by the magnificence of a
temple of the Lord than by the hideous hugeness of a temple of trade."
The bishop's dry smile indicated that he had scored.