is rather more exclusive than the Lawn at Ascot, and you would have
a quickening of religious life such as this generation has never
witnessed. But as long as the clergy and the religious
organisations advertise their creed on the lines of 'Everybody
ought to believe in us: millions do,' one can expect nothing but
indifference and waning faith."

"Time is just as exclusive in its way as Art," said Lady Caroline.

"In what way?" said the Reverend Poltimore.

"Your pleasantries about religion would have sounded quite clever
and advanced in the early 'nineties. To-day they have a dreadfully
warmed-up flavour. That is the great delusion of you would-be
advanced satirists; you imagine you can sit down comfortably for a
couple of decades saying daring and startling things about the age
you live in, which, whatever other defects it may have, is
certainly not standing still. The whole of the Sherard Blaw school
of discursive drama suggests, to my mind, Early Victorian furniture
in a travelling circus. However, you will always have relays of
people from the suburbs to listen to the Mocking Bird of yesterday,
and sincerely imagine it is the harbinger of something new and
revolutionising."

"WOULD you mind passing that plate of sandwiches," asked one of the
trio of young ladies, emboldened by famine.

"With pleasure," said Lady Caroline, deftly passing her a nearly
empty plate of bread-and-butter.