"I know. In the Roman Church, what the Curia could not do by argument
they have done again and again--well, no use to inquire how! One must be
prepared. All I can say is, I know of no skeletons in the cupboard at
present. Anybody may have my keys!"

He laughed as he spoke, spreading his hands to the blaze, and looking
round at his companion. Barron's face in response was a face of
hero-worship, undisguised. Here plainly were leader and disciple;
pioneering will and docile faith. But it might have been observed that
Meynell did nothing to emphasize the personal relation; that, on the
contrary, he shrank from it, and often tried to put it aside.

After a few more words, indeed, he resolutely closed the personal
discussion. They fell into talk about certain recent developments of
philosophy in England and France--talk which showed them as familiar
comrades in the intellectual field, in spite of their difference of age.
Barron, a Fellow of King's, had but lately left Cambridge for a small
College living. Meynell--an old Balliol scholar--bore the marks of Jowett
and Caird still deep upon him, except, perhaps, for a certain deliberate
throwing over, here and there, of the typical Oxford tradition--its
measure and reticence, its scholarly balancing of this against that. A
tone as of one driven to extremities--a deep yet never personal
exasperation--the poised quiet of a man turning to look a hostile host in
the face--again and again these made themselves felt through his chat
about new influences in the world of thought--Bergson or James, Eucken or
Tyrell.

And to this under-note, inflections or phrases in the talk of the other
seemed to respond. It was as though behind the spoken conversation they
carried on another unheard.