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Father Payne was telling one of his dreams to the three who were nearest to him, and, funny as most of his dreams were, this was unusually so. There was a burst of laughter and a silence a sudden sharp silence, in which Vincent, who was continuing a conversation, was heard to say to Barthrop, in a tone of fierce vindictiveness, "I hate him like the devil!"
But that wouldn't do, and I just made friends with her. She wants an older friend, I think. She has ideas, the pretty Phyllis, and she doesn't strike out sparks from the Wetheralls much." Barthrop went off, smiling to himself, and I strolled about with Father Payne. "You really could hardly do better than be Phyllis's faithful shepherd," he said to me, smiling.
"He was never married, I suppose?" I said. "No," said Barthrop, "and yet he seems to make friends with women very easily in fact, they tend to fall in love with him, if I may say so. He has got a beautiful manner with them, and he is simply devoted to children. You will see that they really rather worship him in the village. He knows everyone in the place, and never forgets a fact about them."
'Do please stop being a recluse, and call while I am here, she had said as she was being drawn away from me into a sort of maelstrom of gaily coloured dresses, and laughing, compliment-paying men. And I blessed her for that. Charles Augustus Everard Barthrop, third son of the baronet and his wife, was the assistant manager of some financial company in London, of which his father was a director.
Don't let there be any misunderstanding," he said, smiling round the table. "I have hated most of you at different times, some of you very much. I don't deny there are good points about you, but that isn't enough. Sometimes you are detestable!" "I see what you mean," said Barthrop; "but you don't hate people you only hate things in them and about them. It is just a selection."
"He was at Marlborough, you know, and Oxford; and after that, he lived in town, took pupils, and tried to write but he was not successful, and had much difficulty in getting along." "What is his line exactly?" said Vincent. "That's just it," said Barthrop, "he hasn't any line.
I would have told how he spent his day, how he looked and moved, ate and drank. A real portrait of an uninteresting man might be quite a treasure." "Yes, but you know it wouldn't do," said Barthrop; "his friends would be out at you like a swarm of wasps." "Oh, I know that," said Father Payne.
"That's the horror of it that the world isn't a dull place or a sensational place or a nasty place and those papers make me feel it is all three!" "I'm sorry you are so low about it," said Barthrop. "Yes, because journalism ought to be the finest thing in the world," said Father Payne. "Just imagine! The power of talking, without any of the inconveniences of personality, to half-a-million people."
And it was there that Vincent told me about "Father" Payne, as he was called by his friends, though he was a layman and an Anglican. He had heard all about him from an Oxford man, Leonard Barthrop, some years older than ourselves, who was one of the circle of men whom Father Payne had collected about him. Vincent was very full of the subject.
For Barthrop there were his keenly relished sports and pastimes, his host of friends, his family, his luxurious and well-defined place in the world not to mention the city of London. When I left the spacious purlieus of Salisbury, it was to engage chambers bedroom, sitting-room, and bathroom in a remodelled adjunct to one of the Inns of Court.
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