If Popinjays wed
them, they do but hatch out broods of foolish little Popinjays. If
true men, caught by mere surface beauty, wed them, it can mean naught
save heartbreak and sorrow, and deterioration of the race. Women of
finer mould"--for an instant the Bishop's eyes strayed from the
sunset--"are needed, to be the mothers of the men who, in the years to
come, are to make England great. Nay, rather than let one escape, I
would shut up all the little foolish birds in a Nunnery, with our
excellent Sub-Prioress to administer necessary discipline."
With his elbows resting upon the arms of the chair, the Bishop put his
fingers together, so that the tips met most precisely; then bent his
lips to them, and looked at the Prioress.
She, troubled and sick at heart, lifting deep pools of silent misery,
met the merry twinkle in the Bishop's eyes, and sat astonished. What
was it like? Why it was like the song of a robin, perched on a frosty
bough, on Christmas morning! It was so young and gay; so jocund, and
so hopeful.
Meeting it, the Prioress realised fully, what she had many times
half-divined, that the revered and reverend Prelate sitting opposite,
for all his robes and dignity, his panoply of Church and State, had the
heart of a merry schoolboy out on a holiday.
For the moment she felt much older than the Bishop, infinitely sadder;
more travel-worn and worldly-wise.
Then she looked at the silver hair; the firm mouth, with a shrewd curve
at either corner; the thoughtful brow.
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