He tried,
to show his sense of it all by grimly pursuing his food and refusing even
the ghost of a chuckle, but no one was perceiving him, as he very bitterly
saw. The Bishop, it may be, saw it too, for at last he turned to Brandon
and said:
"But come, Archdeacon. I was forgetting. You wrote to me s-something about
that Jubilee-music in the Cathedral. You find that Ryle is making rather a
m-mess of things, don't you?"
Brandon was deeply offended. Of what was the Bishop thinking that he could
so idly drag forward the substance of an entirely private letter, without
asking permission, into the public air? Moreover, the last thing that he
wanted was that Ronder should know that he had been working behind Ryle's
back. Not that he was in the least ashamed of what he had done, but here
was precisely the thing that Ronder would like to use and make something
of. In any case, it was the principle of the thing. Was Ronder henceforth
to be privy to everything that passed between himself and the Bishop?
He never found it easy to veil his feelings, and he looked now, as Ponting
delightedly perceived, like an overgrown, sulky schoolboy.
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