KIPPS
But these were but gleams. For the rest, Religion, Nationality, Passion, Money, Politics, much more so those cardinal issues, Birth and Death, the True Gentleman skirted about and became facially rigid towards, and ceased to speak and panted and blew.
"One doesn't talk of that sort of thing," Coote would say with a gesture of the knuckly hand.
"O' course," Kipps would reply, with an equal significance.
Profundities. Deep, as it were, blowing to deep.
One does not talk, but on the other hand one is punctilious to do. Actions speak. Kipps—in spite of the fact that the Walshinghams were more than a little lax—Kipps, who had formerly flitted Sunday after Sunday from one Folkestone church to another, had now a sitting of his own, duly paid for at St. Stylites. There he was to be seen, always at the surplice evening service, and sometimes of a morning, dressed with a sober precision, and with an eye on Coote in the chancel. No difficulties now about finding the place in his book. He became a communicant again—he had lapsed soon after his confirmation when the young lady in the costume-room, who was his adopted sister, left the Emporium—and he would sometimes go round to the Vestry for Coote after the service. One evening he was introduced to the Hon. and Rev. Densemore. He was much too confused to say anything, and the noble cleric had nothing to say, but indisputably they were introduced. . . .
No! you must not imagine that the national ideal of a gentleman is without its "serious side," without even its stern and uncompromising side. The imagi-
264
