CHAPTER XXIVJean peered anxiously down into the oblong space beneath her. She felt as if she were in a church without an altar. The choir stalls ranged up the long dusky nave, at the end of which no light shone. A member had been talking passionately and for a long time about blackberries. Nobody shared his passion. His voice ran on and on continuously like the sound of a stream through a silent meadow. A Cabinet Minister came in, looked hastily about him, and retreated.
There was the same inconsequent air which Catholic churches possess; where single worshippers come and go upon their own concerns, and islands of intensity isolate themselves from the general sea of indifference.
In a few minutes Reggie was to make his maiden speech. Jean knew it by heart; word by word, thought by though
