"Ask me another," said Kitty. "I haven't the slightest idea, Pansy, my love. You're usually right, so I daresay you're right about this. But you mustn't talk like that to Nicky, or he'll have a relapse."
"And fancy," Pansy mused, "me havin' got the great Minister of Brains for a brother-in-law! Or anyhow somethin' of the sort; as near as makes no difference. I shall never hear the last of it from the girls and boys.... Good-bye, old thing; I'm ever so pleased you're a happy wife now as well as me."
Chester handed Kitty a letter from his mother, the wife of a struggling bishop somewhere in the west country. It said, "Directly you are well enough, dear, you must bring Kitty to stay with us; She won't, I am sure, mind our simple ways.... My dear, we are so thankful you have found happiness. We are distressed about your accident, and about your loss of office, which I fear you will feel.... But, after all, love and happiness are so much more important than office, are they not?..."
"Important," Kitty repeated. "Queer word. Just what love and happiness aren't, you'd think. Comfortable--jolly--but not important.... Never you mind, Nicky, you'll be important always: Vernon is right about that. They'll put you somewhere where 'domestick selvishenesse' doesn't matter: perhaps they'll make you a peer...."
Chester said he would not be at all surprised.
Kitty said, "Shall we go and see your people?" and he replied gloomily, "I suppose we must. It will be ... rather trying."
"Will they condole with you?" she suggested, and he returned, "No. They'll congratulate me."
A fortnight later they went down to the west. Bishop Chester lived in a little old house in a slum behind his cathedral. Bishops' palaces were no longer bishops' homes; they had all been turned into community houses, clergy houses, retreat houses, alms houses, and so forth. Celibate bishops could live in them, together with other clergy of their diocese, but bishops with families had to find quarters elsewhere. And, married or unmarried, their incomes were not enough to allow of any style of living but that apostolic simplicity which the Church, directly it was freed from the State and could arrange its own affairs, had decided was right and suitable.