So that next morning Maitland was firmly persona grata again. He was glad. To live in that grey elephant of a house on any other terms would have been a test of sanity he did not wish to undergo. Yet his success had its blemishes, as when Costello bombarded him with applause. Nolan, having carried so funereal a face on the question, kept clear. It was not until two mornings later, himself and Maitland passing in the corridor behind the high altar, both vested for Mass and bearing chalices, that Nolan smiled with an aged wistfulness and whispered, ‘So you talked His Grace round to your view of things.’

During that brief springtime when Maitland seemed to bear His Grace’s cachet, Costello came to him a second time and said, ‘It seems there’s a nun in St Thomasine’s College—that’s across the city. She’s apparently a little unorthodox but the mother-superior has tended to be tolerant of her. However, two parents have complained now, and mother is shaken. His Grace is so far on your side over this other matter that he wants you to be one of the three members of a sort of informal enquiry.’