Loring's smile became a rather foolish grin.
"Why ... a ... this ... a ... this—this.... Oh, hang it all, Judge! You've surely kissed some pretty woman besides your wife in twenty years of marriage!"
He was rather startled by the effect of this jocose insinuation. The Judge suddenly stood up. Wrath and disgust transformed his kindly face.
"I allow no liberties from any man," he said, in his deepest bass.
Loring, also, leaped to his feet. He looked genuinely dismayed and confounded.
"But ... but ... I meant no liberty...." he stammered.
"Then," said the Judge, in no wise placated, "your idea of what constitutes a liberty differs fundamentally from mine."
He remained standing.
"Do you mean to say...?" fumbled Loring.
"I mean this," retorted the Judge: "That to the best of my poor ability I strive to conduct myself according to the teaching of the Christian faith." (The Judge, like Charlotte, always became Johnsonian when righteously wrathful.) "The Founder of that Faith pronounced once for all upon the question that you refer to as a 'little lapse.' He said: 'He that looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.'"