"You can." Reed spoke crisply.
"I can't. The whole thing is galling me, I tell you, the whole—" Brenton hesitated; "infernal sham." The last two words he flung out with a heavy defiance.
"Sham isn't a polite word for that sort of thing," Opdyke answered swiftly. "You're the parson, Brenton; I am nothing but a sinner cut down in my prime. Still, in your place, I think I wouldn't call it all a sham. There's too much good inside it. When one has all the time there is, one thinks it out, good and bad, to the bitter end. And there's any amount more good than bad in the whole combination."
Brenton nodded; but the nod implied more denial than assent.
"Perhaps," he said slowly. "Still, it's any amount less provable."
"Proof be hanged! You'll never succeed in reducing the moral universe to a set of molecular equations, Brenton. Best give it up, and take what's left in the most thankful spirit that you can, not let the unprovable part of it get on your nerves like this."
Brenton chewed the end of his cigar, as if it had been the cud of his spiritual discontent.
"But, by my profession, I am here to preach the truth," he burst out at length.
"Preach it, then," Opdyke advised him calmly.
"According to my notion, truth can always be proved."