Absorbed as he was in his theological transference, he had felt sure that her request was on that selfsame theme, the more so, even, by reason of her unwonted hesitation. In his extreme surprise, he laughed a little at her question.
"Why not, Catie?"
She held up a forefinger of arch admonition.
"There you go again!" she told him, with mock petulance. "Do listen to me, Scott. You're so interested in your everlasting old churches that you haven't an idea to spare for me. I want you to promise that you won't ever call me Catie any more."
"But why? What shall I call you?" he inquired, with masculine and dazed bluntness.
"Catia. It is ever so much prettier; Catie is so babyish," she urged him.
"But, if it is your name?" he urged in return.
Her retort came with unexpected pith and promptness. Moreover, it struck home.
"So is the Baptist your church," she answered pertly. "I guess I have a right to change, as well as you."
Mrs. Brenton, that same evening, took the disclosure in quite a different spirit. To her mind, the relaxing of one's creed spelt ruin, the doorway of the church Episcopal was but the outer portal of the Church of Rome and, like all elderly women of puritanic stock who have spent their lives in a Protestant community, Mrs. Brenton looked on Rome as the last station but one upon the broad road to hell. None the less, she strove to phrase her objections as gently as she was able. However misguided Scott might be, she saw that he was in earnest, and upon that account she was the more loath to hurt him.