‘Tire of you! Good heavens! Now you’ll never guess what I was doing while the parson was telling us about what Saint Paul said to the Colossians, and all the rest of it.’
‘I know perfectly well what you were doing. And you shouldn’t have done it.’
‘What was I doing, then?’
‘You were staring at me.’
‘Oh, you saw that, did you?’
‘I felt it.’
‘Well, I was. But I was praying also.’
‘Were you, Frank?’
‘When I saw you kneeling there, so sweet and pure and good, I seemed to realise how you had been given into my keeping for life, and I prayed with all my heart that if I should ever injure you in thought, or word, or deed, I might drop dead now before I had time to do it.’
‘O Frank, what a dreadful prayer!’