The churchman’s brows arched with surprise, but he came back and stood by the chair which she indicated.
“And first,” went on the girl, standing before him like an incarnate Nemesis, her face flushed and her eyes snapping, “you will hear from me a quotation from the Scripture, on which you assume to be authority: ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he!’”
For a moment Lafelle flushed. Then his face darkened. Finally a bland smile spread over his features, and he sat down. The girl resumed her seat.
“Now, Monsignor Lafelle,” she continued severely, “you have urged me to unite with your Church. When you asked me to subscribe to your beliefs I looked first at them, and then at you, their product. You have come here this afternoon to plead with me again. The thoughts which you accepted when you saw Father Waite here alone with me, are they a reflection of love, which thinketh no evil? Or do they reflect the intolerance, the bigotry, the hatred of the carnal mind? You told me that your Church would not let me teach it. Think you I will let it or you teach me?”
Father Waite sat amazed at the girl’s stinging rebuke. When she concluded he rose to go.
“No!” said Carmen. “You, too, shall remain. You have left the Church of which Monsignor Lafelle is a part. Either you have done that Church, and him, a great injustice––or he does ignorant or wilful wrong in insisting that I unite with it.”
“My dear child,” said Lafelle gently, now recovered and wholly on his guard, “your impetuosity gets the better of your judgment. This is no occasion for a theological discussion, nor are you sufficiently informed to bear a part in such. As for myself, you unintentionally do me great wrong. As I have 171 repeatedly told you, I seek only your eternal welfare. Else would I not labor with you as I do.”
Carmen turned to Father Waite. “Is my eternal welfare dependent upon acceptance of the Church’s doctrines?”
“No,” he said, in a scarcely audible voice.
A cynical look came into Lafelle’s eyes. But he replied affably: “When preachers fall out, the devil falls in. Your reply, Mr. Waite, comes quite consistently from one who has impudently tossed aside authority.”