‘Is it fair to ask me whether I accept a novel interpretation, which I have only heard five minutes ago, delivered in a somewhat hasty and rhetorical form?’
‘You are shirking the question,’ said Raphael peevishly.
‘And what if I am? Tell me, point-blank, most self-tormenting of men, can I help you in practice, even though I choose to leave you to yourself in speculation?’
‘Well, then, if you will have my story, take it, and judge for yourself of Christian common sense.’
And hurriedly, as if ashamed of his own confession, and yet compelled, in spite of himself, to unbosom it, he told Synesius all, from his first meeting with Victoria to his escape from her at Berenice.
The good bishop, to Aben-Ezra’s surprise, seemed to treat the whole matter as infinitely amusing. He chuckled, smote his hand on his thigh, and nodded approval at every pause—perhaps to give the speaker courage—perhaps because he really thought that Raphael’s prospects were considerably less desperate than he fancied....
‘If you laugh at me, Synesius, I am silent. It is quite enough to endure the humiliation of telling you that I am—confound it!—like any boy of sixteen.’
‘Laugh at you?—with you, you mean. A convent? Pooh, pooh! The old Prefect has enough sense, I will warrant him, not to refuse a good match for his child.’
‘You forget that I have not the honour of being a Christian.’
‘Then we’ll make you one. You won’t let me convert you, I know; you always used to gibe and jeer at my philosophy. But Augustine comes to-morrow.