'Very well, you can get a return ticket on Saturday—that is, if the organist is come back.'
'Lance must play; I am not worthy.'
'You have no right to break an engagement for fancies about your own worthiness,' said Felix. 'Rouse yourself up, and don't exaggerate the thing, to alarm all the girls, and make them suspicious.'
'They ought to know. I felt myself a wicked hypocrite when Wilmet would come and read me the Psalms, and yet I could not tell her. Tell them, Felix; I cannot bear it without.'
'No, I shall not. You have no right to grieve and disgust them just because you "cannot bear it without." Cannot you bear up, instead of drooping and bemoaning in this way? It is not manly.'
'Manliness is the great temptation of this world.'
'You idiot!' Felix, in his provocation, broke out; then getting himself in hand again, 'Don't you know the difference between true and false manliness?'
'I know men of the world make the distinction,' said Clement; 'I am not meaning any censure, Felix. Circumstances have given you a different standard.'
Felix interrupted rather hotly: 'Only my father's. I have heard him say, that if one is not a man before one is a parson, one brings the ministry into contempt. The things the boys call you Tina for are not what make a good clergyman.'
'I don't feel as if I could presume to seek the priesthood after that.'