"Oh!" exclaimed Marion, carelessly, "that surely does not matter—with liberal people."
"It matters with Catholics," said Mrs. Dalton. "Although not a Catholic yourself, you ought to know that."
"I know that people who have always been Catholics feel so. But you, who were once a Protestant—I should think that you would be more broad."
"Converts are the last people to be broad in that respect," said Mrs. Dalton. "They have known too much of the bitterness of differing feeling on that subject. But you do not understand, so we will not discuss it. I forgot for a moment that you are separated from us in faith."
"I am separated from you because I do not hold your faith," said Marion, frankly; "but I am not separated because I hold any other. All religions are alike to me, except that I respect the Catholic most. But I could never belong to it."
"Never is a long day," observed Mrs. Dalton. "You do not know what light the future may hold for you. However, we will talk of this another time; for here come the garden party."
They came through the twilight as she spoke, the light dresses of the girls showing with pretty effect against the dark masses of shrubbery, and their gay young voices ringing out, with accompaniment of laughter, through the still air.
"Marion!—where is Marion?" cried Helen, as she reached the veranda. "Oh! there you are still, under the vines! Here is a greeting from the garden that you would not go to see."
It was a cluster of odorous roses—splendid jacqueminots—which fell into Marion's lap, and which she took up and pinned against her white dress. Their glowing color lent a fresh touch of brilliancy to her appearance when Paul Rathborne found himself opposite to her at the well-lighted tea-table. The twilight had revealed to him that she was handsome, but he had not been prepared for such beauty as now met and fascinated his gaze. He regarded her with a wonder which was as evident as his admiration, and not less flattering to her vanity. For Helen's confidences had enabled her to form a very correct idea of this cold, self-contained man; and she felt that to move him so much was no small earnest of her power to move others.
Meanwhile she glanced at him now and then with critical observation, seeing a keen face, with deep-set eyes under a brow more high than broad; a thin-lipped mouth, which did not smile readily; and a general air of reserve and power. It was a face not without attraction to the girl, whose own spirit was sufficiently ambitious and arrogant to recognize and respond to the signs of such a spirit in another. "He is a man who means to make his way in the world, and who will use poor little Helen as a stepping-stone," she thought. "A cold, supercilious, selfish man—the kind of man who despises women, I fancy. Let us see if he will despise me."