Earle bent his head, smiling a little. "I mean just that," he said; "or at least what you mean by that. The term is neither very correct nor very courteous, but it expresses the fact clearly enough."
This coolness had the usual effect of provoking Mr. Singleton, yet of making him feel the uselessness of expressing vexation. It was evident that his disgust was as great as his surprise, but he waited a moment before giving expression to either. Then he said, curtly:—
"It is no affair of mine what you choose to call yourself, but I should have more respect for your sense if you told me you were a Buddhist."
"Very likely," returned Earle, with composure; "for in that case I should be following the last whim of fashionable intellectual folly. But, you see, I thought it more sensible to go back to the old faith of our fathers."
"You might have gone back to paganism, then," sneered the other. "That was the faith of our fathers also."
"Very true," assented the young man; "and in that also I should have been following a large train. But I was not in search of a faith simply because it had been that of my fathers. I was in search of a faith which bore the marks of truth, and I found it to be that which some of my fathers unfortunately discarded."
"And you have absolutely joined the Church of Rome?" demanded Mr. Singleton, with ominous calmness.
"Yes," Earle replied, as calmly; "some months ago."
The elder man took up a newspaper. "In that case," he observed, in a tone of icy coldness, "I have nothing more to say. The step is one with which I have no sympathy and very little tolerance; but, fortunately, it does not concern me at all."
Mrs. Singleton shot a glance at her husband, which Marion saw was one of triumph. She knew instantly that the conversation which led to Earle's avowal had not been a matter of accident. "What a pretty trick!" she said, mentally, and, with a sudden impulse to show her sympathy with courage, she addressed the young man:—