“I only mean, my dear, that I don’t like to see you bound by that sort of convention. Do you really think it can make any difference if we’re married on one particular date rather than another?”
“I’m thinking entirely of Father,” gently said Val, thus altogether evading the real point at issue.
Quentillian was again and again made aware of this capacity in Val for the avoidance of any discussion between them on the subject of religion.
It was as though the faint rebellion that he had discerned in her at her own way of life had been extinguished by the mere prospect of its coming to an end. Nor, when he finally forced an issue, did Val appear to possess his own capacities for impartial, essentially impersonal, discussion.
“Can’t we leave it alone, Owen? You told me what your views were—and you know what mine are. We’ve been honest with one another—isn’t that all that matters?”
“In a sense, of course it is. You don’t think that perhaps it’s a pity to know there’s one subject we must tacitly avoid—that we can’t discuss freely?”
He spoke without emphasis of any kind.
“It is a pity, of course,” said Val literally. “But how can we help it? I can hardly listen to you without disloyalty of the worst kind. If you look at it from my point of view for a moment, you do see that, don’t you, Owen?”
“Yes, I suppose I do see that,” he said heavily.
He felt strangely disappointed and disillusioned.