“Do you wish me to say anything to your father about that?”
Val blushed deeply, but spoke quite resolutely.
“No, I don’t. I’ve thought it over, and I can’t see that it concerns anyone but you and me. Lucilla says so, too. I asked her what she thought. It’s not as though I were eighteen, and it’s not as though I didn’t trust you, absolutely, not to interfere with my beliefs, any more than I with your—unbeliefs.”
Confronted with her grave trustfulness, no less than with the obvious justice of her words, Quentillian could only agree with her.
His rather arrogant conviction of earlier days, that Val’s beliefs must go, gave place to an unescapable certainty that they would not even be modified. Rather would Valeria, enforced by tradition and by the inherited faith that was in her, expect with the course of years to influence her husband’s views.
Owen felt strongly the hopelessness of such expectation, and still more strongly the inexpediency, not to say the impossibility, of urging that hopelessness upon Valeria.
It was decided that the wedding should take place in January, and the engagement be made public just before Christmas.
“You do not want to let the world in upon your joy too soon, young people,” the Canon told them with a grave smile.
Val’s answering smile acquiesced in the assumption, as indeed the smiles and silences, no less than the spoken words, of his entire family were always apt to acquiesce in any assumption made by Canon Morchard, whether the facts warranted such acquiescence or not.
The days slipped by, very much as they had slipped by before Quentillian and Valeria had become engaged. If Quentillian had expected a greater difference, a more profound element, he was destined to be disappointed.