"Haven't got one," said Larry. "Sorry. I gave them up in Lent, and now I'm doing as well without 'em."
"Nerve gone already," said Christian. "That's what comes of missing a season!" She laughed up at him.
"Don't know," said Larry, dropping down beside her on the dry, sun-hot grass; "quite likely; but it wasn't that. The fact was"—he hesitated—"I met a very decent Padre at Mürren. We used to talk a lot about—oh, no end of things! When he found I was Irish he was awfully pleased. He congratulated me on belonging to the Old Faith—he's Irish himself, but he's never lived over here. He said it was such a wonderful link with the people and the past—such a romantic religion! And so it is, you know. It hadn't struck me, somehow, till Father Nugent talked of it. I'm sorry for you, Christian! Don't you feel being a Protestant is a bit—well—stodgy—and respectable—no sort of poetry?"
"I like stodge," said Christian, serenely.
Larry paid this frivolity no attention. He had only recently discovered that he possessed a soul, and he was as much pleased with it as he had been with his first watch, and he found much the same enjoyment in producing and examining it, that had been afforded to him by the watch.
"It was Father Nugent's suggestion to give up smoking," he said, unable to eliminate from his voice a touch of pride, "I knocked off whiskies and sodas, too—but that was off my own bat."
"'Smite them by the merit of the Lenten Fast!'" murmured Christian. Unlike Larry, she evaded personalities and especially those that involved a discussion of religion. "Larry do you remember the awful rags we used to have over that hymn! What ages it is since you were at home! Not since I've had my hair up!"
"By Jove, I hardly knew you when I saw you first!" responded Larry, his sails filling on a fresh tack with characteristic speed. "It's not as light as it used to be. I'm not sure that I like it up."
He looked at her critically. Her hair, thick and waving lay darkly on her forehead, and was stacked in masses upon her small head on a system known only to herself.
"That's a pity," said Christian, coolly, "and I hate it, too. But unluckily, whether you and I hate it or not, it's got to stay up now—that's to say, when it will. I am supposed to be 'out.' I'm nearly eighteen, you know. I never thought I'd live to such an age."