“In childhood, yes. I doubt when they get older it’s too late. And so you contemplate lifetime imprisonment?”
“Could you suggest anything better?”
“Well, there’s escape. What do you say to that?”
“Futile. Absolutely futile.”
“The Devil has helped her once; he may do so again.”
“The Devil! Who or what is that?”
(They were ignorant of such a person on Lucifram.)
“Ah! I had forgotten. He was never fashionable here. The Devil is a libel on virtue; the exact imitator of God.”
“And she is on familiar terms with this—this atrocity?”
“I owe a general pardon. I was confounding him with a Superior Being, an error commoner than one thinks of.”