“My father will be home in a few minutes,” she said; “I almost wonder you didn't meet him in the square; he has only just gone to send off a telegram. Can you wait? Or will you leave a message?”
“I will wait, if I may,” said Charles Osmond. “Oh, don't trouble about a light. I like this dimness very well, and, please, don't let me interrupt you.”
Erica relinquished a vain search for candle lighters, and took up her former position on the hearth rug with her toasting fork.
“I like the gloaming, too,” she said. “It's almost the only nice thing which is economical! Everything else that one likes specially costs too much! I wonder whether people with money do enjoy all the great treats.”
“Very soon grow blase, I expect,” said Charles Osmond. “The essence of a treat is rarity, you see.”
“I suppose it is. But I think I could enjoy ever so many things for years and years without growing blase,” said Erica.
“Sometimes I like just to fancy what life might be if there were no tiresome Christians, and bigots, and lawsuits.”
Charles Osmond laughed to himself in the dim light; the remark was made with such perfect sincerity, and it evidently had not dawned on the speaker that she could be addressing any but one of her father's followers. Yet the words saddened Him too. He just caught a glimpse through them of life viewed from a directly opposite point.
“Your father has a lawsuit going on now, has he not?” he observed, after a little pause.
“Oh, yes, there is almost always one either looming in the distance or actually going on. I don't think I can ever remember the time when we were quite free. It must feel very funny to have no worries of that kind. I think, if there wasn't always this great load of debt tied round our necks, like a millstone, I should feel almost light enough to fly. And then it IS hard to read in some of those horrid religious papers that father lives an easy-going life. Did you see a dreadful paragraph last week in the 'Church Chronicle?'”