“Father took me up the Thames once,” she said, by and by. “It was so lovely. Some day, when all these persecutions are over, we are going to have a beautiful tour, and see all sorts of places. But I don't know when they will be over. As soon as one bigot—” she broke off suddenly, with a stifled exclamation of dismay.
Charles Osmond, in the dim light, with his long gray beard, had not betrayed his clerical dress; but, glancing round at him now, she saw at once that the stranger to whom she had spoken so unreservedly was by no means one of her father's followers.
“Well!” he said, smiling, half understanding her confusion.
“You are a clergyman!” she almost gasped.
“Yes, why not?”
“I beg your pardon, I never thought—you seemed so much too—”
“Too what?” urged Charles Osmond. Then, as she still hesitated, “Now, you must really let me hear the end of that sentence, or I shall imagine everything dreadful.”
“Too nice,” murmured Erica, wishing that she could sink through the floor.
But the confession so tickled Charles Osmond that he laughed aloud, and his laughter was so infectious that Erica, in spite of her confusion, could not help joining in it. She had a very keen sense of the ludicrous, and the position was undoubtedly a laughable one; still there were certain appalling recollections of the past conversation which soon made her serious again. She had talked of persecutions to one who was, at any rate, on the side of persecutors; had alluded to bigots, and, worst of all, had spoken in no measured terms of “tiresome Christians.”
She turned, rather shyly, and yet with a touch of dignity, to her visitor, and said: