"You're sure? I'd begun to get rather scared. You see I didn't bring out anything...."
The minister laughed again. "No, the men up here are more sensible."
"What did Miss Whitcom mean," asked Barry after a short pause, "when she spoke the way she did about the church?"
"The church, Barry?"
"Something about it being à la mode."
"Oh, I—the fact is, Barry, I don't quite know myself. I'm sure she didn't mean anything in particular. That is, you see Marjory has a kind of playful way of speaking.... You have to know her well to understand her."
"She seems like a very jolly sort."
"Yes, yes. She's ever so jolly. Sometimes I feel.... Well, of course, every one has their times of being jollier than at other times, don't they?" There seemed something here appealing, a little pathetic, even—as though Alfred Needham, if he only could one day get his heels down, would turn out really very jolly himself.
The conversation was growing thin, a little vague. It was a relief to have the talk drift into other and more concrete channels.