And he shut the door, laughing; but the next minute he opened it again to say, "If Père Letellier should take it into his head to come here, send for me to keep you in countenance. You will find the bear in its den—Patient knows where."
"But, Philip, what do you expect people to do?"
It was not the advent of Père Letellier, but his own want of occupation, which, to use Philip's elegant simile, had drawn the bear out of its den. Père Letellier was gone some hours before, and Lady Ingram had shut herself up, desiring Thérèse to tell any one who asked for her that she had the vapors, and could see nobody; and Philip, thus thrown back on his own society or his sister's, had selected the latter as the pleasanter of the two.
"But what do you expect people to do?" was Celia's natural reply to Philip's remark that good people never did anything.
"Well, my dear, I can only say that if I were one of you good folks, I could not live as you do. If I believed—really, honestly believed—that all the people, or not all, say one-half, say one-tenth of the people around me, in this city alone, were going to perdition as fast as they could travel, and that I knew of something which would save them, if I could only persuade them to take it,—why, my dear Celia, I could never sit quietly on this sofa! I should want to go out instantly 'into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in.'[[19]] It would be as cruel as helping oneself to an extra slice of plumcake in the presence of a starving wretch who had lived for a week on a handful of potato-parings."
"Philip, I am sure you have been reading the Bible. You have quoted it several times lately."
"I told you I had read it," answered Philip, shortly.
"Mr. Philip," said Patient, very gravely, "you have given me somewhat to meditate upon. Your words are very exercising. We do scarce follow sufficiently that word, 'Consider your ways.'[[20]] You are quite right, Sir, more shame for us!"
"Very well, then, you agree with me," said Philip. "Well, and here are all the good, charitably-disposed Catholics shutting themselves up in convents and telling their beads; and all the good, charitably-disposed Protestants sitting on sofas, reading their good books, and mourning to each other over the wickedness of the world. Now, is that really the best thing that either party can find to do?"
"Mr. Philip, I hope you don't mean to go to compare the poor blind souls of Papists, worshipping idols in those wicked monasteries, with enlightened Christian believers either in Scotland or England?" objected Patient, with a shade of rising indignation in her tone.