"The proof of what we can do—given the one necessary thing, man. Lord! how the Japs must gnash their teeth when they think of the prize out here in the lone Pacific! When I am a politician——."
"Why not now?" Desmond asked. "Go forth and preach your new crusade. You can't begin too soon."
"I object to his preaching it in a car. Motors were never made for moralising. There's a feeling, in riding in a car, that makes a person lazy and contented," cried Molly Healy.
"Until something goes wrong with the car," suggested Desmond. "Then——."
"I have heard them in difficulties, and my ears are still tingling and my conscience burning me for the language they used," said Molly Healy.
"It's no use carrying other men's sins on your conscience. Haven't you sufficient of your own?" asked Desmond.
"That is between me and my confessor, Desmond. But if I don't carry these men's crimes no one will trouble about them, for they don't seem to think it a sin to swear at a motor, although they call the thing 'she.'"
"That's why they abuse her—woman was the original cause of sin, and still is, nine cases out of ten."
"Shame on you! The world would have little virtue to be boasting of were it not for us poor women."
"And less of sin," Desmond replied, cynically.