"Politics!" scornfully.
"People will cut you."
"Let them." Opposition, clarifying his mind, keyed him to fight. "Let them! What do I care? We sha'n't have done anything wrong."
"It's always wrong to set ourselves up against the world."
"That's sheer cowardice. And it isn't true, either. What about Jesus Christ?"
"That's sheer blasphemy."
One of the dinner-table candles guttered and went out. To Julia, it seemed like an omen. She saw her son's career gutter out in that curling smoke; saw him entrapped by the powers of darkness, prey to the personal devil. Now no one except God, her own particular secular god, could help. She prayed voicelessly to that particular secular god for words to save the entrapped soul of her boy.
"Ronnie! You've always been so good, the best of sons. You've never given me a moment's anxiety--never--since the day you were born. Until now! And you've always trusted me. Won't you trust me in this? Won't you believe me when I tell you that the thing you contemplate is a sin?"
Quietly, he answered, "If God is love, how can love be a sin?"
The phrase shot a tiny sliver of doubt through the armor of Julia Cavendish's belief, pricking her unwisdom to retort: