She drew a stifled breath. "You don't know what you are talking about,
Don. How could you, a bachelor like you?"
"Couldn't I? Well, Sue, if fathers may be divided into the same two classes, I might be found in one of them."
She stared at him. "You? Oh, I can't believe it. You could have married long ago, if you had wanted to. You could have married anybody—simply anybody!"
"You do me too much honour—or discredit, I'm not just sure which."
"But it's true. With your position—and your money! Rich and brilliant clergymen aren't so common, Donald Brown. And your personality, your magnetism! Men care for you. Women have always hung on your words!"
He made a gesture of distaste; got up.
"Sterility of soul is a worse thing than sterility of body," said he.
"But sometimes—God cures the one when He cures the other."
"But you never prescribed this strange thing before."
He smiled. "I've been learning some things out here, Sue, that I never learned before. One of them is how near God is to a little child."
"You've learned that—of your neighbours?" Her accent was indescribable.