Mona smiled down on the upturned face.
"If Gretchen asked me, I hope the Good Spirit would give me words. If my husband asked me——"
"He does. 'Glaubst du an Gott?'"
Mona did not answer at once. She looked round at the silent eloquent world of olive-trees, with their grand writhing Laocoon-like stems, and their constant, ever-varying crown of leaves—those trees that seem to have watched the whole history of man, and that sum up in themselves all the mystery of his life, from the love of pleasure in the midst of pain, to the worship of sorrow in a world of beauty——
"Ralph," she said, "when you ask me I cannot tell; but I worship Him every moment of my life!"
She smiled. "You have surprised me out of my creed, and you see it is not a creed at all."
"Be thankful for that! It seems to me that the intensest moment in the life of a belief is when it is just on the eve of crystallising into a creed. Don't hurry it."
"No, I am content to wait. When I go to church, I always feel inclined to invert the words of the prayer, and say, 'Granting us in this world life everlasting, and, in the world to come, knowledge of Thy truth.'"