"I think you theorize too much, my dear," said Florence. "If you want happiness, you must take life as it comes."
"Happiness," laughed Marion cynically. "Happiness is like the golden bowl at the rainbow's base; no matter how desperately you chase after it, it still glitters in the distant future."
"Possibly," replied Florence, "though I remember reading somewhere that 'the reason there is so little happiness in the world is because so few people are engaged in producing it.' Perhaps that is why we are unhappy."
"Do you know the formula for the production of this rarity?" sneered Marion.
"No, but I suppose it has something to do with the time honored saying, 'be virtuous,' and so forth."
"Yes, I know; the kind of happiness that comes from the knowledge that one is good," put in Marion. "It is a sort of self-satisfied, touch-me-not happiness, with a better-than-you-are smirk about it."
"Can't one have a clear conscience without being a Pharisee?" asked Florence.
"I don't know," sighed Marion. "It is all a question of temptation, I suppose. Some people seem to be good from birth; they are never tempted, and have no charity for those who are."
"I don't call such people good," replied Florence; "a St. Anthony without a temptation would be a sorry picture of virtuous self-control."
Marion did not reply. For a moment she remained quietly thinking, as though Florence's words had inspired her with an idea; finally she spoke, in slowly chosen words: "Do you think what the Bible says about a mental sin being as great as the outward act can be true?"