“In what way is my question extraordinary?”
“Mass is not exactly the usual subject of your thoughts, it seems to me.”
“It may become so, especially when I think of others, as is the case just now. Do you not often go to mass?”
“When I can.”
“Very well, you can go to-day if you wish. Listen to what I have to say to you. I have not forgotten the promise you made to respect my ideas and beliefs. I wish to make you the same; it is very simple.”
“All that is good and generous seems simple to you.”
“Well?”
“I will go at once.”
“Now? At once? It is not eight o’clock. Go to high mass, it is more fashionable.”
Fashionable! What a strange word in his mouth! It was not out of respect to fashion that she went to church, but because there was in her a depth of religious sentiment and of piety, a little vague perhaps, which Florentin’s misfortunes had revived.