“Then,” she said, “as a parson, tell me if it would not be wrong to marry a man for whom one did not care, just for the sake of these things—a household and a husband.”
“Of course it would,” answered Mr. Glynde. “And that is a wrong which is usually punished in this life. But there are cases where it is difficult to say whether there be love or not. Unless you actually despise or hate a man, you may come to care for him.”
“And in the meantime the position and the advantages mentioned are worth seizing?”
“So says the world,” admitted Mr. Glynde.
“And what says the parson?”
She went to him and laid her two arms upon his broad chest, standing behind him as he sat in his arm-chair and looking down affectionately upon his averted face.
“And what says the parson?” she repeated, with a loving tap of her fingers on his breast.
“Nothing,” was the reply. “A better parson than I says that what is natural is right.”
“Yes, and that means follow the dictates of your own heart?”
“I suppose so,” admitted the Hector, taking her two hands in his.