The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "Inevitable!" he exclaimed. "He's obstinate and conceited. His last pamphlet, 'Dr. Burley's True Meaning,' is monstrous. What right had he to give Burley away in that manner? If Burley had wanted to state his meaning, wouldn't he have done it? Leonard swallows the whole Westminster Confession at a gulp, and points out that Hampton and Burley do the same thing. What maladroit presumption! He ought to know that Hampton only bolts the morsel because it must. Its contortions during the process of deglutition ought to be charitably concealed. Who is Leonard that he should tear away the veil which hides a harrowing spectacle?"
Which burst of eloquence was not wholly intelligible to the lady, who, however, saw the need of dragging the doctor down from his hobby. "Well, he must not discuss these matters with his wife," she said, "if you disapprove."
"No. For ladies in the condition of our patient the Westminster Confession is too lurid. Needless to say to a matron of your experience that in the case of a bereaved young mother the brain should not be excited, the affections over-stimulated, the fancy be allowed to rove at will, either amid the joys of heaven or the horrors of hell."
Wherefore Paula was instructed to avoid conversation concerning themes celestial or infernal, and was thus deprived of a pleasure; for there had been much loving talk between her and Natalie concerning the child, now abiding in heavenly regions. Perhaps Natalie sorrowed a little, noting that Paula no longer lingered over the favorite topic; if so, she made no comment; her thoughts were her own.
"What is true marriage?" she asked one day.
"I—I don't know," replied Paula, taken unawares, and not sure whether this new topic were celestial or infernal. "Celibacy, as the ideal state——"
"A wife vows obedience," interrupted Natalie—she had heard Paula before on celibacy—"that's a small matter. Who wouldn't be obedient?"
"But, suppose a husband were to require something wrong," suggested Paula, disturbed by the fleeting vision of a wife of St. Perpetua deprived of fish on Fridays by a wicked spouse.
"He wouldn't be a true husband. My ideal of marriage is unity in all things—tastes, hopes, beliefs——"
"Belief, of course. And to the realization of that ideal a churchwoman would lead her husband."