“I believe so,” she answered; and there was a note of dryness in her voice.
There was a pause; David leaning forward and staring at the Persian rug at his feet with knitted brows, as if it were a document in a strange and difficult script.
Suddenly he looked up and said; “Why is she doing that?”
“That you must ask her,” she answered coldly.
“I heard ... that ... that it was because Captain Dundas’s uncle wouldn’t leave him Drumsheugh, if he married a Catholic, but ... that wouldn’t be true, would it?”
“What? That Colonel Dundas has a prejudice against Catholics?”
“No, that that’s the reason she’s leaving the Church?”
She gave a little shrug: “Well, I suppose Paris makes up for a mass.”
For a few seconds he looked puzzled, and then said, “Oh yes, that was Henry IV. of France—only the other way round.... That was a curious case of Grace working through queer channels—a man finding the Church and salvation through worldliness and treachery to his friends. But I shouldn’t wonder if what I was saying wasn’t heresy—I’m not very learned in the Fathers yet.”
He paused; and then, fixing her with his eyes, said—“Did it shock you very much—her being perverted for such a reason?”