'What, then? Merely Shem?' she laughed.
Simon laughed too. How clever she was! 'But you know I never could believe in the Trinity and all that. And, what's more, I don't believe you do yourself.'
'It isn't exactly what one believes. I was baptized into the Church of England—I feel myself a member. Really, Sim, you are a dreadfully argumentative and quarrelsome person.'
'I'll never quarrel with you, Lucy,' he said half entreatingly; for somehow he felt a shiver of cold at the word 'baptized,' as though himself plunged into the font.
In this wise did both glide away from any deep issue or decision till the summer itself glided away. Mrs. Cohn, anxiously following the courtship through Sim's love-smitten eyes, her suggestion that the girl be brought to see her received with equal postponement, began to fret for the great thing to come to pass. One cannot be always heroically stiffened to receive the cavalry of communal criticism. Waiting weakens the backbone. But she concealed from her boy these flaccid relapses.
'You said you'd bring her to see me when she returned from the seaside,' she ventured to remind him.
'So I did; but now her father is dragging her away to Scotland.'
'You ought to get married the moment she gets back.'
'I can't expect her to rush things—with her father to square. Still, you are not wrong, mother. It's high time we came to a definite understanding between ourselves at least.'
'What!' gasped Mrs. Cohn. 'Aren't you engaged?'