"As what?" Eileen still looked innocent.
"I simply think work is the noblest function of man," he burst forth. "Don't you?"
"I do not," answered Eileen. "Work is a curse. If the serpent had not tempted Eve to break God's commandment, we should still be basking in Paradise."
He looked at her curiously. "You believe that?"
"Isn't it in the Bible?" she answered, seriously astonished.
"Whatever the primitive Semitic allegorist may have thought, work is a blessing, not a curse."
"Then you are an atheist!" Eileen recoiled from this strange young man.
"Ah, you shrink back!" he said in tones of bitter pleasure. "I told you I lived in isolation."
Eileen's humour shot forth candidly. "You'll not be isolated when you die."
His bitterness passed into genial superiority. "You mean I'll go to hell. How can you believe anything so horrible?"