He nodded. "A fine place, though I should not call it old, at least, to us English."
"All things are relative; it is old to this country, which is new. Just as you are Sir Edward Parkington and a great man, here."
"While in England, you mean," he laughed, "I am only one of a vast number—an insignificant atom among the nobility."
"Yes—and I, that am not even noble, am, here, the toast of a Province."
"In which England joins!" with a bow.
"I was proving a proposition, sir, not seeking a compliment."
"It is proven," he said. "One will admit anything, grant anything, on such an afternoon as this, and with such surroundings; I would give a man my last shilling, a woman—if she were pretty—my—my soul."
"The usual way—the man would get something, the woman nothing. No woman wants your soul, even were it yours to give."
"Or even if I had a soul," he appended.
"Oh, no!" she said. "You do not get me to arguing on that topic. No one knows, so every one believes what his conscience dictates. I am orthodox, and go along with the Church. I do not care what you believe, and I do not want to know. So far as I am concerned, every one can take care of his own hereafter—he alone will have to pay penalty, if he is in error."