“I hope I haven't interrupted an important conversation. You appeared to be talking very earnestly.”
I should have answered, but Hephzy's look of horrified expostulation warned me to be silent. Frances, although she must have seen the look, answered instead.
“We were discussing Heaven,” she said, calmly. “Mr. Knowles doesn't approve of it.”
Hephzy bounced on her chair. “Why!” she cried; “why, what a—why, WHAT will Mr. Judson think! Now, Frances, you know—”
“That was what you said, Mr. Knowles, wasn't it. You said if Paradise was exclusively for church members you preferred—well, another locality. That was what I understood you to say.”
Mr. Judson looked at me. He was a very good and very orthodox and a very young man and his feelings showed in his face.
“I—I can scarcely think Mr. Knowles said that, Miss Morley,” he protested. “You must have misunderstood him.”
“Oh, but I didn't misunderstand. That was what he said.”
Again Mr. Judson looked at me. It seemed time for me to say something.
“What I said, or meant to say, was that I doubted if the future life, the—er—pleasant part of it, was confined exclusively to—er—professed church members,” I explained.