Never had Georgia questioned her faith. Its extent remained as great as ever. She had consciously yielded no part of her creed. But its living quality was infected by the daily realism of her life, as spring ice is honeycombed throughout with tiny fissures before its final sudden disappearance.
So she talked to Stevens of her convictions, but in a calm dispassionate way, without emotional fervor.
Stevens' great-grandparents whenever they referred to the Romanist Church, which was often, spoke of "the scarlet woman" or "the whore of Babylon." His grandparents, products of a softer, weaker generation, stopped at adjectives, "papist," "Jesuitical," "idolatrous."
His parents receded still further from the traditions of the Pilgrims. Indeed his father, being a popular horse doctor, kept his mouth shut altogether on the subject, and his mother seldom went beyond remarking that there was considerable superstition in the Catholic service and too much form to suit her.
As for the son himself, he could as soon have quarreled about the rights and wrongs of the Mexican war as he would about religion. He wasn't especially interested in either. He thought there was a lot of flim-flam for women in all religion, especially in Catholicism. But it was an amiable weakness of the sex, like corsets. So he let Georgia run on, explaining her faith, without interruption.
Then most wretched luck befell them. Georgia looked up from the tips of her toes, being vaguely engaged, as she talked, in stepping on each large pebble in the gravel path and her eyes rested squarely upon her mother. Mrs. Talbot mottled; Georgia blushed.
All progress was temporarily arrested; then the older woman puffed out her chest and waddled away with all the dignity at her summons. But she could not resist the Parthian shot—what Celt can!—and she turned to throw back over her shoulder, "Who's your girl-friend, Georgia?" Her teeth clicked and she continued her departure.
Stevens realized that there had been a contretemps of some sort and that it was his place, as a man of the world, to laugh it off.
"Who's the old pouter pigeon?" he inquired.
"Mama."