She smiled tenderly, and with confidence. "He is already helping to make it come true. I asked him to be upon the Commission. That is why he is there."
"You?"
The Archbishop was now realizing that he knew very little about his daughter, and she not only amazed him, she frightened him. For the first time he feared that he might lose the great stakes for which he was playing; and one thing was essential—this woman, this domestic pawn which he held in his hand, must never be allowed to become queen.
And so with great pain he forced himself, and spoke on. How right he had been when he told the Prime Minister that in one way or another sacrifice would be required of him! For now he was going to sacrifice his most sacred conventions, his ideal of how an unmarried woman should be trained.
"My child," he said, "do you think that you know this man?"
"Yes; I know him better than any one else in the world."
"Do you also know his life?"
Jenifer's look turned on him a little curiously.
"I know," she said, "that he is not really a Christian."
"Ah!" he exclaimed, in a sort of joy, decorously flavored with grief, "that I did not know! Of course that explains everything. The rest inevitably follows."