Finally he concluded that it would be better if Molly married money and not poverty, and did not smile on the penniless Edgar Tonmore. Therefore, finding himself alone with her during church time next morning, he thought no harm of trying to put a little spoke in the wheel to prevent that affair going too easily. But first he asked her why she did not go to church.
"I might say, why don't you go yourself?" said Molly, "but I don't mind telling you that I hardly ever do go."
"Why not?"
"Why not?" Molly was leaning back in a low chair under the shadow of the cedars, as still as if she would never move again, as still as the greyhound that was lying by her. "I hate going to church. None of it seems beautiful to me as it does to Adela. My aunt used to say that we were not fortunate in our clergyman, but personally I don't like any clergymen. I am anti-clerical like a Frenchwoman."
"Have you any French blood?"
"Yes; my mother was French."
"But you do good works; I remember how you nursed the kitchenmaid at Groombridge."
"I like to stop pain, but not because it is a good work. I can't stand all the fuss about good works and committees, and nonsense about loving the poor. It's a way rich people have to make themselves feel comfortable. Don't you think so?"
"No, I don't. I know people who make themselves exceedingly uncomfortable because they give away half what they possess."
"Really," said Molly, a little contemptuously. She knew that he was thinking of Rose Bright. "My opinion is that doing good works means to bustle about trying to get as much of other people's money to give away as you can, without giving any yourself."