Claire considered, Miss Ansted meantime watching her closely. When at last she spoke, her tone dropped lower, and was graver:
"I wish with all my soul that you would interest yourself in Bud."
"In Bud!" It was impossible not to give a start of surprise, not to say dismay. "Now, Miss Benedict, that passes comprehension! What on earth is there that I could do for a great, ignorant, blundering clod like Bud? He has plenty to eat, and is decently clothed without any assistance from me. What more can you imagine he wants?"
"He wants God," said Claire, solemnly, "and the knowledge of him in the face of Jesus Christ. He is to live forever, Miss Ansted, as certainly as you are; and the time hastens when food and clothing for the soul will be a necessity for him as well as to you, or he will appear before God naked and starved, and you will have to meet him there, and bear some of the blame."
"I never heard a person talk so in my life. Bud is not more than half-witted. I doubt whether he knows that there is such a being as God. What can you fancy it possible for me to do for him?"
"Do you think, then, that he has no soul?"
"Why, I did not say that! I suppose he has, of course. He is not an animal, though I must say he approaches very nearly to the level of one."
"And don't you think that he will have to die, and go to the judgment, and meet God?"
"How dreadful all these things are! Of course he will! but how can I help it?"
"Do you suppose he is ready?"