Marion would rather he had not asked the question. She hesitated a little, then said, with an effort to speak lightly:
“She said what was natural enough—that she thought I knew almost too much about the matter, and might have been content to leave it to you.”
“I will not have her speaking in that manner to you,” he said, his face growing graver, and his forehead settling into a frown. “She ought to know better.”
“I know it,” answered Marion, a little dash of brightness in her voice. “She ought to be perfect, of course, and not give way in this undignified manner. It is only such old saints as you and I who have any right to get out of tone, when things do not go just to suit us.”
He laughed a little, then he said:
“Now, Marion, you know she has tried you very much, and without cause.”
“As to that, I suppose if you and I could see into her heart, she thinks she has sore cause. I would not make too much of it, if I were you; and I would make nothing at all of the part which has to do with me. She will feel differently before very long. She is young.”
Then Dr. Dennis’ thoughts went back to his daughter. He sighed heavily:
“I ought to have shielded her better; I was trying, I thought. I am so astonished about that man! He has been a professor of religion ever since he was a child.”
“To profess a thing is not always to possess it,” Marion said, and then she sighed to think that even in religion this was so true; and she sighed again to realize that in her hard life she had come more in contact with people who professed without possessing than her husband had.