“Perhaps not. It may be so. But this priest—he’s not like that.”
She thought of his genial, bearded face, his expression when he said, “We are ruffians of the sun,” including himself with the desert men, his boisterous laugh.
“His fault might be the other way.”
“Which way?”
“Too great a tolerance.”
“Can a man be too tolerant towards his fellow-man?” said Androvsky.
There was a strange sound of emotion in his deep voice which moved her. It seemed to her—why, she did not know—to steal out of the depth of something their mutual love had created.
“The greatest of all tolerance is God’s,” she said. “I’m sure—quite sure—of that.”
Androvsky came in out of the shadow of the tent, took her in his arms with passion, laid his lips on hers with passion, hot, burning force and fire, and a hard tenderness that was hard because it was intense.
“God will bless you,” he said. “God will bless you. Whatever life brings you at the end you must—you must be blessed by Him.”