“Does one never return?”
Again a sensation almost of terror assailed him. He felt as if he were fighting in darkness something that he could not see.
“Return!” he said. “What do you mean?”
She saw the expression of almost angry fear in his face. It warned her not to give the reins to her natural impulse, which was always towards a great frankness.
“Boris, you fled from God, but do you not think it possible that you could ever return to Him? Have you not taken the first step? Have you not prayed?” His face changed, grew slightly calmer.
“You told me I could pray,” he answered, almost like a child. “Otherwise I—I should not have dared to. I should have felt that I was insulting God.”
“If you trusted me in such a thing, can you not trust me now?”
“But”—he said uneasily—“but this is different, a worldly matter, a matter of daily life. I shall have to know.”
“Yes.”
“Then why should I not know now? At any moment I could ask Batouch.”