“What?” he asked.
“Whether, if there is an angel in me, it mightn’t be as well to trot it out.”
The self-consciousness of the slang prevented him from hating it.
“Ah!” he said. “When have you wondered?”
“Lately. It’s your fault. You have insisted so much upon the existence of the celestial being that at last I’ve become almost credulous. It’s very absurd and I’m still hanging back.”
“Call credulity belief and you needn’t be ashamed of it.”
“And if I believe, what then?”
“Then a thousand things. Belief sheds strength through all the tissues of the mind, the heart, the temperament. Disbelief sheds weakness. The one knits together, the other dissolves.”
“There are people who think angels frightfully boring company.”
“I know.”