After a while Drene sat up on his couch:
“How did all this conversation start?” he asked uneasily.
“It was about the Virgin for that chapel we are going to do..... That’s part of my belief: those who pray for her intercession will find her after death, interceding—” he smiled, “—if any intercession be necessary between us and Him who made us.”
“And those unlisted millions who importune Mohammed and Buddha?”
“They shall find Mohammed and Buddha, who importune them worthily.”
“And—Christ?”
“He bears that name also—He!”
“Oh! And so, spiritually as well as artistically, you believe in the Virgin?”
“You also can make a better Virgin if you believe in her otherwise than esthetically.”
Drene gazed at him incredulously, then, with a shrug: