“I do not think myself omniscient,” retorted the girl, colouring.
“No? Well, darling, from where then do you derive your authority to cancel the credentials of the Most High?”
“What!”
“On what authority except your own omniscience do you so confidently preach the non-existence of omnipotence?”
Palla turned her flushed face in sensitive astonishment under the gentle mockery.
Ilse said: “Love has many names; and so has God. And all are good. If, to you, God means that little flame within you, then that is good. And so, to others, according to their needs.... And it is the same with love.... So, if for the man you love, love can be written only as a phrase––if the word love be only one element in a trinity of which the other two are Law and Wedlock––does it really matter, darling?”
“You mean I––I am to renounce my––creed?”
Ilse shook her head: “Who cares? The years develop and change everything––even creeds. Do you think your lover would care whether, at twenty-odd, you worship the flaming godhead itself, or whether you guard in spirit that lost spark from it which has become entangled with your soul?––whether you really do believe the man-made law that licenses your mating; or whether you reject it as a silly superstition? To a business man, convention is merely a safe procedure which, ignored, causes disaster––he knows that whenever he ignores it––as when he drives a car bearing no license; and the police stop him.”
“I never expected to hear this from you, Ilse.”