Music blared out from the parade. Gilbert, adjusting his glasses, observed its circumstances, with his air of detached, fastidious interest.
"The Army," he remarked. "The Army calling for strayed sheep."
"Oh," exclaimed Rosalind, raising herself, "wouldn't I love to go out and be saved! I was saved once, when I was eleven. It was one of my first thrills. I felt I was blacker in guilt than all creatures before me, and I came forward and found the Lord. Afraid I had a relapse rather soon, though."
"Horrible vulgarians," Mrs. Hilary commented, really meaning Rosalind at the age of eleven. "They have meetings on the parade every morning now. The police ought to stop it."
Grandmama was beating time with her hand on the arm of her chair to the merry music-hall tune and the ogreish words.
"Blood! Blood!
Rivers of blood for you,
Oceans of blood for me!
All that the sinner has got to do
Is to plunge into that Red Sea.
Clean! Clean!
Wash and be clean!
Though filthy and black as a sweep you've been,
The waves of that sea shall make you clean...."
"That," Mrs. Hilary asserted, with disgust, "is a most disagreeable way of worshipping God." She was addicted to these undeniable statements, taking nothing for granted.
"But a very racy tune, my dear," said Grandmama, "though the words are foolish and unpleasing."
Gilbert said, "A stimulating performance. If we don't restrain her, Rosalind will be getting saved again."
He was proud of Rosalind's vitality, whimsies and exuberances.