“Who made my marriage a sacrament?”
“I did, as the agent of God.”
“And the minute you pronounce a couple married they are registered in heaven, and God completes the union?”
“You may put it as you please; the truth is divine.”
“In other words, a man like you can pronounce two people man and wife, but once the words have escaped his lips nothing can ever correct the mistake.”
“There are certain conditions which annul a marriage, but once it is genuinely ratified on earth it is ratified in heaven.”
“In heaven, where, as the New Testament says in several places, married people do not live together? The woman who had seven husbands on earth, you know, didn't have any at all in heaven.”
“So Christ answered the Sadducee who tempted him with questions.”
“Marriage is strictly a matter of the earth, earthy, then?”
“Nothing is strictly that, my child. But what in the name of either earth or heaven has led you to come over here and break into my morning's work with such a fusillade of childish questions? You know a child can ask questions that a wise man cannot answer. Also, a child can ask questions which a wise man can answer to another wise man but not to a child. You talk like an excited, an unreasoning girl. I am surprised to hear you ridiculing the institution of Christian marriage, but your ridicule does not prove it to be ridiculous.”