"I like him to lecture," Angelica insisted. "I like him to talk about the Church, how it is going to encompass the earth, the sea, and all that in them is; and that kind of thing, you know—boom, boom! He makes you feel as if every word he uttered ought to be printed in capital letters; and it seems as if your eyes opened wider and wider, and your skin got tight."
Diavolo nodded his head to one side in intelligent acquiescence.
Not being troubled with self-consciousness, he wore the handkerchief with which his head was decorated with the grave dignity of his best behaviour.
"I sometimes think, sir," he began, addressing the bishop exactly in his father's precise way, "that there is something remarkable about my grandfather. He is a kind of a prophet, I imagine, to whom the Lord doesn't speak."
Edith walked to the window, Mrs. Beale got out her handkerchief hastily; the bishop's countenance relaxed.
"I suppose you wouldn't like us to be converted?" Angelica asked.
"We call it perverted, dear child," said Mrs. Beale.
"Well, they call it converted just as positively up at the castle,"
Angelica rejoined, not argumentatively, merely stating the fact.
"I wonder what the angels call it," said Diavolo, looking up in their direction out of a window opposite, and then glancing at the bishop as if he thought he ought to know.
"I don't suppose they care a button what we call it," Angelica decided off-hand, out of her own inner consciousness. "But you would not like us to be either 'con' or 'per,' would you?" she asked the bishop.