'What has put the question into your head?'
'I heard somebody speaking of dissenters.'
'Whom?'
'Mrs. Dallas.'
'Ah!' The colonel smiled grimly. 'She might be speaking of you and me.'
Esther knew that to have been the fact, but she did not say so. She only asked,
'What do we dissent from, papa?'
'We dissent from the notion that form is more than substance, and the kernel less valuable than the shell.'
This told Esther nothing. She was mystified; at the same time, her respect for her father did not allow her to press further a question he seemed to avoid.
'Is Pitt a dissenter, papa?'