"But what do you mean by the world, Mr. Masters? We cannot get out of the world—it is a pretty good world, too, I think, take it for all in all. People talk of being worldly and not worldly;—but they do not know what they are talking about."
"Why not?" Diana asked.
"Well, now, ask my wife," Mr. Brandt answered, laughing. "She thinks it is 'worldly' to have a cockade on your coachman's hat; it is not worldly to have the coachman, or the carriage, and she don't object to a coat with buttons. Then it is not worldly to give a party,—but it is worldly to dance; it is very worldly to play cards. There's hair-splitting somewhere, and my eyes are not sharp enough to see the lines."
Diana sat with her book in her hand, looking up at the speaker; a look so fair and clear and grave that Mr. Brandt was again moved by curiosity, and tempted to try to make her speak.
"Can you make it out?" he said, smiling.
"Why, yes!" said Diana; "but there is no hair-splitting. It is very simple. There are just two kingdoms in the world, Mr. Brandt; and whatever does not belong to the one, belongs to the other. Whatever is not for God, is for the world."
"Then your definition of the 'world' is?"—
"All that is not God's."
"But I am not clear yet. I don't see how you draw the line. Take my mills, for example; they belong to this profane, work-a-day world; yet I must run them. Is that worldly?"
"Yes, if you do not run them for God."