"I never saw a decent opera in my life."
"Philip!"
"Nor did you."
"How ridiculous! You have been going to the opera all your life, and the theatre too, in half a dozen different countries."
"Therefore I claim to know of what I speak. And if I had a wife—" he paused. His thoughts made two or three leaps; the vision of Lois's sweet, pure dignity came before him, and words were wanting.
"What if you had a wife?" asked his sister impatiently.
"I would rather she would be anything but a 'fast' woman."
"She needn't be 'fast'; but she needn't be precise either."
There was something in Philip's air or his silence which provoked Mrs.
Burrage. She went on with some heat, and defiantly.
"I have no objection to religion, in a proper way. I always teach
Chauncey to make the responses."