The priest smiled faintly and kindly.
"So you will stand by business coöperation at expense to yourself, but not social coöperation, or spiritual coöperation?"
"About the last two—" the drummer shook a finger—"I don't know."
"Now let us see," said the priest, evidently becoming more comfortable. "You owed your time to your company. Why did you not spend your time with the general, trying to get an order, instead of with the general's wife?"
"I did try to, but he wouldn't talk business, and that's the only kind of talk I can talk with a man. When I talk anything besides business or politics, it's got to be with a woman. Then when I saw how badly treated the señora was—why, any man with a spark of manhood—"
"Would assist her," finished the priest. "But do you think it fair or honest to your employers to give up their business in order to rectify wrongs which don't concern you? And was there as much suffering as you fancied? You found things here exactly as they had been for six years. It was a status quo, a method of existence, and then you came in and broke it all up. You persuaded a frail girl into the belief that happiness lies not in following the law of God but in yielding to her impulses and passion."
"Well, she will probably get happiness that way. Most women do. At least, she'll have a chance. If a woman's first marriage is a failure, maybe she'll have better luck next time."
"But you say, yourself, one ought not to break business obligations."
"Sure not!"
"Don't you think vows taken before God are as binding as a trade between an employer and a salesman?"