"That was the worst of all," answered the Rector stormily, moving his papers angrily before him; "the very worst! Of course it was the cathedral, and a very beautiful picture it might have made, treated properly, in the daylight, and full of worshippers; but there again, you had got it nearly in darkness—the evening effect you would call it, I suppose; the interior was quite dusky, and a red light was coming through the chancel window. A very unpleasant suggestion was there, very.... And still further enhanced by the solitude.... The place was practically empty."
"What was the suggestion, please?" asked Regina, completely bewildered now by the attack on this picture of all others, and dazed by her wandering in the mazes of another and wholly alien mind. She still clung to the idea that she must grip hold of the keynote of these mysteries somehow.
The Rector fiddled with his paper and coughed, then he said, in his pulpit manner:
"You must not forget, Regina, that all people are not like you. It may be quite possible that you have painted that picture innocently, but you must think about others, in all these things, and consider their weaknesses. I have no hesitation in saying that that painting, if put before young people, might do great, very great, harm."
"But how? I am only asking you how?"
"Well ... er ... don't you see for yourself how the darkness, and the quiet, and the solitude might ... er ... suggest to the young people of both sexes how a cathedral might ... ah ... serve them for ... er ... er ... immoral conduct with each other?"
Regina's hands dropped from the chair back to her sides, with a gesture of collapse; her face grew even more white than it had been, as the surprise of this amazing interpretation of her sacred work forced the blood to her heart.
"No, I don't see," she said, with a steel-like hardness in her voice, "nor do I believe for one instant that any young people would or could think such things. But if they were so utterly depraved and vicious as that, nothing could hurt them, certainly not my water-colour of the cathedral. In any case, whatever you thought or felt about them, you had no right to destroy them in my absence. It was an abominable thing to do!"
"Nonsense! As a father, I have every right to act for your good. As a matter of fact, the pictures so annoyed me I lost my self-control, and tore them up as soon as I saw them."