“Well, well,” said Mr. Breckon, with a laugh, “perhaps I am, in a way. I oughtn’t to be, of course, but if a minister ever forces himself, I suppose he’s acting.”
“I don’t see,” said Lottie, instantly availing herself of the opening, “how you can get up and pray, Sunday after Sunday, whether you feel like it or not.”
The young man said, with another laugh, but not so gay, “Well, the case has its difficulties.”
“Or perhaps you just read prayers,” Lottie sharply conjectured.
“No,” he returned, “I haven’t that advantage—if you think it one. I’m a sort of a Unitarian. Very advanced, too, I’m afraid.”
“Is that a kind of Universalist?”
“Not—not exactly. There’s an old joke—I’m not sure it’s very good—which distinguishes between the sects. It’s said that the Universalists think God is too good to damn them, and the Unitarians think they are too good to be damned.” Lottie shrank a little from him. “Ah!” he cried, “you think it sounds wicked. Well, I’m sorry. I’m not clerical enough to joke about serious things.”
He looked into her face with a pretended anxiety. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, with a little scorn. “I guess if you can stand it, I can.”
“I’m not sure that I can. I’m afraid it’s more in keeping with an actor’s profession than my own. Why,” he added, as if to make a diversion, “should you have thought I was an actor?”
“I suppose because you were clean-shaved; and your pronunciation. So Englishy.”