Failing of any retort, Sally now flopped definitively beyond calling back.
Braile watched her going with a sardonic smile, but when his wife, after waiting for her to be quite gone, came out to him, he was serious enough.
“Did that fool tell you of the goings on at the Temple last night?”
“As much as I would let her. I suppose it had to come to something like that. It seems as if the people had gone crazy.”
“Yes,” the Squire sighed heavily, “there's no doubt about that. And it's a pity. For such a religious community Leatherwood Creek used to be a very decent place to live in. They were a lot of zealots, but they got on well with one another; that Temple of theirs kept them together, and they didn't quarrel much about doctrine. Now with the Dylksites driving the old-fashioned believers out of the sanctuary and dedicating it to the exclusive worship of Dylks, the other denominations are going to fight among themselves; and there'll be no living with them. And that isn't the worst of it. This new deity isn't going to be satisfied with worship merely. Money, of course, he'll want and get, and he'll wear purple and fine linen, and feed upon fried chicken every day. Still the superstition might die out, and no great harm done, if the faith was confined to men. But you know what women are, Martha.”
“They're what men make 'em,” Mrs. Braile said sadly.
“It's six of one and half a dozen of another, I'm afraid. But this god of theirs is a handsome devil, and some poor fool of a girl, or some bigger fool of a married woman, is going to fall in love with him, and then—”
“Did you just think of that? Well, you can't help it by lettin' your coffee get cold.”
Braile tilted his chair down and rose from its rebound to follow his wife stiffly indoors. “The question is, Who will it be? Which poor girl? Which bigger fool? And nothing can be done to prevent it! The Real God put it into human nature, and all Hell couldn't stop it. Well, I suppose it's for some wise purpose,” he ended, in parody of the pious resignation prevailing on the tongues of the preachers.