JAMES FORBES
“It is all a lie, and it is hard to believe that people who preach it do not know it to be a lie.”
So said James Forbes to Elizabeth Castleton, the young woman to whom he was engaged. She was the daughter of a clergyman, and James, who had been brought up at Rugby and Oxford, was now in his last year at a London hospital, and was going to be a doctor.
“I am sure my father does not know it to be a lie, and I do not myself know it to be a lie.”
“I was not thinking of your father, but of the clergy generally, and you do know it to be a lie.”
“It is not true of my brother, and, excepting my father and brother, you have not been in company with parsons, as you call them, for half an hour in your life.”
“Do you mean to tell me you have any doubts about this discredited rubbish?”
“If I have I would rather not speak about them now. Jim, dear Jim, let us drop the subject and talk of something else.”
He was walking by her side, with his hands in his coat pockets. She drew out one of his hands; he did not return the pressure, and presently released himself.
“I thought you were to be my intellectual companion. I have heard you say yourself that a marriage which is not a marriage of mind is no marriage.”