“I believe, Sir Marcus,” said he, deliberately parting the tails of his exaggerated frock-coat and sitting down near me, “that you are a very great friend of my wife.”
I murmured that I had known Mrs. Mainwaring for some years.
“You are doubtless acquainted with her unhappy history.”
“I have heard her speak of it,” said I.
“You must then share her surprise in seeing me here to-day. I should like to assure you, as representing her friends and society and that sort of thing, as I have assured her, that I have not taken this step without earnest prayer and seeking the counsel of Almighty God.”
I am by no means a bigoted pietist, but to hear a person talk lightly about seeking the counsel of Almighty God jars upon my sense of taste. I stiffened at the sanctimonious tone in which the words were uttered.
“You have without doubt very good reasons for coming back into the circle of her life,” said I.
“The best of all reasons,” he replied, caressing a brown whisker, “namely, that I am a Christian.”
I liked him less and less.
“Is that the reason, may I ask, why you remained away from her all these years?”