"You did that very well," she said, "only you shouldn't have put in the
word 'sacred.' That made it all sound conventional. However, you
probably meant it. She is distracting."
The hot blood leaped into his face so that he knew that it was utterly
impossible to conceal his confusion.
"I don't know what you mean," he stammered.
Instantly his conscience reproached him with not speaking the truth. He
responded to his conscience that it was impossible in circumstances
like these to say the whole, and that what he had said was not untrue.
He could not know what his cousin meant by her pronoun, and if the
thought of Miss Morison had come instantly into his mind, it by no
means followed that it was she of whom Mrs. Staggchase was thinking.
Life seemed suddenly more complex than he had ever dreamed it possible;
and before this remark the unsophisticated deacon became so completely
confused that for the instant it was his instinctive wish to be once
more safely within the sheltering walls of the Clergy House, protected
from the temptations and vexations of the world. He was after all of a
nature which did not yield readily, however, and the next thought was
one of defiance.
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