"
"Well," she responded, smilingly unmoved, "I'll confess that if there
is one thing for which I am especially grateful to Providence it is for
its having spared me the ennui of having to live in a virtuous world!
But sit down, and I'll talk as if that blessing had not been granted to
us. As for the salutation of Mr. Rangely which so shocked your
reverence, that was part of the campaign. He had just promised to write
an article for the 'Churchman' advocating Father Frontford from the
point of view of a layman; and of course until that is in print it is
necessary to be gracious to him. The trouble with you is that you've
seen so little of life that you exaggerate the most innocent things.
You really are rather insulting to me, if you think of it; but I pardon
it because you don't know what you were doing. I suppose you never
wanted to kiss a woman's hand or to write a sonnet to her eyebrow?"
Ashe felt the blood rush into his face in so hot a tide that he
involuntarily turned away from his tormentor and walked toward the
door. The question would in any case have been disconcerting, but it
was made doubly so by the word which recalled the phrase from the
Persian hymn which was in his mind so closely associated with Mrs.
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