Eric burst out in a tone of ferocious mockery:

“I thought you were such a great Protestant.”

“That doesn’t prevent me from listening to what other people have to say.”

“You think people ought to dabble in every Religion?”

“I think people ought to be broad-minded.”

“You Protestants aren’t very broad-minded about Rome.”

“‘You Protestants,’” she couldn’t help smiling at this; “why, what are you, darling?”

“It doesn’t matter what I am. I’m an ath——” but he couldn’t pronounce the ridiculous word. Turning furiously, he made a violent gesture: “I don’t believe in anything.”

She took it quite seriously, rather disconcerting him, for he was prepared to meet a sneer.

She answered:

“But surely you don’t object to different people seeing the Truth in different ways?”

“You don’t understand. I do object. Because it isn’t the Truth. I don’t just tolerate Religion; I loathe it. All Religion is vile. And religious people are all either hypocrites or idiots.”

There! He’d said it, at last. But she only answered with chilly dignity:

“If you feel like that, I can’t imagine why you come to church with me on Sundays.”

“I come to keep you company,” he said. “In future I won’t—if you’d rather not.”

“I’d much rather you stayed at home.”

That was the end of that interview. Later in the evening he’d come in and found her in tears. They had had a reconciliation. He begged forgiveness for his rudeness. They kissed each other. In bed that night, and during the next day, Eric thought over what he had said. And although he was full of compunction for his treatment of her, and the thought of that quarrel was almost intolerable to him, he couldn’t, nevertheless, take back, in his own mind, anything he’d said about Religion. It seemed to him that he had only expressed what had been his conviction for a long time. When next Sunday came round he was prepared, all the same, to go with his mother to church if she asked him to do so. He was sufficiently eager for a complete reconciliation. But Lily didn’t ask him. She never asked him again.

*   *   *