“I don't know what you 're talking about, Walter,” said Lady Blount, whose mind was practical.
“Syrinx,” said Sir Oliver, oracularly (he was a little, shrivelled man, to whose weak face a white moustache and an imperial gave a false air of distinction)--“Syrinx,” said he, “was a nymph beloved of Pan,--it's a common legend in Greek mythology,--and Pan turned her into a reed.”
“And then cut the reed up into Pan-pipes,” cried Herold, eagerly, “and made immortal music out of them--just as he makes immortal music out of Stellamaris. You see, John, it all comes to the same thing. Whether you call her Ariel, or Syrinx, or a Sprite of the Sea, or a Wunderkind whose original trail of glory-cloud has not faded into the light of common day, she belongs to the Other People. You must believe in the Other People, Julia; you can't help it.”
Lady Blount turned to him severely. Despite her affection for him, she more than suspected him of a pagan pantheism, which she termed atheistical. His talk about belief in spirits and hobgoblins irritated her. She kept a limited intelligence together by means of formulas, as she kept her scanty reddish-gray hair together by means of a rigid false front.
“I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost,” she said, with an air of cutting reproof.
Sir Oliver pushed his plate from him, but not the fraction of a millimetre beyond that caused by the impatient push sanctioned by good manners.
“I don't see how a Christian woman declaring the elements of her faith can be a fool,” said Lady Blount, drawing herself up.
“There are times and seasons for everything,” said Sir Oliver. “If you were having a political argument, and any one asked you whether you believed in tariff reform, and you glared at him and said, I believe in Pontius Pilate,' you'd be professing Christianity, but showing yourself an idiot.”
“But I don't believe in Pontius Pilate,” retorted Lady Blount.
“Oh, don't you?” cried Sir Oliver, in sinister exultation. “Then your whole historical fabric of the Crucifixion must fall to the ground.”
“I don't see why you need be irreverent and blasphemous,” said Lady Blount.
Herold laid his hand on Lady Blount's and looked at her, with his head on one side.