He paused on the threshold of the library. This room was more grateful to him than the drawing-room, with its many lights, and its gleam and glitter of gold. Here the tints were more subdued, more sombre, from the dull rich colouring of the tiers of handsomely bound books.
Aurelia and Captain Veevers were deep in a game of draughts in a corner where Chelda had arranged them. Derrice, sitting bolt upright on a carved bench, was earnestly unfolding some tale to the clergyman, while Miss Gastonguay, buried in the deepest shadow of the room, pretended to be absorbed in a book.
"Come here, deacon," she said, crooking her finger at Justin, "sit in that old cathedral chair and talk about that girl. She has settled her affair with me. You have schooled her admirably. I am marked, labelled, and sent to perdition. This is your last visit to this house."
"Unless you repent,--'While the lamp holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return.'"
"Young man, don't jest. Tell me truly, do you believe that I am going to be condemned eternally?"
"Certainly, if you do not believe in the Son of God."
"Just what your wife says,--little witch,--and this is your Christianity, your loving-kindness."
"Pardon me, it is not _my_ Christianity."
"If there is one thing in the world that I hate more than another it is a Puritan," she said, shaking with a hastily evoked wrath.
"If there is one thing that I admire it is a Puritan," he said, coolly, "of late it is so much the fashion to berate them. Puritan is a synonym for priggishness and general narrow-mindedness. The people are mad. Do they forget the stern stuff to which they owe their country, their liberties, their very existence? Away with this sugared sweetness of, 'No matter what one's faith is as long as one lives properly.' I say, one's faith is one's life."
"You are quite excited," said his hostess, becoming calm herself.
"It always excites me. New England is burnt over with heresies. I long for the day of awakening, for the wave of enthusiasm that will spread over this country and bring back the people to the faith of their forefathers."
"You are also an egotist. If you believe what you say you do, if it was really your firm conviction that my soul was in danger, there would be no getting rid of you. Night and day you would roam around French Cross, calling on me to repent."