She regarded him closely. Her glance seemed half mocking, and yet to search into the very secrets of his heart, as if she were asking him questions which he would not have dared to ask himself. Her eyes suggested impossible things; they demanded if he had not known of forbidden cups which held wine deliriously enticing. He cast down his glance, no longer able to endure hers, yet not knowing why he was thus abashed.
"But don't you know anything of life?" she questioned. "How could you go through Harvard without seeing something of it? What were your amusements?"
"I rowed some, and I walked. The only thing that was a real pleasure outside of my work was to be with Maurice Wynne. I do not remember that I ever thought about needing to be amused. Of course I knew a few fellows. I never knew a great many of the men."
She looked at him rather incredulously. Then she once more threw out her hands in a gesture of amusement and amazement.
"Good heavens!" declared she; "there are just two things which might be done with you. You should be put in a glass case as a unique specimen of otherwise extinct virtue; or you should be sent to Paris to learn to be a real man. However, it's not my place to take charge of you, so that may pass."
There burned in the cheek of Ashe a spot of crimson which was perhaps too deep not to betoken something of the nature of earthly indignation.
"Mrs. Wilson," he said, "I came here to discuss church interests, and not to be myself the subject of remarks which you certainly would not think of making to other gentlemen who call on you."
"Bravo!" she cried. "There's the making of a man in him. It's a thousand pities you can't go to Paris and learn the fun of life."
"If you wish only to talk lightly of evil things," said he, "I do not see that it is necessary for me to take up more of your time."
"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?"