"And sing in that stuffy room, to the accompaniment of that horrid little organ, and for the benefit of such an audience as South Plains would furnish! Thank you, I don't mean to do it! What else?"
"Of what special use is it for me to suggest ways, since you receive them with such determined refusals?"
"That I may have the pleasure of seeing how far your enthusiasm reaches. I would call it fanaticism if I dared, Miss Benedict, but that would be rude. Tell me what next?"
Claire considered, Miss Ansted meantime watching her closely. When at last she spoke, her tone dropped lower, and was graver:
"I wish with all my soul that you would interest yourself in Bud."
"In Bud!" It was impossible not to give a start of surprise, not to say dismay. "Now, Miss Benedict, that passes comprehension! What on earth is there that I could do for a great, ignorant, blundering clod like Bud? He has plenty to eat, and is decently clothed without any assistance from me. What more can you imagine he wants?"
"He wants God," said Claire, solemnly, "and the knowledge of him in the face of Jesus Christ. He is to live forever, Miss Ansted, as certainly as you are; and the time hastens when food and clothing for the soul will be a necessity for him as well as to you, or he will appear before God naked and starved, and you will have to meet him there, and bear some of the blame."
"I never heard a person talk so in my life. Bud is not more than half-witted. I doubt whether he knows that there is such a being as God. What can you fancy it possible for me to do for him?"
"Do you think, then, that he has no soul?"
"Why, I did not say that! I suppose he has, of course. He is not an animal, though I must say he approaches very nearly to the level of one."
"And don't you think that he will have to die, and go to the judgment, and meet God?"
"How dreadful all these things are! Of course he will! but how can I help it?"
"I don't suppose he ever thought of such a thing in his life. He hasn't mind enough, probably, to comprehend."
"Do you really think so? Don't you believe the boy to whom you can say, 'Close the blinds on the north side, to shut out the wind,' could understand if you said: 'Bud, God is as surely in the world as the wind is, though you can not see either. He has said that when you die you shall see him, and that you shall live with him in a beautiful home, if you will love him here, and obey his orders; and what he wants you to do is all printed in a book that you can learn to read?' Do you think Bud could not comprehend as much as that?"