ttle brain addled by notions that she is
like Hypatia, and a large impudence rendered intolerable by the fact
that she has money. Her father is a decent man. He ought to have her
whipped."

Mr. Ware drew himself erect, as he listened to these outrageous words.
It would be unmanly, he felt, to allow such comments upon an absent
friend to pass unrebuked. Yet there was the courtesy due to a host to
be considered. His mind, fluttering between these two extremes,
alighted abruptly upon a compromise. He would speak so as to show his
disapproval, yet not so as to prevent his finding out what he wanted to
know. The desire to hear Ledsmar talk about Celia and the priest
seemed now to have possessed him for a long time, to have dictated his
unpremeditated visit out here, to have been growing in intensity all the
while he pretended to be interested in orchids and bees and the drugged
Chinaman. It tugged passionately at his self-control as he spoke.

"I cannot in the least assent to your characterization of the lady," he
began with rhetorical dignity.

"Bless me!" interposed the doctor, with deceptive cheerfulness, "that is
not required of you at all. It is a strictly personal opinion, offered
merely as a contribution to the general sum of hypotheses."

"But," Theron went on, feeling his way, "of course, I gathered that
evening that you had prejudices in the matter; but these are rather
apart from the point I had in view. We were speaking, you will remember,
of the traditional attitude of women toward priests--wanting to curl
their hair and put flowers in it, you know, and that suggested to me
some individual illustrations, and it occurred to me to wonder just what
were the relations between Miss Madden and--and Father Forbes. She
said this morning, for instance--I happened to meet her, quite by
accident--that she was going to the church to practise a new piece, and
that she could have Father Forbes to herself all day. Now that would
be quite an impossible remark in our--that is, in any Protestant
circles--and purely as a matter of comparison, I was curious to ask you
just how much there was in it. I ask you, because going there so much
you have had exceptional opportunities for--"

A sharp exclamation from his companion interrupted the clergyman's
hesitating monologue. It began like a high-pitched, violent word, but
dwindled suddenly into a groan of pain. The doctor's face, too, which
had on the flash of Theron's turning seem