I cannot say that I disapprove of Marian's
choice; and I really think that it will be looked on in society as an
interesting one."

Mr. Lind's son eyed him dubiously for quite a long time. Then he said,
slowly, "Am I to understand that I may now speak of the marriage as a
recognized thing?"

"Why not, pray?"

"Of course, since you wish it, and it cannot be helped--" The clergyman
again looked at his father, still more dubiously. He saw in his eye that
there would be a quarrel if the interview lasted much longer. So he said
"I must go home now. I have to write my sermon for next Sunday."

"Very good. Do not let me detain you. Good-bye."

The Rev. George returned to his rooms quite dazed by the novelty of his
sensations. He had always respected his father beyond other men; and now
he knew that his father did not deserve his respect in the least. That
was one conviction uprooted. And Susanna had done something to him--he
did not exactly know what; but he felt altogether a different man from
the clergyman of the day before. He had come face to face with what he
called Vice for the first time, and found it not at all what he had
supposed it to be. He had believed that he knew it to be most
dangerously attractive to the physical, but utterly repugnant to the
moral sense; and such fascination he was prepared to resist to the
utmost. But he was attacked in just the opposite way, and thereby so
thrown off his guard that he did not know he was attacked at all; so
that he told himself vaingloriously that the shafts of the enemy had
fallen harmlessly from his breastplate of faith. For he was not in the
least charmed by Susanna's person. He had detected the paint on her
cheeks, and had noted with aversion a certain unhealthy bloat in her
face, and an alcoholic taint in her breath. He exulted in the
consciousness that he had been genuinely disgusted, not as a matter of
duty, but unaffectedly, as a matter of simple nature. What interested
him in her was her novel and bold moral attitude, her self-respect in
the midst of her sin, her striking arguments in favor of an apparently
indefensible course of life. Hers was no common case of loose living, he
felt: there was a soul to be saved there, if only Heaven would raise her
up a friend in some man absolutely proof against the vulgar fascination
of her prettiness. He began to imagine a certain greatness of character
about her, a capacity for heroic repentance as well as for heroic si