“I’ve never been kissed by a pure woman in my life—never! except by my dear mother and sister; and mothers and sisters don’t count, when it comes to kissing.
“Ah! sweet physician that she is, and better than all! It will all come back again with a rush, just as I dreamed, and we will have a good time together, we three! …
“But your mistress is a parson’s daughter, and believes everything she’s been taught from a child, just as you do—at least, I hope so. And I like her for it—and you too.
“She has believed her father—will she ever believe me, who think so differently? And if she does, will it be good for her?—and then, where will her father come in?
“Oh! it’s a bad thing to live, and no longer believe and trust in your father, Tray! to doubt either his honesty or his intelligence. For he (with your mother to help) has taught you all the best he knows, if he has been a good father—till someone else comes and teaches you better—or worse!
“And, then, what are you to believe of what good still remains of all that early teaching—and how are you to sift the wheat from the chaff? …
“Kneel undisturbed, fair saint! I, for one, will never seek to undermine thy faith in any father, on earth or above it!
“Yes, there she kneels in her father’s church, her pretty head bowed over her clasped hands, her cloak and skirts falling in happy folds about her: I see it all!
“And underneath, that poor, sweet, soft, pathetic thing of flesh and blood, the eternal woman—great heart and slender brain—forever enslaved or enslaving, never self-sufficing, never free … that dear, weak, delicate shape, so cherishable, so perishable, that I’ve had to paint so often, and know so well by heart! and love … ah, how I love it! Only painter-fellows and sculptor-fellows can ever quite know the fullness of that pure love.
“There she kneels and pours forth her praise or plaint, meekly and duly. Perhaps it’s for me she’s praying!
“Leave thou thy sister when she prays.
“She believes her poor little prayer will be heard and answered somewhere up aloft. The impossible will be done. She wants what she wants so badly, and prays for it so hard.
“She believes—she believes—what doesn’t she believe, Tray?
“The world was made in six days. It is just six thousand years old. Once it all lay smothered under rainwater for many weeks, miles deep, because there were so many wicked people about somewhere down in Judee, where they didn’t know everything! A costly kind of clearance! And then there was Noah, who wasn’t wicked, and his most respectable family, and his ark—and Jonah and his whale—and Joshua and the sun, and whatnot. I remember it all, you see, and, oh! such wonderful things that have happened since! And there’s everlasting agony for those who don’t believe as she does; and yet she is happy, and good, and very kind; for the mere thought of any live creature in pain makes her wretched!
“After all, if she believes in me, she’ll believe in anything; let her!
“Indeed, I’m not sure that it’s not rather ungainly for a pretty woman not to believe in all these good old cosmic taradiddles, as it is for a pretty child not to believe in Little Red Riding-hood, and Jack and the Beanstalk, and Morgiana and the Forty Thieves; we learn them at our mother’s knee, and how nice they are! Let us go on believing them as long as we can, till the child grows up and the woman dies and it’s all found out.
“Yes, Tray, I will be dishonest for her dear sake. I will kneel by her side, if ever I have the happy chance, and ever after, night and morning, and all day long on Sundays if she wants me to! What will I not do for that one pretty woman who believes in me? I will respect even that belief, and do my little best to keep it alive forever. It is much too precious an earthly boon for me to play ducks and drakes with. …
“So much for Alice, Tray—your sweet mistress and mine.
“But, then, there’s Alice’s papa—and that’s another pair of sleeves, as we say in France.
“Ought one ever to play at make-believe with a full-grown man for any consideration whatever—even though he be a parson, and a possible father-in-law? There’s a case of conscience for you!
“When I ask him for his daughter, as I must, and he asks me for my profession of faith, as he will, what can I tell him? The truth?
“But, then, what will he say? What allowances will he make for a poor little weak-kneed, well-meaning waif of a painter-fellow like me, whose only choice lay between Mr. Darwin and the Pope of Rome, and who has chosen once and forever—and that long ago—before he’d ever even heard of Mr. Darwin’s name.
“Besides, why should he make allowances for me? I don’t for him. I think no more of a parson than he does of a painter-fellow—and that’s precious little, I’m afraid.
“What will he think of a man who says:
“ ‘Look here! the God of your belief isn’t mine and never will be—but I love your daughter, and she loves me, and I’m the only man to make her happy!’
“He’s no Jephthah; he’s made of flesh and blood, although he’s a parson—and loves his daughter as much as Shylock loved his.
“Tell me, Tray—thou that
