Katrina had opened the door, the maid was down with the measles, and the doctor was busy with a patient, a Jew much revered for his poetry.
She never bought anything of peddlers, and she seldom said more than “No, thank you.” In this case she neither said “Thank you,” nor closed the door—instead she held it open, standing a little aside for him to pass, and, utterly astonished, he did pass, waiting behind her in the hall for orders.
“We will go into the study,” she said, “my husband is busy.”
“I was selling Bibles last year,” he remarked, “but they do not go down in this section.”
“Yes,” she answered, “I see,” and she moved before him into the heavy damp parlour which was never unshuttered and which was never used. She reached up and turned on one solitary electric light.
Castillion Rodkin might have been of any nationality in the world; this was partly from having travelled in all countries, and also from a fluid temperament—little was fixed or firm in him, a necessary quality in a salesman.
Castillion Rodkin was below medium height, thin and bearded with a pale, almost white growth of hair. He was peculiarly colourless, his eyes were only a shade darker than his temples, and very restless.
She said simply, “We must talk about religion.”
And with an awkwardness unusual to him he asked “Why?”
“Because,” she said in a strained voice, making a hurt gesture, “it is so far from me.”
He did not know what to say, of course, and lifting one thin leg in its white trousers he placed it carefully over the other.
She was sitting opposite him, her head turned a little to one side, not looking at anything. “You see,” she said presently, “I want religion to become out of the reach of the few.”
“It is the only word,” she answered, and there was a slight irritation in her voice, “because it is so irrevocably for the many.”
“Yes,” he said mechanically, and reached up to his beard, leaving his hand there under a few strands of hair.
“You see,” she went on simply, “I can come to the point. For me, everything is a lie—I am not telling this to you because I need your help, I shall never need help,” she said, turning her eyes on his, “understand that from the beginning——”
“Beginning,” he said in a loud voice suddenly.