“What? That Colonel Dundas has a prejudice against Catholics?”
“No, that that’s the reason she’s leaving the Church?”
She gave a little shrug: “Well, I suppose Paris makes up for a mass.”
For a few seconds he looked puzzled, and then said, “Oh yes, that was Henry IV. of France—only the other way round.... That was a curious case of Grace working through queer channels—a man finding the Church and salvation through worldliness and treachery to his friends. But I shouldn’t wonder if what I was saying wasn’t heresy—I’m not very learned in the Fathers yet.”
He paused; and then, fixing her with his eyes, said—“Did it shock _you_ very much—her being perverted for such a reason?”
“Really, Mr. Munroe,” she said coldly, “my feelings about the matter are nobody’s concern, I....”
“I beg your pardon,” he said gruffly, and blushed to the roots of his hair.
“Oh these touchy Scots!” she thought impatiently.
There was an awkward silence for some seconds, and she decided the only way to “save his face” was to ask _him_ a personal question, and give him the chance of snubbing her in his turn; so she said, “We had no idea when you stayed with us last autumn that you were thinking of being ordained ... but perhaps you weren’t thinking of it then?”
He did not answer at once, but seemed to be meditating: “It’s never quite a matter of _thinking_,” he said finally, “it’s just a drifting ... drawn on and on by the perfumes of the Church. What is it the Vulgate says again? _In odore unguentorum tuorum curremus_ ...” he broke off, and then after a few seconds, as if summing up, slightly humorously, the situation, he added ruminatively, the monosyllable “úhu!” And the queer Scots ejaculation seemed to give a friendly, homely turn to his statement.
“You were lucky being born in the Church,” he went on; “my father was an Established Church minister up in Inverness-shire, and I was taught to look upon the Church as the Scarlet Woman. I remember once at the Laird’s I ... well, I came near to bringing up my tea because Lady Stewart happened to say that her cook was a Catholic. And sometimes still,” and he lowered his voice and looked at her with half frightened eyes, “sometimes still I feel a wee bit sick at mass.”