"Oh, nothing but a bore, of course. Is this comedy with some of your ministerial hangers-on?"
She sat down by the fire and stretched out her feet upon a hassock. She was radiant with beauty and mischief, and dressed to perfection.
"That isn't a respectful way to speak of the clergy."
"It's as respectful as I feel," he responded, lighting a pipe. "You do have a nice gang of them round. There's Candish, for instance. He looks like an advertisement for a misfit tailor, and he's fairly putrid with philanthropy."
Elsie gave a quick burst of laughter. Then she pretended to frown.
"Chauncy," she said, "you have the most abominable way of putting things that I ever heard. What would you say to the youngsters from the Clergy House that I have in train? They're perfect lambs, and they love each other like twins. Have you seen them?"
"Oh, yes; I've seen them. They seem to have been brought up on sterilized milk of the gospel, and to have Jordan water for blood."
"Oh, don't be too sure. You can't tell from a man's looks how red his blood is, especially if he's a priest. I suppose it's the men that have to hold themselves in hardest that make the best ministers."
"I dare say," he answered indifferently. "Priest-craft has always been clever enough to see that unless the things it called sins were natural and inevitable its occupation would be gone. However, as long as folks will follow after them they'd be foolish to give up their trade."
"Of course," his wife assented laughingly. "You won't get a rise out of me, my dear boy."
"You're a devilish humbug," he remarked admiringly; "but you do manage to get a lot of fun out of it."
She smoothed her gown a moment, half smiling and half grave.
"Of course it's of no use to tell you that in spite of all my fun I'm serious at bottom," she said slowly; "but it's a fact all the same. I don't take things with doleful solemnity like the old tabbies; but that's no sign that I'm not just as sincere. It's no matter, though; you won't believe it. What did you want to see me about?"
"Oh, it was about those mortgages. I saw Lincoln this morning, and he has heard from Mrs. Frostwinch. She insists upon paying them off."
"Then there isn't any truth in the story that that Sampson woman is circulating that Anna is going to build a spiritual temple or something. I never believed that Anna could be such an idiot as to give her money for anything so vulgar."