“There will be service at some church within reach,” said Frithiof; “but I do not much advise you to go; it will be very hot, and the place will be packed.”
“The peasants are,” he replied. “And of course the women. Church-going and religion, that is for women; we men do not need that sort of thing.”
She was a little startled by his matter-of-fact, unabashed tone.
“What, are you an agnostic? an atheist?” she exclaimed.
“No, no, not at all,” he said composedly. “I believe in a good Providence but with so much I am quite satisfied, you see. What does one need with more? To us men religion, church-going, is—is—how do you call it in English? I think you say ‘An awful bore,’ Is it not so?”
The slang in foreign accent was irresistible. She was a little shocked, but she could not help laughing.
“How you Norwegians speak out!” she exclaimed. “Many Englishmen feel that, but few would say it so plainly.”
“So! I thought an Englishman was nothing if not candid. But for me I feel no shame. What more would one have than to make the most of life? That is my religion. I hear that in England there is a book to ask whether life is worth living? For me I can’t understand that sort of thing. It is a question that would never have occurred to me. Only to live is happiness enough. Life is such a very good thing. Do you not agree?”
“Only sometimes? No, no, always—to the last breath!” cried Frithiof.
“You say that because things are as you like; because you are happy,” said Blanche.
“It is true, I am very happy,” he replied. “Who would not be happy walking with you?”
Something in his manner frightened her a little. She went on breathlessly and incoherently.
“You wouldn’t say that life is a very good thing if you were like our poor people in East London, for instance.”
“Indeed, no,” he said gravely. “That must be a great blot on English life. Here in Norway we have no extremes. No one is very poor, and our richest men have only what would be counted in England a moderate income.”
“Perhaps that is why you are such a happy people.”
“Perhaps,” said Frithiof, but he felt little inclined to consider the problem of the distribution of wealth just then, and the talk drifted round once more to that absorbing personal talk which was much more familiar to them.