When they turned to walk, Morosine took the side next Sanchia, and though
he talked to both ladies, so contrived that she should read more in what
he said than her sister. He did it deftly, but continuously. Sanchia was
entertained, slightly excited, and ended by taking part in the game of
skill. It is impossible to say by how much this sort of thing increased
the intimacy already established between the pair. It was by so much, at
least, that when Melusine joined her husband, by dropping behind and
waiting for him to come up with, the old lady, it came as no sort of shock
to Sanchia that he took up the talk where he had ended it in the gallery.
"You have been to church, I see. But you are not a Christian?" He did not
look at her.
Nor did she turn her head to reply. "I don't know. Nominally, at least;
fitfully, at the most."
"That must be the outside of it," he continued. "The thing is the
antithesis of the Hellenic ideal--which is yours. Your seemingly passive
martyr is really in an ecstasy. He aims at outraging Nature; begins by
despising and ends by dreading it. Nature, however, has ways of revenging
herself."
"Yes, indeed," said Sanchia soberly.
They walked on together, she by this time very much absorbed.
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