The Rev. George recoiled, speechless.

“I certainly think,” said Mr. Lind, more smoothly, “that Marian might have trusted to my indulgence instead of hurrying away to a lodging and writing the news in all directions.  But I must say I have received some very nice letters about it.  Jasper is quite congratulatory.  The Court Journal has a paragraph this week alluding to it with quite good taste.  Conolly is a very remarkable man; and, as the Court Journal truly enough remarks, he has won a high place in the republic of art and science.  As a Liberal, I cannot say that I disapprove of Marian’s choice; and I really think that it will be looked on in society as an interesting one.”

Mr. Lind’s son eyed him dubiously for quite a long time.  Then he said, slowly, “Am I to understand that I may now speak of the marriage as a recognized thing?”

“Why not, pray?”

“Of course, since you wish it, and it cannot be helped—­” The clergyman again looked at his father, still more dubiously.  He saw in his eye that there would be a quarrel if the interview lasted much longer.  So he said “I must go home now.  I have to write my sermon for next Sunday.”

“Very good.  Do not let me detain you.  Good-bye.”

The Rev. George returned to his rooms quite dazed by the novelty of his sensations.  He had always respected his father beyond other men; and now he knew that his father did not deserve his respect in the least.  That was one conviction uprooted.  And Susanna had done something to him—­he did not exactly know what; but he felt altogether a different man from the clergyman of the day before.  He had come face to face with what he called Vice for the first time, and found it not at all what he had supposed it to be.  He had believed that he knew it to be most dangerously attractive to the physical, but utterly repugnant to the moral sense; and such fascination he was prepared to resist to the utmost.  But he was attacked in just the opposite way, and thereby so thrown off his guard that he did not know he was attacked at all; so that he told himself vaingloriously that the shafts of the enemy had fallen harmlessly from his breastplate of faith.  For he was not in the least charmed by Susanna’s person.  He had detected the paint on her cheeks, and had noted with aversion a certain unhealthy bloat in her face, and an alcoholic taint in her breath.  He exulted in the consciousness that he had been genuinely disgusted, not as a matter of duty, but unaffectedly, as a matter of simple nature.  What interested him in her was her novel and bold moral attitude, her self-respect in the midst of her sin, her striking arguments in favor of an apparently indefensible course of life.  Hers was no common case of loose living, he felt:  there was a soul to be saved there, if only Heaven would raise her up a friend in some man absolutely proof against the vulgar fascination of her prettiness.  He began to imagine a certain greatness of character about her, a capacity for heroic repentance as well as for heroic sin.  Before long he was amusing himself by thinking how it might have gone with her if she had him for her counsellor instead of a gross and thoughtless rake like Marmaduke.