‘That would involve a great deal of dissimulation,’ she said at length.  ‘I can’t reconcile it with what I know of Mr. Peak.’

‘And I can’t reconcile anything else,’ rejoined the other.

‘He impresses you as a rationalist?’

‘You not?’

’I confess I have taken his belief for granted.  Oh, think!  He couldn’t keep up such a pretence.  However you justify it, it implies conscious deception.  It would be dishonourable.  I am sure he would think it so.’

‘How does your brother regard him?’ Sylvia asked, smiling very slightly, but with direct eyes.

’Buckland can’t credit anyone with sincerity except an aggressive agnostic.’

‘But I think he allows honest credulity.’

Sidwell had no answer to this.  After musing a little, she put a question which indicated how her thoughts had travelled.

‘Have you met many women who declared themselves agnostics?’

‘Several.’

Sylvia removed her hat, and began to fan herself gently with the brim.  Here, in the shade, bees were humming; from the house came faint notes of a piano—­Fanny practising a mazurka of Chopin.

’But never, I suppose, one who found a pleasure in attacking Christianity?’

‘A girl who was at school with me in London,’ Sylvia replied, with an air of amused reminiscence.  ’Marcella Moxey.  Didn’t I ever speak to you of her?’

‘I think not.’

‘She was bitter against religion of every kind.’

‘Because her mother made her learn collects, I dare say?’ suggested Sidwell, in a tone of gentle satire.

’No, no.  Marcella was about eighteen then, and had neither father nor mother.—­(How Fanny’s touch improves!)—­She was a born atheist, in the fullest sense of the word.’

‘And detestable?’

’Not to me—­I rather liked her.  She was remarkably honest, and I have sometimes thought that in morals, on the whole, she stood far above most women.  She hated falsehood—­hated it with all her heart, and a story of injustice maddened her.  When I think of Marcella it helps me to picture the Russian girls who propagate Nihilism.’

‘You have lost sight of her?’

’She went abroad, I think.  I should like to have known her fate.  I rather think there will have to be many like her before women are civilised.’

‘How I should like to ask her,’ said Sidwell, ’on what she supported her morality?’

‘Put the problem to Mr. Peak,’ suggested the other, gaily.  ’I fancy he wouldn’t find it insoluble.’

Mrs. Warricombe and Mrs. Moorhouse appeared in the distance, walking hither under parasols.  The girls rose to meet them, and were presently engaged in less interesting colloquy.

CHAPTER IV