Was it fair of him to say in his
conduct: "The fun is over. We must be strictly conventional now"? His
costly caprices for Llandudno and the pleasures of idleness were quite
beside the point.
Another reason for her objection to Louis' overtures to the Old Church
was that they increased her suspicion of his snobbishness. No person
nourished from infancy in chapel can bring himself to believe that
the chief motive of church-goers is not the snobbish motive of social
propriety. And dissenters are so convinced that, if chapel means
salvation in the next world, church means salvation in this, that to
this day, regardless of the feelings of their pastors, they will go
to church once in their lives--to get married. At any rate, Rachel was
positively sure that no anxiety about his own soul or about hers had
led Louis to join the Old Church.
"Have you been confirmed?" she asked.
"Yes, of course," Louis replied politely.
She did not like that "of course."
"Shall I have to be?"
"I don't know."
"Well," said she, "I can tell you one thing--I shan't be."
IV
Rachel went on--
"You aren't really going to throw your money away on those debenture
things of Mr. Batchgrew's, are you?"
Louis now knew the worst, and he had been suspecting it.
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