"I will tell you, Sir Philip," he said, ruffling his daughter's curls as he spoke,—"I will tell you why I detest the villain Dyceworthy. It is but fair you should know it. Now, Thelma!—why that push to my knee? You fear I may offend our friends again? Nay, I will take good care. And so, first of all, I ask you, what is your religion? Though I know you cannot be Lutherans."
Errington was somewhat taken aback by the question. He smiled.
"My dear sir," he replied at last; "to be frank with you, I really do not think I have any religion. If I had, I suppose I should call myself a Christian, though, judging from the behavior of Christians in general, I cannot be one of them after all,—for I belong to no sect, I go to no church, and I have never read a tract in my life. I have a profound reverence and admiration for the character and doctrine of Christ, and I believe if I had had the privilege of knowing and conversing with Him, I should not have deserted Him in extremity as his timorous disciples did. I believe in an all-wise Creator; so you see I am not an atheist. My mother was an Austrian and a Catholic, and I have a notion that, as a small child, I was brought up in that creed; but I'm afraid I don't know much about it now."
The bonde nodded gravely. "Thelma, here," he said, "is a Catholic, as her mother was—" he stopped abruptly, and a deep shadow of pain darkened his features. Thelma looked up,—her large blue eyes filled with sudden tears, and she pressed her father's hand between her own, as though in sympathy with some undeclared grief; then she looked at Errington with a sort of wistful appeal. Philip's heart leaped as he met that soft beseeching glance, which seemed to entreat his patience with the old man for her sake—he felt himself drawn into a bond of union with her thoughts, and in his innermost soul he swore as knightly a vow of chivalry and reverence for the fair maiden, who thus took him into her silent confidence, as though he were some gallant Crusader of old time, pledged to defend his lady's honor unto death. Olaf Güldmar, after a long and apparently sorrowful pause, resumed his conversation.
"Yes," he said, "Thelma is a Catholic, though here she has scarcely any opportunity for performing the duties of her religion. It is a pretty and a graceful creed,—well fitted for women. As for me, I am made of sterner stuff, and the maxims of that gentle creature, Christ, find no echo in my soul. But you, young sir," he added, turning suddenly on Lorimer, who was engaged in meditatively smoothing out on his palm one of the fallen rose-petals—"you have not spoken. What faith do you profess? It is no curiosity that prompts me to ask,—I only seek not to offend."
Lorimer laughed languidly. "Upon my life, Mr. Güldmar, you really ask too much of me. I haven't any faith at all; not a shred! It's been all knocked out of me. I tried to hold on to a last remaining bit of Christian rope in the universal ship-wreck, but that was torn out of my hands by a scientific professor, who ought to know what he is about, and—and—now I drift along anyhow!"
Güldmar smiled dubiously; but Thelma looked at the speaker with astonished, regretful eyes.
"I am sorry," she said simply. "You must be often unhappy."
Lorimer was not disconcerted, though her evident pity caused an unwanted flush on his face.
"Oh no," he said in answer to her, "I am not a miserable sort of fellow by any means. For instance, I'm not afraid of death,—lots of very religious people are horribly afraid of it, though they all the time declare it's the only path to heaven. They're not consistent at all. You see I believe in nothing,—I came from nothing,—I am nothing,—I shall be nothing. That being plain, I am all right."