She was staring frankly now at Dane Barrington. Beside Mac he looked like a boy. Mac was a canvas in heroic size daubed in freely in splotches of red and gray. Dane was an etching in black and white, as vivid as a silhouette, as delicate as a drawing by Whistler. She was rather pleased with this comparison, and she felt a keener sense of life as she looked at his fine black head and alabaster profile outlined there beside Mac’s great ruby face.
She turned amused eyes on Father Ryan’s placid features.
“My old set ostracizes that man. Speaks of him with bated breath. But I don’t feel contaminated by his presence. Do you?”
“Not in the least. He has never hurt anybody half as much as he is hurting himself.”
“That’s it, and I have no doubt that as a sinner he has been absurdly overrated. As a matter of fact this rubbish about sin, this idea of what can hurt one is one of the most ridiculous things that can be told to a thinking person. The real sins, the real corroders of souls are overlooked. People are not ostracized for overeating, but from my point of view, if you’re going to ostracize at all, they ought to be. They are not ostracized for prying into your personality, but they ought to be. They are not ostracized for whispering behind doors, but they ought to be. They are not ostracized for grumbling and nagging and opening other people’s letters, but they ought to be. Those are the things I’m out to ostracize people for.”
She glared at Father Ryan.
“You and I will not quarrel about that,” he said simply.
“I don’t suppose Mr. Barrington is a bit worse than my father,” she said musingly.
