“Do not be so sure. I believe if I choose to look up the family tree I shall be able to discover some remote Hebrew ancestor. But that is nothing. Lionel is quite as British as I am. The Torrens were originally French.” “What shall you do?” pursued her chaperon, unwilling to leave the subject. “Become a Jewish proselyte, or turn Mr. Montella into a Christian?” “I do not see the necessity for either,” Patricia rejoined, with a slight flush; “but one thing is certain. Situated as he is, Lionel cannot possibly forsake the faith of his forefathers. Were he to do so, the whole fabric of his Jewish inheritance would be shattered.” “Then I suppose that if you were to find it necessary, you would become a pervert rather than he?” “I cannot answer that at the moment. But why discuss the matter until we are obliged to consider it?” “Why should we shirk it simply because it is disagreeable? It is one that will have to be faced as soon as you take any definite steps towards marriage.” The girl leant back against the cushions with an expression of weariness. “We shall not be married until Mr. Montella’s year of mourning is at an end, so I shall not have to decide hastily,” she answered. “I shall do what appears to me to be the best. Religion is not meant to separate man and wife.” Mrs. Lowther sighed. “What a pity you have an Agnostic for a father,” she said. CHAPTER VII THE UNEMPLOYED Mrs. Lowther’s remark was not without foundation. The Earl, despite the fact that he was patron of more than one living in the country, had severed his connection with the Established Church some years ago, and now professed no religion, save that of Agnosticism. His son—a youth at Sandhurst—followed in his wake, talked grandiosely of the First Cause, and pinned his faith on Huxley. Patricia saved the reputation of the family—in the eyes of her father’s tenants, at least—by attending the Parish Church regularly when she was in the country; but as Patricia’s religion had never been properly moulded, it was liable to variation. Her first finishing governess being a Roman Catholic, her youthful mind had been filled with the mystic saint-lore of the Roman Church, and she fell deeply in love with St. Patrick, her patron saint. As Patricia had always been deeply in love with somebody or other since the days of her swaddling clothes, however, her father was not greatly concerned, and expressed no surprise when she told him one morning that she found Mariolatry and Saintolatry detestable, and asked to have the Roman Catholic governess sent away. Good St. Patrick was dislodged from the little niche she had accorded him, his image was shattered into a hundred pieces, and Patricia was heart-whole once more. The next phase through which she passed was that of admiration for Comte and Swedenborg, but as the ethics of both were beyond her comprehension, she was little influenced by either.