Alden drew himself up in the attitude of one who gives an important opinion. He was going back to his world of conventions, and already taking on its ways. "My dear sir, I see no reason why, with such nursing, surrounded by such luxuries, in the finest air, and in such tranquillity, he should not live--ah, perhaps for years." "It will not be so long as that, I think." "That must be as God wills." But there was too much religious starch in the tone of these words to suggest acquiescence. This good little man, with all his constancy and fervor, had not a large enough soul to see so vile a prodigal feasted without resentment. Said Durgan, "If his mind is as lucid as the doctor thinks, his present experience must be pretty much like lying helpless in a lake of fire." "Sir, what is there to trouble him? Two of the finest, most agreeable women who ever lived on this earth are his slaves. They wheel him hither and thither as he suggests a preference. They read; they sing; they show him nature in her glory; and his body suffers no pain. I do not understand your allusion." "I thought it just possible that, being human, he might have a soul latent in him." "'Soul'! He has, without excuse or provocation, committed the most brutal crime of the decade; he has passed his years since ministering to his own tastes and indolences in the society of a lady who pleased his fancy, while, with the most horrid cruelty and worm-like cowardice, he has left his tender daughter to suffer the consequences of his crime. He has within him, sir, a soul, humanly speaking, beyond hope of redemption." "But Christian faith compels his daughter to set aside the human aspects of the case." "Women, sir--women have no standard of manly virtue. Can you conceive that a son--a man who knew the world, could slur over such vice, such perfidy, in a parent?" Alden's reiteration of "Sir," spoken between his teeth, had so very much the force of "Damn you," that Durgan forbore to suggest that the point of his remark had been evaded.