"Isn't it in the Bible?" she answered, seriously astonished.
"Whatever the primitive Semitic allegorist may have thought, work is a
blessing, not a curse."
"Then you _are_ an atheist!" Eileen recoiled from this strange young man.
"Ah, you shrink back!" he said in tones of bitter pleasure. "I told you I
lived in isolation."
Eileen's humour shot forth candidly. "You'll not be isolated when you
die."
His bitterness passed into genial superiority. "You mean I'll go to hell.
How can you believe anything so horrible?"
"Why is that horrible for me to believe? For you--" And she filled up the
sentence with a smile.
"I don't believe you do believe it."
"There's nothing you seem to believe. I do honestly think that you can't
be saved if you don't believe."
"I accept that. The question, however, is what kind of belief and what
kind of saving. Do you suppose Plato is in hell?"
"I don't know. He invented Platonic love, didn't he? So that might save
him." She looked at him with her great grey eyes--he couldn't tell
whether she was quizzing him or not.
"Is that all you know of Plato?"
"I know he was a Greek philosopher. But I only learned Greek roots at the
Convent. So Plato is Greek to me."
"He has been beautifully Englished by the Master of my College. I wish
you'd read him."
"Is the translation in the library?"
"Of course--with lots of other interesting books, and such queer folios
and quartos and first editions. The collector was a man of taste. Why do
you never come and let me show them you?"
"You'd run away."
"No, I wouldn't," he smiled encouragingly.
"Yes, you would. And leave your pipe on Plato!"
He laughed. "Was I rude? But I didn't know you then. Come to-morrow
afternoon and show you've forgiven me."
The new interest was sufficiently tempting. But her maidenliness held
back. "I'll come with your mother."