"That is only possible when they become as the Sons of God."
Helen spread out her hands in a deprecatory gesture.
"Come, Edith," she said, "that isn't fair, to take the discussion into
regions where I can't follow you."
Edith smiled, but made no rejoinder in words. Turning to Mr. Candish
she remarked, with an abrupt change of subject,--
"When may I tell Melissa Blake about the Knitting School?"
"I see no reason," he answered, "why she shouldn't know at once. We
shall be ready to begin operations in a month at most, and ought to
know her decision."
"Isn't it capital?" Edith explained, turning toward Helen. "The
Knitting School is really to be started. Mrs. Bodewin Ranger guarantees
the funds for a year, and we have contracts for work to be delivered in
the fall that will keep from a dozen to twenty girls busy all summer;
while the matron's salary will put Melissa Blake on her feet very
nicely. It's such a relief to have some of those girls provided for."
"That's the Melissa Blake, isn't it," Helen asked, "that Mr. Hubbard
spoke of at dinner?"
"Yes," answered Edith, "but it is impossible that he should be right."
Helen replied only by that look of general sympathy which does duty as
an answer when one has no possible interest in the subject under
discussion, but Mr. Candish, who knew Melissa, shook his head with an
air of conviction.
"No," he observed, "Miss Blake has too much principle to be guilty of a
breach of confidence. I am sure Mr. Hubbard must be mistaken."
"And yet," commented Helen, "there is such a general feeling that if
one keeps the letter of his word he may do as he pleases about the
spirit, that she may have contrived to give her lover a hint without
actually breaking her promise as she would understand it."
"I don't know," Edith returned earnestly, "that we have any right to
judge other people more harshly than we should ourselves. If one of our
friends had betrayed Mr. Hubbard's plans we should say he was a rascal
because we should assume that he knew what he was doing; and we
wouldn't believe such a charge unless we knew he was really bad."
"But," persisted Helen, with an unconscious irony which Fenton would
have keenly appreciated had he but been there to hear, "in our class of
course it's different. A nice sense of honor is after all very much a
social matter nowadays. That may sound a bit snobbish, but don't you
think it is true?"
"It is and it isn't," was Mr. Candish's reply. "It would undoubtedly be
true if religious principle did not come into the matter; but religious
principle is stronger in what we call the middle classes than among
their social superiors."
Mrs. Greyson was not sufficiently interested to continue the
discussion, and she let the matter drop, while Edith contented herself
with reiterating her conviction in Melissa's perfect trustworthiness.
They chatted upon indifferent subjects for a little while, and then Mr.
Candish went to keep an appointment at the bedside of a sick
parishioner; so that Helen and Edith were left alone.