have done in a bond which is a sacrament of holy church and should
be only approached in a spiritual frame of mind, not a carnal
one."

"You are talking pure nonsense, sir," returned Count Roumovski
sternly. "If that were the case the wording of your English
marriage service would be different. First and foremost, marriage
is a contract between two people to live together in union of body
and to procreate children, which is the law of God and nature. Men
added arrangement and endowment of property, and the church added
spiritual sacrament. But God and nature invented the vital thing.
If it were not so, it would have been possible for the spiritually
minded, of which company you infer yourself to be, to live with a
woman on terms of brother and sister, and never let the senses
speak at all. There would then have been no necessity for the
ceremony of marriage for priests with your views."

Eustace Medlicott shook with passion and emotion as he answered
furiously: "You would turn the question into one of whether a
priest should marry or not. It is a question which has agitated me
all my life, and which I have only lately been able to come to a
conclusion upon. I refuse to let you disturb me in it."

"I had not thought of doing so," Count Roumovski returned
tranquilly. "You and your views and your destiny do not interest
me, I must own, except in so far as they interfere with myself and
the woman I love. You have proved yourself to be just a warped
atom of the great creation, incapable of anything but ignoble
narrowness. You cannot even examine your own emotions honestly and
probe their meaning or you would realize no man should marry, be