You know those Papists, Harding, how they cringe,
how shamefaced they are, how low in intelligence. I have heard you
say yourself they have not written a book for the last four hundred
years. Now, why do you defend them?"
"Defend them, Asher? I am not defending them."
"Paralysed brains, arrested intelligences." He stopped, choked,
unable to articulate for his haste. "That brute, Monsignor Mostyn--
at all events I can see him, and kick the vile brute." And taken in
another gust of passion, Owen went towards the door. "Yes, I can
have it out with him."
"But, Asher, he is an old man; to lay hands upon him would be ruin."
"What do I care about ruin? I am ruined. They have got her, and her
mind will be poisoned. She will get the abominable ascetic mind. The
pleasure of the flesh transferred! What is legitimate and beautiful
in the body put into the mind, the mind sullied by passions that do
not belong to the mind. That is what papistry is! They will poison
that pure, beautiful woman's mind. That priest has put them up to
it, and he shall pay for it if I can get at him to-night!" Owen broke
away suddenly, leaving Harding and Merat in the dining-room, Harding
regretting that he had accepted Owen's invitation to dinner.
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