Other men had flattered her vanity, had given her
a sense of power, had made her understand her possibilities, but nothing
more--nothing of what Varley brought with him. And before three months
had gone, she knew that no man had ever interested her as Varley had
done. Ten years before, she would not have appreciated or understood
him, this intellectual, clean-shaven, rigidly abstemious man, whose
pleasures belonged to the fishing-rod and the gun and the horse, and who
had come to be so great a friend of him who had been her best friend--
Father Bourassa. Father Bourassa had come to know the truth--not from
her, for she had ever been a Protestant, but from her husband, who,
Catholic by birth and a renegade from all religion, had had a moment of
spurious emotion, when he went and confessed to Father Bourassa and got
absolution, pleading for the priest's care of his wife. Afterwards
Father Bourassa made up his mind that the confession had a purpose behind
it other than repentance, and he deeply resented the use to which he
thought he was being put--a kind of spy upon the beautiful woman whom
Jansen loved, and who, in spite of any outward flippancy, was above
reproach.
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