Jeanne had risen also. “You believe in the God of a sect, madame,” she replied, quivering with indignation. “ I believe in the God whom every upright man reveres,” and, with a bow, she left the marquise.
Among themselves the peasants also blamed Jeanne for not sending Poulet to his first communion. They themselves did not go to mass, and never took the sacrament, or at least, only at Easter when the Church formally commanded it; but when it came to the children, that was a different matter, and not one of them would have dared to bring a child up outside the common faith, for, after all, “Religion is Religion.”
Jeanne was quite conscious of the disapproval with which everyone regarded her conduct, but such inconsistency only roused her indignation, and she scorned the people who could th
