o clearness
for the other. "That kind of love--if it tries to be an end in itself
_has_ to die ... to wither away. Or, if it does last, then the soul
withers."

She smiled suddenly, turning her eyes on her cousin.

"I think the Serpent was really kinder to Adam and Eve, when he got them
turned out of Eden, than Jehovah was when he shut them up in it," she
said.

"How's that?" asked Miss Pickett, startled, for she was rather orthodox
in her views on religious form, though her big heart made her more
unconventional in practise.

"Why, just think of it for a moment," Sophy answered. "If the Serpent
hadn't interrupted their _tete-a-tete_--there they would be to this
day--wandering love-sick among fadeless flowers, with nothing, nothing,
nothing before them but an eternity of love-making!" Her pale face
alight with mingled whimsicality and sadness, she added, leaning closer:
"Sue ... I'll whisper you something.... _The Serpent was Jehovah in
disguise, Sue!_"

A second later she said:

"Don't be vexed, dear, will you?... It's such a comfort thinking aloud
to you like this...."

"No, indeed. Go on. I won't be vexed," Miss Pickett assured her warmly.
"You always were an irreverent monkey--but then the Lord made monkeys.
He knows how to allow for their antics."

But Sophy was intent upon her own train of thought again and only smiled
absently at this indirect reproof.

"Two lessons...." she then said slowly. "It took two bitter lessons to
teach me the truth about love--the sort of love that I always dreamed of
as supreme--the love that is 'like an Archangel beating his iridescent
wings in the void'...."

Miss Pickett could not follow the subtleties of Sophy's musing, she
could only feel the pain that underlay it. She said gently:

"You mustn't deny love, honey, just because it's failed you. I don't
ever want to see my child grow bitter."

"It's only one kind of love that I'm denying, Sue--not Eros, but Anteros
... the false god.... He comes in a lovely glamour. He's the rainbow on
the foam of breaking waves. When the sea is still he vanishes. My
bitterness is only against myself--for having worshipped a false god."

"Well, child--maybe you have. But thank the Lord! no mistake is final at
your age...."

"My mistakes have been very final for me, Sue. I've laid all my
frankincense and myrrh on the altar of Anteros, I've nothing to offer
the true god. But there's my son ... my defeat shall make his victory.
There