e had read
him.

"Although you were so considerate, I suppose you must have thought it
presumptuous of me to criticize your profession, which is religion."

"Religion, I think, should be everybody's," he answered quietly.

She made no reply. And he entered, as into another world, the circular
arbour in which the pergola ended, so complete in contrast was its
atmosphere to that of the house. The mansion he had long since grown
to recognize as an expression of the personality of its owner, but this
classic bower was as remote from it as though it were in Greece. He
was sensitive to beauty, yet the beauty of the place had a perplexing
quality, which he felt in the perfect curves of the marble bench, in
the marble basin brimming to the tip with clear water,--the surface
of which, flecked with pink petals, mirrored the azure sky through the
leafy network of the roof. In one green recess a slender Mercury hastily
adjusted his sandal.

Was this, her art, the true expression of her baffling personality? As
she had leaned back in the corner of the automobile she had given
him the impression of a languor almost Oriental, but this had been
startlingly dispelled at the lunch-table by the revelation of an
animation and a vitality which had magically transformed her. But now,
as under the spell of a new encompassment of her own weaving, she seemed
to revert to her former self, sinking, relaxed, into a wicker lounge
beside the basin, one long and shapely hand in the water, the other idle
in her lap. Her eyes, he remarked, were the contradiction in her face.
Had they been larger, and almond-shaped, the illusion might have been
complete. They were neither opaque nor smouldering,--but Western eyes,
amber-coloured, with delicately stencilled rays and long lashes. And as
they gazed up at him now they seemed to reflect, without disclosing
the flitting thoughts behind them. He felt antagonism and attraction in
almost equal degree--the situation transcended his experience.

"You don't intend to change this?" he asked, with an expressive sweep of
his hand.

"No," she said, "I've always liked it. Tell me what you feel about it."

He hesitated.

"You resent it," she declared.

"Why do you say that?" he demanded quickly.

"I feel it," she answered calmly, but with a smile.

"'Resent' would scarcely be the proper word," he contended, returning
her smile, yet hesitating again.

"You think it pagan," she told him.

"Perhaps I do," h