not to see your meaning, or so callous as not to
care if I did, you would not have spoken in that way. I don't know that
your excuse makes matters much better, Mr. Kenyon. But I am not
offended: you need not concern yourself."

"Then you ought to be offended," said Kenyon, doggedly. "And I don't
believe you."

"You don't believe me."

"No, indeed I don't."

Lesley's offence was so great now, whatever it had been before, that it
deprived her of the power of speech. Her stately head went up: her mouth
set itself in straight, hard lines. Maurice saw these tokens, and
interpreted them aright.

"Don't be angry with me again. I mean that you could not fail to despise
me, to look down on me, for my want of tact and sense. I thought that
you did not understand your father--I was vexed at that, because I have
such a respect, such an admiration for him--but I know now that I was
mistaken. You ought to be angry with me, for I acknowledge that I spoke
impertinently; but having been angry, you can now be merciful and
forgive. I apologize from the bottom of my heart."

"How do you know that I understand my father? Why have you changed your
opinion?" said Lesley, coldly. "You have nothing to go upon--just as in
the other case you had nothing to go upon. You rushed to one conclusion,
if you will excuse me for saying so, and now you rush to another--with
no better reason."

"You are very severe, Miss Brooke," said Maurice. "But you are
perfectly right, and I must not complain. Only--if I may make a
representation----"

"Oh, certainly!"

"----I might point out that when I spoke to you first you had not read
your father's book, you had not, I believe, even heard of it; that you
knew nothing about the Macclesfield Club, and that when I spoke to you
about his work amongst the poor you were very much inclined to murmur,
'Can any good come out of Nazareth?'"

"Mr. Kenyon----"

"I beg your pardon, Miss Brooke, but isn't that substantially true? If
you can honestly say that it is a misapprehension on my part, I won't
say another word. But isn't it all true?"

He turned his eager face and bright blue eyes towards her, and read in
her pale, troubled face a little of the conflict that was going on
between her candor and her pride. "Now, what will she say?" he thought,
with what would have seemed to Lesley incomprehensible anxiety. "On her
answer depends my opinion of her, now and for ever."

And this appeared to Maurice quite an