were worthy to be called reasoning. But he had lost ground in the
estimation of a person whose good sense he could not help respecting, and
the consciousness of this wounded his vanity. And whilst all she said was
courteous, it was vehement as any defense of the faith is likely to be;
he felt, besides, that he had spoken with rather more of the _ex
cathedra_ tone than was proper. A young man of opinions generally finds
it so much easier to impress people with his tone than with his
arguments! But he consoled himself with the reflection that the _average_
woman--that word average was a balm for every wound--that the average
woman is always tied to her religion, and intolerant of any doubts. He
was pleased to think that Helen Minorkey was not intolerant. Of that he
felt sure. He did not carry the analysis any farther, however; he did not
ask why Helen was not intolerant, nor ask whether even intolerance may
not sometimes be more tolerable than indifference. And in spite of his
unpleasant irritation at finding this "average" woman not overawed by his
oracular utterances, nor easily beaten in a controversy, Albert had a
respect for her deeper than ever. There was something in her anger at
Westcott that for a moment had seemed finer than anything he had seen in
the self-possessed Miss Minorkey. But then she was so weak as to allow
her intellectual conclusions to be influenced by her feelings, and to be
intolerant.

I have said that this thing of falling in love is a very complex
catastrophe. I might say that it is also a very uncertain one. Since we
all of us "rub clothes with fate along the street," who knows whether
Charlton would not, by this time, have been in love with Miss Marlay if
he had not seen Miss Minorkey in the stage? If he had not run against
her, while madly chasing a grasshopper? If he had not had a great
curiosity about a question in botany which he could only settle in her
company? And even yet, if he had not had collision with Isa on the
question of Divine Providence? And even after that collision I will not
be sure that the scale might not have been turned, had it not been that
while he was holding this conversation with Isa Marlay, his mother and
sister had come into the next room. For when he went out they showed
unmistakable pleasure in their faces, and Mrs. Plausaby even ventured to
ask: "Don't you like her, Albert?"

And when the mother tried to persuade him to forego his visit to the
hotel in th