ic?"

"No, not a bit. Are you?"

"Oh yes; I love it."

His eyes lost their steel again to the tone of her voice when she
said that.

"Well, that's as it ought to be," he remarked. "Religion and music
are two things a woman can't do without. Are you very religious?"

"I don't know exactly what you mean by that. I'm afraid I hardly ever
go to church, and in that sense, I suppose, I'm not religious. But
I always say my prayers every night and morning."

Traill smiled at her gently. "That's all right," he said; "churches
are nothing, only monuments that fulfil the double purpose of
reminding the more forgetful of us that there are a class of people
who believe in things they can't prove, and that also provide
employment for those who have to look after them. I don't pray myself,
but I should think it's the nearest thing you can get to in a
combination of religion and common sense. Is that kettle boiling,
do you think? Looks like it. Oh, of course, I ought to have known
you were religious."

"Why?"

"Do you remember the way you took that impoverished joke of mine about
the occupants of the kingdom of heaven?"

She laughed lightly at the recollection. But it was the lightness
only of a moment. Her head turned, and she found again the eyes of
that miniature looking into hers. Questions then rushed to her
lips--a chorus of children fretting with intense desire. She could
not hold them back--they would speak. Each one held her heart in its
hands.

"Why do you have that miniature--amongst all the other pictures?"

"That?" He turned round, following her eyes, the boiling kettle
steaming in his hands. "Pretty, isn't it?"

They both looked at it--he, without distraction--she, with eyes
wandering covertly backwards and forwards to his face. Of course,
she admitted its charm. Could she do otherwise?

He poured the hot water into the strainer over the coffeepot, then
shutting the lid, he laid the kettle back in the grate and walked
across to the miniature, looking long and closely into it. Sally
watched him, nostrils slightly distended, lips tightly pressed. In
that moment an unwarranted jealousy almost charred her softer
feelings with its burning breath.

"There are a good many points in it, you know," he said, turning round,
"that bear a strong resemblance to you."

"Oh, but she's very pretty," said Sally.

"And you're not?" He came back to the fireplace; stood there, taking
regard of every one of her features