l, a manner of implying,
"Observe how I take possession of you always to your advantage."

"Are you quite comfortable?" he asked when they had rolled between the
stunted rose-bushes into the turnpike.

"Oh, perfectly, you are always so thoughtful, Mr. Mullen."

"I think I am right in ranking thoughtfulness--or consideration, I
should have said--among the virtues."

"Indeed you are; as soon as I found that you had not gone to Applegate
as you intended to, I said to myself that, of course, some act of
kindness had detained you."

His large, very round grey eyes grew soft as he looked at her.

"You have expressed it beautifully, as 'an act of kindness,'" he
returned, "since you yourself were the cause of my postponing my visit."

"I--oh, you can't mean it? What have I done?"

"Nothing. Don't alarm yourself--absolutely nothing. Three months ago
when I spoke to you of marriage, you entreated me to allow you a
little time in which to accustom yourself to my proposal. That time of
probation, which has been, I hope, equally trying to us both, has ended
to-day."

"But I don't think I really love you, Mr. Mullen."

"I trust your eyes rather than your words--and your eyes have told me,
all unconsciously to yourself, your secret."

"Well, I do love your sermons, but---"

"My sermons are myself. There is nothing in my life, I trust, that
belies my preaching."

"I know how good you are, but honestly and truly, I don't want to marry
anybody."

His smile hardened slowly on his face like an impression on metal that
cools into solidity. From the beginning he had conducted his courtship,
as he had conducted his sacred office, with the manner of a gentleman
and the infallibility of an apostle. Doubt of his perfect fitness for
either vocation had never entered his head. Had it done so he would
probably have dismissed it as one of the insidious suggestions of the
lower man--for the lower man was a creature who habitually disagreed
with his opinions and whom his soul abhorred.

As he sat beside her, clerical, well-groomed, with his look of small yet
solemn intelligence, she wondered seriously if he would, in spite of all
opposition, have his way with her at last and pattern her to his liking?

"I am not in the least what you think me, Mr. Mullen--I don't know just
how to say it---"

"There is but one thing you need know, dearest, and that is that you
love me. As our greatest poet has expressed it 'To know no more is
woma