silver
box at her elbow, selected a cigarette and lighted it. It was a
deliberate thrust. Always hitherto she had refrained from such
indulgence before him.

"Come, Arnold," she said cruelly. "You don't honestly believe that, do
you?"

The insolence of her pose, one knee over the other, the cigarette in her
hand, the challenging note in her voice, hurt him more than her previous
indifference.

"I don't think I can discuss that," he said, rather loftily.

Her smile faded. "Well, you ought to discuss it. You've got to defend
it. You've got to prove it. Don't be absurd, Arnold."

He was dumfounded. It was so unlike her. He had never seen her in such a
mood. But he ascribed it to the incomprehensible nature of womankind. He
knew from the fiction he had read that women do very irrational things,
frequently, if not as a general rule, saying the precise opposite of
their meaning. He tried to change the subject. But to his surprise she
refused to change with him.

"Don't people make you defend your position?" she persisted.

"No one has."

She was silent momentarily. Then she returned to the attack, almost
doggedly.

"Well, then, let me be the first. This church will cost...."

"Six hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars," he supplied coldly. He
regretted that circumstances had forced him into what was beyond dispute
a refined form of beggary. But he had realised from the start that
success of this sort was quite essential to eminence in the clergy, and
he had resolutely fought down his distaste. But it angered him to be so
brutally reminded of his status, particularly by a creature whom he
sedulously deified. She seemed deliberately intent upon leaving the
pedestal he had constructed for her.

Again she was silent, surveying him with a smile that he thought was
unpleasantly cynical. It seemed also that there was a noticeable
admixture of contempt for him. His anger gave way to pain. He racked his
brain for an explanation of her attitude.

"That's a great deal of money," she said unpleasantly. "And with it
you're going to build a marble palace on our finest street. Do you know
what I think, Arnold?" she added, not unkindly. "I think you've gotten
art and religion mixed."

He shrugged his shoulders at that, not knowing how to reply, and she
went on, her tone changing imperceptibly, as she spoke, from a scarcely
concealed bitterness, to one that was almost argumentative.

"In theory, of course, the Church i