she read the same kind of books that you do?'

'Unfortunately I read no books at all.'

She paused again to let him get to her side.

'What a pity it can't continue!'

'What?'

'Your inability to read.'

'That is the kindest remark I have heard for a long time!' exclaimed
Wilfrid with a good-natured laugh.

'Very likely it is, though you don't mean it. When you read, you only
poison your mind. It is your reading that has made you what you are,
without faith, without feeling. You dissect everything, you calculate
motives cynically, you have learnt to despise everyone who believes what
you refuse to, you make your own intellect the centre of the world. You
are dangerous.'

'What a character! To whom am I dangerous?'

'To anyone whom it pleases you to tempt, in whom you find the beginnings
of disbelief.'

'In brief, I have no principles?'

'Of course you have none.'

'In other words, I am selfish?'

'Intensely so.'

It was hard to discover whether she were in earnest. Wilfrid examined
her for a moment, and concluded that she must be. Her eyes were gleaming
with no mock seriousness, and there was even a slight quiver about her
lips. In all their exchanges of banter he had never known her look and
speak quite as she did now. As he regarded her there came a flush to her
cheek. She turned her head away and rode on.

'And what moves you to visit me with this castigation at present, Miss
Redwing?' he asked, still maintaining his jesting tone.

'I don't know,' she answered carelessly. 'I felt all at once able to say
what I thought.'

'Then you do really think all this?'

'Assuredly I do.'

He kept silence a little.

'And you can't see,' he began, rather more seriously, 'that you are
deplorably lacking in the charity which surely should be among _your_
principles?'

'There are some things to which charity must not be extended.'

'Let us say, then, discretion, insight.' He spoke yet more earnestly.
'You judge me, and, in truth, you know as little of me as anyone could.
The attitude of your mind prevents you from understanding me in the
least; it prevents you from understanding any human being. You are
consumed with prejudice, and prejudice of the narrowest, most hopeless
kind. Am I too severe?'

'Not more so than you have often been. Many a time you have told me how
you despised me.'

He was silent, then spoke impulsively.

'Well, perhaps the word is not too strong; though it is not your very
sel