eprecation. "Why should you
suppose I would touch it roughly?" There was that in her voice which
cried put that she would rather not touch it at all; but Lindsay, on the
brink of his confidence, could not suppose it--did not hear it. He knew
her so well.

"A great many people will," he said. "I can't bear the thought of their
fingers. That is one reason that brings me to you."

She faced him fully at this; her eyelids quivered, but she looked
straight at him. It nerved her to be brought into his equation, even in
the form which should finally be eliminated. She contrived a smile.

"I believe you know already," Lindsay cried.

"I have heard something. Don't be alarmed--not from people, from Miss
Howe."

"Wonderful woman! I haven't told her."

"Is that always necessary? She has intuitions. In this case," Alicia
went on, with immense courage, "I didn't believe them."

"Why?" he asked, enjoyingly. Anything to handle his delight--he would
even submit it to analysis.

She hesitated--her business was in great waters, the next instant might
engulf her. "It's so curiously unlike you," she faltered. "If she had
been a duchess--a very exquisite person, or somebody very
clever--remember I haven't seen her."

"You haven't, so I must forgive you invidious comparisons." Lindsay
visaged the words with a smile, but they had an articulated hardness.

Alicia raised her eyebrows.

"What do you expect one to imagine?" she asked, with quietness.

"A miracle," he said, sombrely.

"Ah, that's difficult!"

There was silence for a moment between them, then she added, perversely,

"And, you know, faith is not what it was."

Duff sat biting his lips. Her dryness irritated him. He was accustomed
to find in her fields of delicately blooming enthusiasms, and running
watercourses where his satisfactions were ever reflected. Suddenly she
seemed to emerge to her own consciousness, upon a summit from which she
could look down upon the turmoil in herself and beyond it, to where he
stood.

"Don't make a mistake," she said, "don't." She thrust her hand for a
fraction of an instant toward him, and then swiftly withdrew it,
gathering herself together to meet what he might say.

What he did say was simple, and easy to hear. "That's what everybody
will tell me; but I thought you might understand." He tapped the toe of
his boot with his stick as if he counted the strokes. She looked down
and counted them too.

"Then you won't help me to