"With all your cleverness, Mr. Fleet, I may prove you at fault, and become able to portray what I do not feel or believe." "You mean to say that you work from your old standpoint merely?" asked Dennis, feeling as if a sunny sky had suddenly darkened. "I do not say that at all, but that I do not work from yours." "And yet you hope to succeed?" "I think I am succeeding." Perplexity and disappointment were plainly written on his face. She, with a merry and half-malicious laugh, turned to the piano, and sung: From Mount Olympus' snowy height The gods look down on human life: Beneath contending armies fight; All undisturbed they watch the strife. Dennis looked at her earnestly, and after a moment said, "Will you please play that accompaniment again?" She complied, and he sang: Your Mount Olympus' icy peak Is barren waste, by cold winds swept: Another height I gladly see, Where God o'er human sorrow wept. She turned a startled and almost wistful face to him, for he had given a very unexpected answer to her cold, selfish philosophy, which was so apt and sudden as to seem almost inspired. "Do you refer to Christ's weeping over Jerusalem?" she asked. "Yes." She sat for a little time silent and thoughtful, and Dennis watched her keenly. Suddenly her brow darkened, and she said, bitterly: "Delusion! If He had been a God He would not have idly wept over sorrow. He would have banished it." Dennis was about to reply eagerly, when Mr. Ludolph entered, and music was resumed. But it was evident that Dennis's lines had disturbed the fair sceptic's equanimity. CHAPTER XXXI BEGUILED Dennis returned to his room greatly perplexed. There was something in Christine's actions which he could not understand. From the time of their first conversation at Miss Winthrop's, she had evidently felt and acted differently. If her heart remained cold and untouched, if as yet neither faith nor love had any existence therein, what was the inspiring motive? Why should deep discouragement change suddenly to assured hope? Then again her manner was equally inexplicable. From that same evening she gave him more encouragement than he had even hoped to receive for months, but yet he made no progress. She seemed to enjoy meeting him, and constantly found opportunity to do so. Her eyes were continually seeking his face, but there was something in her manner in this respect that puzzled him more than anything else. She often seemed looking at his face, rather than at _him_. At first Christine had been furtive and careful in her observations, but as the habit grew upon her, and her interest increased, she would sometimes gaze so steadily that poor Dennis was deeply embarrassed. Becoming conscious of this, she would herself color slightly, and be more careful for a time.