“Best look out, unless you want to be blinded until Judgment.” She was able to disregard the Boss Bully’s warning by centering her mind upon her great happiness. _He had been love-worthy, John._ “You can’t strike me blind,” she said. Into the confidence of the purple-black eyes uplifted to his Satan scowled. “You’d not be blind. You’d only think you were because I say so and my mind is stronger than yours. Everything is a thought down here, as you must have learned ere this--just a bad thought.” With the lash in mid-air he added: “But, thank me, you can’t kill a bad thought.” As her hair was lifting to the magnet of the knout, he dropped it. The respite, however, was not for mercy’s sake. “You didn’t change expression. You don’t cringe. Why?” “Pain is a coward’s thought. I know that you, Augustness, cannot hurt me.” Interestedly he contemplated her and this, her first open defiance. “You’re smarter than I thought. You have a certain regardlessness that is the next-best thing to conscious power.” “I have,” she said, “faith that----” “_Faith?_” he jeered. “Then I have it, too--faith that I’ll do my damnedest. I cannot hurt you physically, no. But I hold a record for hurting minds that may cause you to reconsider.” “Not while I believe that all will be well with me.” The voice of her contention sounded like the balmy winds of spring, to which nor man nor devil may say nay. Perhaps her glance toward the gates suggested the source of her beatitude. Perhaps he sensed it from his own irritation. He passed her point to level one of his own. “And has this belief absolute padded your senses against the fact that I am displeased with you, she-fool? Don’t worry. I never let personal prejudice interfere with The Cause. This faith-theory is valuable with the reverse English put on it. As a science, it has done considerable harm to the religions of the world. I’ve been waiting until your week was up. Why not have it now--your answer?” “My answer to--to----” “To my indecent proposition that you organize the vice of womanhood. Are you going to take that Low Priestess job?” “I have until to-morrow to decide.” “True. And you hope meantime that your love-hound will come barking at our Avernian door. Oh, don’t deny it! Why else should you be hanging ’round the gates? Why else should I?” “But you said the judgments of men would never send a hero here.”