Ordinarily Joyce would have enjoyed this with all her eager young mind, visualizing the beautiful descriptions and putting herself there almost as if she had experienced it herself. But now she only sat quietly, looking straight ahead, a withdrawal in her manner, a look in her eyes as if she saw something that others could not see; an air that showed she was thinking deeply about something, and her thoughts were not following his words. He was piqued and mortified. He could not believe that she would not yield to the things that she had often enjoyed before in his conversation. In fact, it had been a source of much pleasure to him to tell her of rare experiences he had had in travel and watch the flush of her cheek and the glow in her eye as she enjoyed it with him. It cut him that he could not reach her, that she had withdrawn her friendliness. It mortified his pride and his sense of superiority. And most of all it hurt him in his self-love. Perhaps he would have named it love for her, for he had come during the winter to recognize that that was what he felt for this girl; and seeing that was the case, he was the more determined to mold and make her as she should be to fit his walk and station in life. Albeit, his love for any one was merely another name for self-love. He wanted her and her love merely to make himself more complete for himself, and so he was really in love with himself all the time. For the rest of the ride Joyce was absolutely silent, and when they alighted at the station and started toward her home she said nothing, and she walked a trifle apart from him and ignored the arm he offered. In a sudden yearning for his heart’s desire, he took her hand and drew it within his arm, holding her hand in a firm warm grasp and speaking with a new tenderness. “Joyce, don’t you know why I have spoken to you as I have? Don’t you know that it is because I love you, because I cannot bear to see your brilliant mind filled with such twaddle, such nonsense, such rot----!” “Stop!” she cried, wrenching her hand away from his clasp. “Don’t you ever dare to speak such words to me again! Don’t dare to talk about the wonderful words of inspiration in that way. It is blasphemy!” “Now, my dear child----” he began, trying to get possession of her hand once more, “you have wholly misunderstood me. The words of Scripture are just as beautiful to me, and just as sacred in their way as they are to you. It is a mere difference of the way of looking at them. Now I----” “Mr. Harrington, I am not interested in how you look at the Bible. I would rather not hear you tell about it. You have filled me with horror.” “Are you not interested that I am telling you that I love you?” he asked in deep impassioned tones. “I am asking you now to be my wife? Cannot we put these trivial things away and be one in spirit now?” He leaned toward her gently and tried to capture the little gloved hand once more.