“What do you suppose will take its place? The world is bound to become wholly civilised in time; but still human nature will demand some sort of religion (which is another word for ideality), some sort of lodestar.” “A superlative refinement, I think; a perfected æstheticism which shall by no means eradicate the strong primal impulses; which shall, in fact, create conditions of higher happiness than now exist. Do we not enjoy all arts the more as they approach perfection? Does not a nude appeal with more subtle strength to the senses the more exquisite its beauty, the more entire its freedom from coarseness? When people strive to place human nature on a level with what is highest in art and in nature itself, the true religion will have been discovered. So far, man himself is infinitely below what man has achieved. It is hard to believe that genius is the result of any possible combination of heredity. It would seem that it must, like its other part, imagination, be the direct and more permanent indwelling of the supreme creative force—as if the creator would lighten his burden occasionally, and shakes off rings which float down to torment favoured brains.” “I always knew that I should love to hear you talk,” murmured Patience. His hand closed over hers. He drew it through his arm and held it against his heart, which was beating irregularly. “And I haven’t talked so much nor such stuff to a woman since God made me. I believe that I could talk to you through twenty years. You have said enough to-night to make me hope that our minds have been running along the same general lines. Tell me—honestly—no coquetry—has what I said that night had the slightest effect in your development?” She told the tale of the day in the crystal woods, giving a sufficiently comprehensive sketch of the events which had led up to it to make her the more keenly interesting to the man whose brain was beginning to whirl a little. “If you had come at that moment,” she concluded, “I would have gone with you to the end of the earth. I have a pretty strong personality, but there was a good deal of wax in me then, and if you could have gotten it between your hands I think that what you moulded would have closely resembled your ideal—the impression you had already made had so strongly coloured and trained my imagination. But,” she continued hastily, and glancing anxiously to the far distant end of the avenue, “you see my life changed immediately after that, and I went into the world and became hard and bitter and cynical. I have no ideals left, and I do not want any—I have seen too much—” “Hush!” he said passionately, “I do not believe a word of it. Why, that was not two years ago, and you are still a young girl. Have you loved any one else?” he asked abruptly, his voice less steady. “No!”