"I can't tell you all I feel," he declared at last, speaking very slowly. "Edith, _I_ don't know you yet. You're very, very wonderful, little girl. And you're such heaps bigger than I--that's what I see most clearly. Edith, will you at least let me see you and talk to you? I'm beginning to be worried, and I believe you're just the person I've been wanting to talk to about it all. Will you let me? And will you tell me just what you think? Shall we have it as a secret between us, that you help me like that?" "Oh, Paul! Could I? May I?" "It's _will_ you," he said, smiling. "You know I will. I think there's nothing I wouldn't do for you, Paul," she said. He kissed her again, then, gently, and she suffered him. They made an odd couple as they walked home together. For a reason he could not have explained, Paul saw so many things clearly--or thought he saw--that Christmas night under the stars. He put into words the growing criticism he was feeling of his father's traditional outlook on life and religion. Explaining things to her, they became clearer to himself. He set before her, one by one, the straws that had been blowing past him on the wind. And he had chosen well, for Edith Thornton understood. "I don't see why evangelicalism should be all pitch-pine and Moody and Sankey," he grumbled. "I don't see why things good in themselves should be wrong simply because even Roman Catholics do them. I don't love our Lord less because I rather like to see chrysanthemums behind the Holy Table." "Do you love Him more if they are there?" she asked. "No, of course not. At least--no; I _will_ say no. Not that, at all. But the beauty of things reflects Him somehow. It's easier to worship in an atmosphere of beauty, Edith. Or it is for me. And surely that can't be wrong!" "But suppose He comes to us with His face so scarred that there is no beauty that we should desire Him?" Paul frowned a little. "That's not exactly what I mean," he said. "There's no point in our making things ugly." "No. But--oh, I hardly like to say it to you!--but don't you think, somehow, one rather forgets about all that, seeing Him?" In silence they reached the bottom of her street, and stood a moment. "Edith," he exclaimed impulsively, "you're heaps better than I. Pray for me, darling, won't you?" "Oh, Paul, of course. And you mustn't say that." "I shall. It's true.... Edith, when shall I see you again?" (6)