Down the woodland path they passed side by side, headed for the little station known as Stop 11. Sharlee was pleased that he had remembered about the bricklayer; she could have been persuaded that his remark was vaguely intended to convey some sort of thanks to her. But saying no more of this, she made it possible to introduce casually a reference to his vanished glasses. "Yes," said he, "I knocked them off the bureau and broke them one day. So I just let them go. They were rather striking-looking glasses, I always thought. I don't believe I ever saw another pair quite like them." "But," said Sharlee, puzzled, "do you find that you can see perfectly well without them?" "Oh, yes; if anything, better." He paused, and added with entire seriousness: "You see those spectacles, striking-looking as they were, were only window-glass. I bought them at a ten-cent store on Sixth Avenue when I was twelve years old." "Oh! What made you do that?" "All the regulars at the Astor Library wore them. At the time it seemed to be the thing to do, and of course they soon became second nature to me. But I daresay no one ever had a sounder pair of eyes than I." To Sharlee this seemed one of the most pathetic of all his confidences; she offered no comment. "You were in the churchyard," stated Mr. Queed. "I was there just ahead of you. I was struck with that motto or text on the headstone, and shall look it up when I get home. I have been making a more careful study of your Bible this autumn and have found it exceptionally interesting. You, I suppose, subscribe to all the tenets of the Christian faith?" Sharlee hesitated. "I'm not sure that I can answer that with a direct yes, and I _will_ not answer it with any sort of no. So I'll say that I believe in them all, modified a little in places to satisfy my reason." "Ah, they are subject to modification, then?" "Certainly. Aren't you? Am not I? Whatever is alive is subject to modification. These doctrines," said she, "are evolving because they have the principle of life in them." "So you are an evolutionist?" "The expert in evolutionary sociology will hardly quarrel with me for that." "The expert in evolutionary sociology deals with social organisms, nations, the human race. Your Bible deals with Smith, Brown, and Jones." "Well, what are your organisms and nations but collections of my Smiths, Browns, and Joneses? My Bible deals with individuals because there is nothing else to deal with. The individual conscience is the beginning of everything." "Ah! So you would found your evolution of humanity upon the increasing operation of what you call conscience?" "Probably I would not give _all_ the credit to what I call conscience. Probably I'd give some of it to what I call intellect." "In that case you would almost certainly fall into a fatal error." "Why, don't you consider that the higher the intellectual development the higher the type?"