Clare laughed at her pleasantly. "I thought, I thought, I think, I thought! What a lot of thoughts. I'm sorry, Louise! Is all my star-dust gone?" Louise shook her head vigorously, but she was still embarrassed. She changed the subject with agility. "I've read that!" "What?" "The star-dust book--but I've picked out two others of his. May I? All these?" Clare ran her finger along the titles. "Yes--yes--Fiona Mcleod--yes--_Peer Gynt_--yes, if you like, you won't understand it, or Yeats--but all right. No, not Nietzsche! Not on any account, Louise." Louise protested. "Oh, why not, Miss Hartill? I'm nearly fourteen." "Are you really?" said Clare, with respect. "He looks so jolly--Old Testamenty----" "He does, Louise! That's his little way. But he's not for the Upper Fifth." "He's in the Free Library," said Louise, with a twinkle. Clare turned. "You can have all the books you want, if you come to me. But no more Free Library, Louise. You understand? I don't wish it." Louise tingled like a bather under a cold spray. She liked and disliked the autocratic tone. Clare went on. "I detest trash--and there's a good deal, even in a Carnegie collection. There's no need for you to dull your imagination on melodrama like--what was it?" "What, Miss Hartill?" "The play you began to tell me about--you thought it horrible, you said." Louise opened her eyes. "Miss Hartill, it wasn't melodrama--it was good stuff. That's why it worried me. It's by a Norwegian or a Dane or some one. _Pastor Sang_ it's called." "That? I don't follow. I should have thought the theology would have bored you, but there's nothing horrible in it." "It worried me. Oh, Miss Hartill, what does it all mean? Darwin says, we just grew--doesn't he? and that the Bible's all wrong. But you say that doesn't matter--it's just Old Testament? And this play says--do you remember? the wife is ill--and the husband, who cures people by praying--he can't cure her----" "Well?" said Clare impatiently. "And he says, if the apostles did miracles, we ought to be able to--he kills his wife, trying. He can't, you see. But the point is, if he couldn't, with all his faith--could the apostles? And if the apostles couldn't, could Christ Himself? The miracles are just only a tale, perhaps?" "Perhaps," said Clare. "You're not clear, Louise, but I know what you mean." "It frightened me, that play," said the child in a low voice. "If there were no miracles--and everything one reads makes one sure there weren't--why, then, the Bible's not true! Jesus was just a man! He didn't rise? Perhaps there isn't an afterwards? Perhaps there isn't God?" "Perhaps," said Clare. The child's eyes were wide and frightened. She put her hand timidly on Clare's knee. "Miss Hartill--you believe in God?" Clare looked at her, weighing her. Louise spoke again; her voice had grown curiously apprehensive. "Miss Hartill--you do believe in God?" Clare shrugged her shoulders. Louise stared at her appalled.