"I'm not afraid of you," he said. "I'm not afraid of your anger, nor of your--your other weapons. Think what you are! Think of your great powers--and you are wasting them all in making fools of a pack of young idiots--" "But what could I do with my gifts--as you call them?" "Do?--why, you could endow and organise and run any one of a hundred schemes for helping on God's work in the world." "For instance?" Her charming smile enraged him. "For instance? Well--_for instance_--you might start a home for those women who began as you have begun, and who have gone down into hell, as you will go--unless you let yourself be warned." She was for the moment literally speechless. Then she remembered how he had said: "I am not afraid of--your weapons." She drew a deep breath and spoke gently-- "I believe you don't mean to be insulting--I believe you mean kindly to me. Please say no more now. I'll think over it all. I'm not angry--only--do you really think you understand everything?" He might have answered that he did not understand her. She did not mean him to understand. She knew well enough that she was giving him something to puzzle over when she smiled that beautiful, troubled, humble, appealing half-smile. He did not answer at all. He stood a moment twisting his soft hat in his hands: she admired his hands very much. "Forgive me if I've pained you more than was needed," he said at last, "it is only because--" here her smile caught him, and he ended vaguely in a decreasing undertone. She heard the words "king's jewels," "pearl of great price." When he was gone she said "_Well!_" more than once. Then she ran to the low mirror over the mantelpiece, and looked earnestly at herself. "You do look rather nice to-day," she said. "And so he's not afraid of any of your weapons! And I'm not afraid of any of his. It's a fair duel. Only all the provocation came from him--so the choice of weapons is mine. And they shall be _my_ weapons: he has weapons to match them right enough, only the poor dear doesn't know it." She went away to dress for dinner, humming gaily-- "My love has breath o' roses, O' roses, o' roses; And arms like lily posies To fold a lassie in!" Not next day--she was far too clever for that, but on the day after that he received a note. Her handwriting was charming; no extravagances, every letter soberly but perfectly formed. "I have been thinking of all you said the other day. You are quite mistaken about some things--but in some you are right. Will you show me how to work? I will do whatever you tell me." Then the Reverend Christopher was glad of the courage that had inspired him to denounce to his parishioners all that seemed to him amiss in them. "I am glad," he said to himself, "that I had the courage to treat her exactly as I have done the others--even if she _has_ beautiful hair, and eyes like--like--"