For an instant her eyes rested on his face, then she looked away. “It may, happily, come to an end officially, since its work will have been accomplished, but it will never be forgotten.” The last words were spoken low, with just the suspicion of a tremor in them. It seemed to pass to Herriard, as he responded, “Ah, Countess, how you reward me!” “Reward you? Can I ever do that?” she said. “Indeed you can, far above my deserts,” he answered, with the spell of her voice and presence, of her mood attuned, as it seemed, to his own, thrilling through him. “Although it is unnecessary; the fight in your cause has been its own reward.” There was a little pause, as though the subject had run as far as it might venture. Then Alexia spoke. “Ah, if I dared believe that the worst was over now!” “I think you may,” he replied. “I do not see how this new evidence can be shaken.” “You are not absolutely certain?” Her eyes were fixed on his face, and he felt she was reading him. He thought of Gastineau and his almost scoffing scepticism. He longed to feel able to tell her that all fear and doubt were passed, yet, with the memory of his mentor’s views, he could not, and felt a brute in consequence. “I believe it,” he answered, hoping the evasion was not apparent. “My own opinion is that this man’s evidence settles the question so far as you are concerned.” “But you think others may not share it?” she asked shrewdly. “I think,” he answered, “that others, who are interested, as half the world is, in believing the worst, may be reluctant to share it.” Alexia was leaning back, bitterly reflective. “The world, our world, is very cruel,” she said. “The world,” he replied, “craves for amusement. Left to its own resources it is a dull world, and is constantly growing duller. So its amusements must ever be increasing in pungency. Strong contrasts and mental vivisection are its intellectual pastimes, the cant of a spurious broad-mindedness which affects hesitation in condemning vice, since there is none who can claim virtue, and at the same time prejudges the maligned for a like reason. Our modern Pharisees’ boast is not that they are virtuous, but vicious, and they call Heaven to witness that they claim to be no better than the rest of mankind.” Alexia was looking at him searchingly with a touch of disappointment. “You are a cynic,” she said simply, yet with wistful conviction. “Not I,” he replied frankly, and at his prompt denial her face brightened. He hated himself for so easily falling into the trick of Gastineau’s pessimistic speech. “No: I am a believer in the honest, right-thinking minority, although my profession prevents me from shutting my eyes to the mental attitude of the rest. On the surface, at any rate, it is a cruel world, Countess, and I am more sorry than I can express, to know that you, of all women, have felt its hardness, its injustice. But please don’t think me a cynic.”