“I don’t know. Being here, I suppose. He often comes here, doesn’t he?” “Then this room holds more of his personality than of mine?” There was an under sound of vexation in his voice. “Have you heard anything?” “No. But no doubt he’s still in the North with his mother.” “How domestic. I hope there is a stool of repentance in the family house.” “I wonder if you could ever repent of anything.” “Do you think there is anything I ought to repent of?” “Oh, yes.” “What?” “You might have married a man who knew the truth of you, and you married a man incapable of ever knowing it.” He half expected an outburst of anger to follow his daring speech, but she sat quite still, looking at him steadily. She had taken off her gloves, and her hands lay lightly, one resting on the other. “You mean, I might have married you.” “I’m not worth much, but at least I could never have betrayed the white angel in you.” She leaned towards him and spoke earnestly, almost like a child to an older person in whom it has faith. “Do you think such an angel could do anything in--in this sort of world?” “Modern London?” She nodded, keeping her eyes still on him. He guessed at once of what she was thinking. “Do anything--is rather vague,” he replied evasively. “What sort of thing?” Suddenly she threw off all reserve and let her temper go. “If an angel were striving with a common American, do you mean to tell me you don’t know which would go to the wall in our world?” she cried. “Robin, you may be a thousand things, but you aren’t a fool. Nor am I--not _au fond_. And yet I have thought--I have wondered--” She stopped. “What?” he asked. “Whether, if there is an angel in me, it mightn’t be as well to trot it out.” The self-consciousness of the slang prevented him from hating it. “Ah!” he said. “When have you wondered?” “Lately. It’s your fault. You have insisted so much upon the existence of the celestial being that at last I’ve become almost credulous. It’s very absurd and I’m still hanging back.” “Call credulity belief and you needn’t be ashamed of it.” “And if I believe, what then?” “Then a thousand things. Belief sheds strength through all the tissues of the mind, the heart, the temperament. Disbelief sheds weakness. The one knits together, the other dissolves.” “There are people who think angels frightfully boring company.” “I know.” “Well then?” Suddenly Robin got up and spoke almost brutally. “Do you think I don’t see that you are trying to find out from me what I think would be the best means of--” The look in her face stopped him. “I think the water is boiling,” he said, going over to the lamp. “It ought to bubble,” she answered quietly. He lifted up the lid of the silver bowl and peeped in. “It is bubbling.”