But he was disappointed at Judith's reception. She fingered the drawings listlessly, and admired them without enthusiasm. His own eagerness cooled before her unexpressed indifference. He had come fired with his dream. Before her it paled and died to grey ashes. Its beauty faded, leaving only a question and dull pain. It was very dear to him. It represented achievement, success, glory--and all three won in the service of man and to the greater honour and glory of God: but Judith was dearer still. For her not to rejoice with him was to take all joy out of it. He sat wounded and silent, unable to go on, almost not caring. "It will cost ... a great deal...." she said, more meditatively than interrogatively. He nodded, wondering at her tone. "Do you think it's the best way to spend that much money?" she shot at him suddenly, her brows knitted. It surprised him, but he answered promptly: "I know of none better." She stared at him and through him for a moment. Then her mood seemed to change. She laughed metallically, and reaching lazily toward a silver box at her elbow, selected a cigarette and lighted it. It was a deliberate thrust. Always hitherto she had refrained from such indulgence before him. "Come, Arnold," she said cruelly. "You don't honestly believe that, do you?" The insolence of her pose, one knee over the other, the cigarette in her hand, the challenging note in her voice, hurt him more than her previous indifference. "I don't think I can discuss that," he said, rather loftily. Her smile faded. "Well, you ought to discuss it. You've got to defend it. You've got to prove it. Don't be absurd, Arnold." He was dumfounded. It was so unlike her. He had never seen her in such a mood. But he ascribed it to the incomprehensible nature of womankind. He knew from the fiction he had read that women do very irrational things, frequently, if not as a general rule, saying the precise opposite of their meaning. He tried to change the subject. But to his surprise she refused to change with him. "Don't people make you defend your position?" she persisted. "No one has." She was silent momentarily. Then she returned to the attack, almost doggedly. "Well, then, let me be the first. This church will cost...." "Six hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars," he supplied coldly. He regretted that circumstances had forced him into what was beyond dispute a refined form of beggary. But he had realised from the start that success of this sort was quite essential to eminence in the clergy, and he had resolutely fought down his distaste. But it angered him to be so brutally reminded of his status, particularly by a creature whom he sedulously deified. She seemed deliberately intent upon leaving the pedestal he had constructed for her.