Again she was silent, surveying him with a smile that he thought was unpleasantly cynical. It seemed also that there was a noticeable admixture of contempt for him. His anger gave way to pain. He racked his brain for an explanation of her attitude. "That's a great deal of money," she said unpleasantly. "And with it you're going to build a marble palace on our finest street. Do you know what I think, Arnold?" she added, not unkindly. "I think you've gotten art and religion mixed." He shrugged his shoulders at that, not knowing how to reply, and she went on, her tone changing imperceptibly, as she spoke, from a scarcely concealed bitterness, to one that was almost argumentative. "In theory, of course, the Church is for the lame and the halt and blind, the poor and the sick and the friendless, isn't it?" He nodded, feeling curiously uncomfortable. He did not like to have his mission in life subjected to such matter-of-fact analysis, and besides, it filled him with a vague interrogation. "Well, what will this wonderful church do for the poor and the...." "We are to have a gymnasium and a library and...." "What nonsense," she snapped. "You're going to have them all miles from the nearest poor. That's an absurd answer." "Judith, what _is_ the matter?" he pleaded. "You were never like this before." She ignored the question. "Why aren't you honest?" she countered. "Why don't you admit that it's all for the Wynrods, and the Wolcotts and the Warings and the ... why don't you admit that it's just a monument to pride, pure and simple?" He was aghast. Also he was offended, to the depths of his soul. She had trampled deliberately on what was dear to him, and subtly, but no less certainly, she had made an implication which roused in him all the resentment of which he was capable. But the very thought of resentment brought with it the recollection of all his professional training. Arnold Imrie was perilously close to a very human display of temper, but the Reverend Arnold saved him. "For some reason," he said slowly, in a manner that to her savoured of the pulpit, "you seem unwilling to discuss this matter reasonably. I don't think you are fair to it--or to me--which is unlike you. Some other time, when you are in a different mood, we will perhaps talk about it again." He rolled up his plans and rose. "I will bid you good evening, Judith." "Very properly rebuked," laughed Judith insolently. "I admire your self control. But you're so proper, Arnold. If you were only a little more ... oh, well--but I haven't been condemning _you_--entirely. It's what you stand for. It isn't that you're a snob--but you're being--doing--oh, I'd like to put things as clearly as you can. I'd make you understand me, if I only knew how to. But I...." "I think I understand very well," he interrupted sharply. A thought, a half-formulated suspicion, had flitted across his mind.