“And yet a dragon was believable to the poets that made our old ballads; and now geology reveals that some-such creatures did at one time actually exist.” “Ah! you turn the tables on me there, Helen! I confess my parallel a false one.” “A truer one than you think, perhaps,” said Helen. “That a thing should seem absurd to one man, or to a thousand men, will not make it absurd in its own nature; and men as good and as clever as you, George, have in all ages believed in a God. Only their notion of God may have been different from yours. Perhaps their notion was a believable one, while yours is not.” “By Jove, Helen! you’ve got on with your logic. I feel quite flattered! So far as I am aware you have had no tutor in that branch but myself! You’ll soon be too much for your master, by Jove!” Like the pied piper, Helen smiled a little smile. But she said seriously, “Well, George, all I have to suggest is--What if, after all your inability to believe it, things should at last prove, even to your--satisfaction, shall I say?--that there IS a God?” “Don’t trouble yourself a bit about it, Helen,” returned George, whose mind was full of something else, to introduce which he was anxiously, and heedlessly, clearing the way: “I am prepared to take my chance, and all I care about is whether you will take your chance with me. Helen, I love you with my whole soul.” “Oh! you have a soul, then, George? I thought you hadn’t!” “It IS a foolish form of speech, no doubt,” returned Bascombe, a little disconcerted, as was natural. “--But to be serious, Helen, I do love you.” “How long will you love me if I tell you I don’t love you?” “Really, Helen, I don’t see how to answer such a question. I don’t understand you at all to-day! Have I offended you? I am very sorry if I have, but I am quite in the dark as to when or where or how.” “Tell me then,” said Helen, heedless of his evident annoyance and discomfort, “how long will you love me if I love you in return?” “For ever and ever.” “Another form of speech?” “You know what I mean well enough. I shall love you as long as I live.” “George, I never could love a man who believed I was going to die for ever.” “But, Helen,” pleaded Bascombe, “if it can’t be helped, you know!” “But you are content it should be so. You believe it willingly. You scoff at any hint of a possible immortality.” “Well, but, Helen, what difference can it make between you and me?” returned George, whom the danger of losing her had rendered for the moment indifferent even to his most cherished theory. “If there should be anything afterwards, of course I should go on loving you to the very extreme of the possible.”