Lionel became professionally interested, descrying intimations of a changed heart. "I believe that you will yet find the Kingdom," he said hopefully. "Don't you make any such mistake," she retorted. "I have not yet set out to find it, and never will, unless I see some of those wonders about which you talk so glibly." "But, believe me----" "I do, though not to the extent of Bible magic. You hypnotise yourself into crediting the impossible. I wish you could hypnotise me. Oh, I wish--I wish--I wish!" she ended passionately. "Faith is not hypnotism," argued Lionel; the word grated on his ear. "It is--it is--it is!" Leah was vehement in her denial. "Science can explain everything. Why do you come here to prate of miracles, when you know in your own heart that such things never were and never can be?" "They were and they can be and they will be, while Christ reigneth," asserted the vicar, firmly; "nothing is impossible to God." "Then call upon Him, and work your marvel." "I am not worthy." "You are not able, rather," and she taunted him as did Elijah the priests of Baal, their god. Kaimes wondered at her restless moods, and wondered still more when she abruptly left the serious subject they were discussing--and on her own initiative--to talk most frivolously. "I have heard you preach," went on this weathercock, "and I am no more to be persuaded than was Agrippa. You and your shadows"--she whiffed these away. "Pouf! Let us talk of real things"; and a toss of her head dismissed the spiritual for the purely temporal. "I had such a ripping time this season," rattled on the nature set upon pomps and vanities. "Leah, Leah! How can you?" "Change so rapidly? Oh, my good man, I am a twirl-ma-gee woman, ever seeking variety. Religious conversation is neither amusing nor convincing. It's much more fun to talk of one's friends and abuse their failings." "I decline to join in," said Lionel, dryly, and feeling nonplussed. "Because you have no sense of humour. What a dull time of it Joan must have, poor child!" "She does not complain," he objected stiffly. "Oh, Lord, what is the use of complaining! I never whimper about Jim, though his goodness is even duller than his badness. 'I have tried George drunk, I have tried George sober'"--she was quoting an epigram of Charles II.--"'and there is nothing in George.'" "You are unnecessarily personal," rebuked Kaimes, annoyed. "That's right. Tramp on your little corns and you howl." He intimated that he desired to leave. "My time is valuable." "Oh, I know yon are a millionaire of seconds and hours. How disagreeable you are, when I want to be amused!" "You have just informed me that I am dull," he reminded her pointedly. "So you are; all honest men are dull. Why, I don't know, unless it is that honesty and wit match as ill as beauty and brains. Now don't look at your watch again. I have something to tell you that will make your clerical hair stand on end."