“Your tone does not sound very hopeful.”
“A single interest in life may accomplish more for the world, but I don’t believe it is very satisfactory for one’s self.”
Madeline looked at him inquiringly.
“God gives us of His own creative power,” he said reverently, and there came into his very practical face that dreamy look which she had seen there once or twice before. “He supplies us with the raw materials of the universe, gold and beauty and food and desire—and love—and He bids us out of these things to build a man. We can’t build a successful man if we use only one ingredient. We get a complete man only when we use them all.”
Madeline stared off across the waters, and Ellery watched her over shipped oars. At last he said, “But are you going to think only of Dick, and Dick, and Dick for ever?”
She turned on him a face flushed but utterly frank.
“I know what you are thinking,” she said. “But you are mistaken, quite mistaken.” And she met his eyes squarely in spite of her heightened color. “At this very moment I was thinking more of you than of him,” she added.
“And what of me?”
“I was thinking how I misread you at first. I thought you a kind of grub.”
“And now?”