“What is the matter with my headstrong young friend?”
She made no answer; but her elfish eyes sought his, and braved their quiet rebuke.
“This is the last opportunity I shall offer you to tell me frankly what troubles you. Can I help you in any way? If so, command me.”
“Once you could have helped me, but that time has passed.”
“Perhaps not. Try me.”
“It is too late. You have lost faith in me.”
“No; you have lost all faith in yourself, if you ever indulged any,—which I very much doubt. It is you who are faithless concerning your own defective character.”
“Not I, indeed! I know it rather too well, either to set it aloft for adoration or to trample it in the mire. When your faith in me expired, mine was born. Do you recollect that beautiful painted window in Lincoln Cathedral which the untutored fingers of an apprentice fashioned out of the despised 129 bits of glass rejected by the fastidious master-builder? It is so vastly superior to every other in the church that the vanquished artist could not survive the chagrin and mortification, and killed himself. My faith is very strong, that, please God, I shall some day show you similar handiwork.”
“You grow enigmatical, and I do not fully understand you.”
“No; you do not in the least comprehend me. The girl whom you left six months ago has changed in many respects.”