“I don’t like it. Don’t show me any more of that book,” Rosalie said.
“But why?” he asked, with apparent surprise.
“Oh! I don’t know,” she answered, almost whispering. “It’s the Serpent. I don’t like it.”
“But you are the young lady who was kissing its head, and throwing your arms around it.”
“Yes, I know. That was because I did not understand.”
“And now?”
“Oh, now! I think it’s cruel and deceitful.”
“That’s nothing short of blasphemy. The Serpent is a god!”
“Do you believe that?” she asked, suddenly looking up, and fixing his eyes with a look as keen as it was serious.
Two pairs of eyes, dark and light, each encountered one another—each trying to read the other’s secret—and both for once inscrutable, dark and light alike.