It was not until late in the afternoon of Christmas Day that Ardea was able to slip away from her guests long enough to run over to apprise herself of the condition of things at the Gordon house.
Tom opened the door for her, and he made her come to the fire before he would answer her questions. Even then he sat glowering at the cheerful blaze as if he had forgotten her presence; and she was womanly enough, or amiable enough, to let him take his own time. When he began, it was seemingly at a great distance from matters present and pressing.
"Say, Ardea; do you believe in miracles?" he asked abruptly.
It was a large question to be answered offhand, but she broke the back of it with a simple, "Yes."
"How do you account for them? Did God make His laws so they could be taken apart and put together again when some little human ant loses its way on a grass stalk or drops its grain of sugar?"
"I don't know," she confessed frankly. "I am not sure that I ever tried to account for them; I suppose I have swallowed them whole, as you say I have swallowed my religion."
"Well, you believe in them, anyway," he said, "and that makes it easier to hit what I'm aiming at. Do you reckon they stopped short in the Apostles' time?"
"I don't know that, either," she admitted.
"You ought to know it, if you're consistent," he said, bluntly dogmatic. "Any answer to any prayer would be a miracle."
"Would it? I never happened to think of it that way."