"Claire!" Lawrence spoke. "Is it possible for any one to get his life platform built so that it will stand without that first great plank?"
"What plank?"
"God."
"I don't know."
"It seems to me that you couldn't have shaken me so yesterday if I had been built up right."
"Lawrence," she said piteously, "I didn't mean to do that, to say that."
He waved her words aside. "Never mind, Claire, it did me good. I was not realizing, quite, just what I was. I'm finding it out, and when I get right I'll be all the better for it."
"But you don't know why I did it."
"Yes, I do, but it doesn't matter, anyway. What was behind your words doesn't count so long as you told the truth."
"But it does count, and I didn't tell the truth."