Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/352

 her proud rebellion against the disappointments of life would make her an easy prey to his blandishments.

He searched his library over for a book that could scientifically demonstrate the purely physical basis of love. He knew that somewhere in his studies at a medical college in New York he had read it.

At last he discovered it among a lot of old magazines. It was a brief study by a great physician of Paris, entitled "The Natural History of Love." He gave it to her, and asked her to read it and give him her candid opinion of its philosophy.

He waited a week and on a Saturday when the Preacher was absent at one of his county mission stations he called at the hotel for a long afternoon's talk. He determined to press his suit.

"Do you know, Mrs. Durham, what gives a preacher his boasted power of the spirit over his audiences?" he inquired with a curious laugh in the midst of which he changed his tone of voice.

"No, you are an expert on the diseases of preachers, what is it?"

"Very simple. Religion is founded on love, there never was a magnetic preacher who was not a resistless magnet for scores of magnetic women. If you don't believe it, watch how resistless is the impulse of all these good-looking women to shake hands with their preacher, and how fondly they look at him across the pews if the crowd is too dense to reach his hand."

A frown passed over her face, and she winced at the thrust, yet her answer was a surprising question to him.

"Do you really believe in anything, Allan?"

"You ask that?" he said leaning closer. "You whose great dark eyes look through a man's very soul?"

"I begin to think I have never seen yours. I doubt if you have a soul."