Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/246

 reasoning was demonstrably false. He was growing bitterly annoyed but, after all, such a solicitude for others only added to her value. Moreover, here was a nature almost fantastically fine, and for decency's sake he must constrain his egotism to respect her scruples.

But the sense of defeat was hard to bear. Since that morning's fatal visit to the Mecca of tradition her will had crystallized. There seemed little hope of shaking it now.

"Let me ask one question," he said tensely. "Do you still care for me?"

Before she could answer the question her breath came quickly, her color mounted. And then she said in a low voice, "I do—I always shall."

It was no use telling her she was a fool. She was grotesquely in the wrong, even if she was sublimely in the right. He would like to have shaken her—and yet how dare he sully her with a point of view which was purely personal?

"I expect that old barbarian is laughing finely in his sleeve," he said with a sudden descent to another plane.

"You don't read him right." A warm throb of feeling was in her voice. "He's quite deep and true—and kind, so kind you would hardly believe. When I went there this morning I felt I was going to hate him, and yet I find I can't."

"You are an idealist," he said. "And you've tuned up that old cracked file to the pitch of your own sackbut and psaltery. He's not fine in any way if you see him as I do—but I'm an earthworm, of course. He's just a hardshell and an unbeliever, who runs tradition for all