"You may be--for a moment," she said, scorn vibrating in every word she
uttered. "But you will soon get over it, you know. By to-morrow, or even
sooner, all danger will be over."

"Stop!" exclaimed Charlie. For the first time in all her dealings with
him he spoke sternly, as a man might speak, and Molly started at his
tone. "You are making a mistake," he said more quietly. "I am not the
superficial ass you take me for."

"I have only your word for that," she returned, striking without pity
because for a second he had startled her out of her contemptuous
attitude.

He looked at her in silence, and again her indignation arose full-armed
against him. How dared he--this clown in woman's clothes--speak to her
at such a moment of that which she rightly held to be the holiest thing
on earth?

"How can you expect me to believe you?" she demanded. "You tell me you
are in earnest. But you know as well as I do that that is a mere figure
of speech. You are never in earnest. You play all day long. You will do
it all your life. You never do anything worth mentioning. Other people
do the work. You simply skim the surface of things. You are merely a
looker-on."

"A very intelligent looker-on, though," said Charlie, in a tone she did
not wholly understand.

"And if I don't do anything worth doing, it is possibly lack of