Her antipathy identified him as readily as her sympathy might have
identified a man who had produced a favorable impression on her. "I have
no pretension to be a critic," she answered, with frigid politeness. "I
only know what I personally like or dislike."

The reply exactly answered Father Benwell's purpose. It diverted
Romayne's attention from the picture to Stella. The priest had secured
his opportunity of reading their faces while they were looking at each
other.

"I think you have just stated the true motive for all criticism,"
Romayne said to Stella. "Whether we only express our opinions of
pictures or books in the course of conversation or whether we assert
them at full length, with all the authority of print, we are really
speaking, in either case, of what personally pleases or repels us. My
poor opinion of that picture means that it says nothing to Me. Does it
say anything to You?"

He smiled gently as he put the question to her, but there was no
betrayal of emotion in his eyes or in his voice. Relieved of anxiety, so
far as Romayne was concerned, Father Benwell looked at Stella.

Steadily as she controlled herself, the confession of her heart's secret
found its way into her face. The coldly composed expression which had
confronted the priest when she spoke to him, melted away softly under
the influence of Romayne's voice and Romayne's look. Without any
positive change of color, her delicate skin glowed faintly, as if it
felt some animating inner warmth. Her eyes and lips brightened with a
new vitality; her frail elegant figure seemed insensibly to strengthen
and expand, like the leaf of a flower under a favoring sunny air. When