"Do anything--is rather vague," he replied evasively. "What sort of
thing?"
Suddenly she threw off all reserve and let her temper go.
"If an angel were striving with a common American, do you mean to tell me
you don't know which would go to the wall in our world?" she cried.
"Robin, you may be a thousand things, but you aren't a fool. Nor am
I--not /au fond/. And yet I have thought--I have wondered--"
She stopped.
"What?" he asked.
"Whether, if there is an angel in me, it mightn't be as well to trot it
out."
The self-consciousness of the slang prevented him from hating it.
"Ah!" he said. "When have you wondered?"
"Lately. It's your fault. You have insisted so much upon the existence of
the celestial being that at last I've become almost credulous. It's very
absurd and I'm still hanging back."
"Call credulity belief and you needn't be ashamed of it."
"And if I believe, what then?"
"Then a thousand things. Belief sheds strength through all the tissues of
the mind, the heart, the temperament. Disbelief sheds weakness. The one
knits together, the other dissolves."
"There are people who think angels frightfully boring company."
"I know."
"Well then?"
Suddenly Robin got up and spoke almost brutally.
"Do you think I don't see that you are trying to find out from me what I
think would be the best means of--"
The look in her face stopped him.
"I think the water is boiling," he said, going over to the lamp.
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