THE SACRED FOUNT
but to that, fortunately, my reply can only be of the clearest. The satisfaction of my curiosity is the pacification of my mind. We've granted, we've accepted, I again press upon you, in respect to that precarious quantity, its topsy-turvy state. Only give me a lead; I don't ask you for more. Let me for an instant see play before me any feeble reflection whatever of the flash of new truth that unsettled you."
I thought for a moment that, in her despair, she would find something that would do. But she only found: "It didn't come in a flash."
I remained all patience. "It came little by little? It began then perhaps earlier in the day than the moment to which I allude? And yet," I continued, "we were pretty well on in the day, I must keep in mind, when I had your last news of your credulity."
"My credulity?"
"Call it then, if you don't like the word, your sympathy."
I had given her time, however, to produce at last something that, it visibly occurred to her, might pass. "As soon as I was not with you—I mean with you personally—you never had my sympathy."
"Is my person then so irresistible?"
Well, she was brave. "It was. But it's not, thank God, now!"
"Then there we are again at our mystery! I don't think, you know," I made out for her, "it was
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