“No, it isn’t wrong,” said Winifred desperately; “at least, it would be the loveliest thing in the world, I think, if we were all true worshipers, and meant what we sang, and sang to God.  But you know it hasn’t been anything of the sort.  We have sung for our own pleasure and the applause of the people.”

“And the money, some of us,” asserted Frothingham with indifferent candor.  “But I don’t see why we should be troubled about it.  It’s a part of the machine.  It goes to make up the church worship, and a considerable part of it.  I suppose they offer it to the Lord—­or whatever you call it—­whether we individual performers mean anything or not.”

Winifred thought of the prayer-wheels.  Did the church turn the machine and grind out praises by proxy?  How much merit did they accumulate thereby in the eyes of God who is a Spirit, and would be worshiped “in spirit and in truth”?  It was very perplexing.  She could not argue it all out with him, but she said: 

“If the individual worshipers are insincere, I should think the total result” (she had a little of her father’s business logic) “would be insincerity.”

He smiled at her reasoning.  “Let the clergy thrash that out,” he said.  “When they or the church find fault it will be time enough for my conscience to twinge.”

“I think one of the clergy did find fault in the sermon Sunday morning,” ventured Winifred.

“Oh, that young fellow?” said Frothingham carelessly.  “I didn’t find out what he was getting at.  Doctor Schoolman always looks beatific when we sing.  While he continues to beam I shall still consider that singing in the choir is about the most pious act I do.”

Mr. Frothingham was rather vain of the brevity of his list of pious deeds.

“Oh, come on, Winifred,” he continued, grasping her hand coaxingly, “don’t bother your head about such mystical things.  Come on and sing.  Think of the Redemption.”

She did think of it, and tears struggled to come with the thought.

“I am not going,” she said, without looking in his eyes.  “Don’t ask me, George.”

“And you have no pity on poor me, going without you?”

“No,” she answered, smiling.  “You will survive it.”

“Cruel lady!” he said dramatically, and bore her slender fingers to his lips.

She withdrew her hand with a slight flush, and he bethought him to look at his watch.

“Oh,” he exclaimed, “it’s late.  Mercer will think he has lost me, too.”

He made hasty adieux and was off, his light, swinging step sounding pleasantly down the walk.

Winifred stood where he had left her, with a conflict of emotions in her heart.  She still felt the tingle of his lips upon her hand, and still smiled at the airy nothings he said.  But there was pain in the compound of her thoughts; pain at a difference between them that proclaimed its power to grow wider; pain at defeat in making a principle understood and appreciated; pain most of all from the subtle sense of something pure and sweet now sullied, as though too rude a breath had blown upon a sensitive flower, or as though pearls had been ignorantly trodden upon.