“It’s a little false god,” said he.

“It’s the first thing yon asked for when you recovered from your illness.  You said you had kept it since you were a tiny boy.  See?  I remember.  You set great value on it then?”

“I believed in it,” said Paul.

“And now you don’t?  But a woman gave it to you.”

“Yes,” said Paul, wondering, in his masculine way, how the deuce she knew that.  “I was a brat of eleven.”

“Then keep it.  Put it on your chain again.  I’m sure it’s a true little god.  Take it back to please me.”

As there was nothing, from lapping up Eisel to killing a crocodile, that Paul would not have done, in the fulness of his wondering gratitude, for his dearest lady, he meekly attached the heart to his chain and put it in his pocket.

“I must tell you,” said he, “that the lady—­she seemed a goddess to me then—­chose me as her champion in a race, a race of urchins at a Sunday school treat, and I didn’t win.  But she gave me the cornelian heart as a prize.”

“But as my champion you will win,” said Miss Winwood.  “My dear boy,” she said, and her eyes grew very tender as she laid her hand on the young man’s arm, “believe what an old woman is telling you is true.  Don’t throw away any little shred of beauty you’ve ever had in your life.  The beautiful things are really the true ones, though they may seem to be illusions.  Without the trinket or what it stood for, would you be here now?”

“I don’t know,” replied Paul.  “I might have taken a more honest road to get here.”

“We took you to ourselves as a bright human being, Paul—­not for what you might or might not have been.  By the way, what have you decided as regards making public the fact of your relationship?”

“My father, for his own reasons, has urged me not to do so.”

Miss Winwood drew a long breath.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said.

So Paul, comforted by one woman’s amazing loyalty, went out that evening and addressed his great meeting.  But the roar of applause that welcomed him echoed through void spaces of his being.  He felt neither thrill nor fear.  The speech prepared by the Fortunate Youth was delivered by a stranger to it, glowing and dancing eloquence.  The words came trippingly enough, but the informing Spirit was gone.

Those in the audience familiar with the magic of his smile were disappointed.  The soundness of his policy satisfied the hard-headed, but he made no appeal to the imaginative.  If his speech did not fall flat, it was not the clarion voice that his supporters had anticipated.  They whispered together with depressed headshakings.  Their man was not in form.  He was nervous.  What he said was right enough, but his utterance lacked fire.  It carried conviction to those already convinced; but it could make no proselytes.  Had they been mistaken in their choice?  Too young a man, hadn’t lie bitten off a hunk greater than he could chew?