“At least I hope that you will never mention this; it might injure me.”  He did not explain how, but he seemed to know.

“Do you suppose I’d tell my Maker if He did not already know it?” She swept past him into the kitchen.

“As soon as you have done your work, go clean the parlor,” she said to the cook.  “Give it a good airing.  And throw that cream away, throw the bottle away.”

A few moments later she hurried with her bowl into the pantry; there she left it unfinished and crept noiselessly up the backstairs to her room.

That evening as Professor Hardage sat opposite to her, reading, while she was doing some needlework, he laid his book down with the idea of asking her some question.  But he caught sight of her expression and studied it a few moments.  It was so ludicrous a commingling of mortification and rage that he laughed outright.

“Why, Anna, what on earth is the matter?”

At the first sound of his voice she burst into hysterical sobs.

He came over and tried to draw her fingers away from her eyes. 
“Tell me all about it.”

She shook her head frantically.

“Yes, tell me,” he urged.  “Is there anything in all these years that you have not told me?”

“I cannot,” she sobbed excitedly.  “I am disgraced.”

He laughed.  “What has disgraced you?”

“A man.”

“Good heavens!” he cried, “has somebody been making love to you?”

“Yes.”

His face flushed.  “Come,” he said seriously, “what is the meaning of this, Anna?”

She told him.

“Why aren’t you angry with him?” she complained, drying her eyes.  “You sit there and don’t say a word!”

“Do you expect me to be angry with any soul for loving you and wishing to be loved by you?  He cast his mite into the treasury, Anna.”

“I didn’t mind the mite,” she replied.  “But he said I encouraged him, that I encouraged him systematically.”

“Did you expect him to be a philosopher?”

“I did not expect him to be a—­” She hesitated at the harsh word.

“I’m afraid you expected him to be a philosopher.  Haven’t you been kind to him?”

“Why, of course.”

“Systematically kind?”

“Why, of course.”

“Did you have any motive?”

“You know I had no motive—­aren’t you ashamed!”

“But did you expect him to be genius enough to understand that?  Did you suppose that he could understand such a thing as kindness without a motive?  Don’t be harsh with him, Anna, don’t be hard on him:  he is an ordinary man and judged you by the ordinary standard.  You broke your alabaster box at his feet, and he secretly suspected that you were working for something more valuable than the box of ointment.  The world is full of people who are kind without a motive; but few of those to whom they are kind believe this.”