And with a sudden yielding sweetness and grace of action of which she was quite unconscious, she extended her hands to him—­

“Oh, no, Mr. Walden!” she said, earnestly—­“I am not so angry as all that!  Not good-bye!” Hardly knowing what he did, he took her offered hands and held them tenderly in his own.

“Not good-bye!” she said, trembling a little, and flushing rose-red with a certain embarrassment—­“I don’t really want to quarrel—­I don’t indeed!  We—­we were getting on so nicely together—­and it is so seldom one can get on with a clergyman!”—­here she began to laugh—­“But you know it was dreadful of you, wasn’t it?—­at any rate it sounded dreadful—­when you said that English ladies never smoked-—­”

“Neither they do,”—­declared John resolutely, yet smilingly, “Except by way of defiance!”

She glanced up at him,—­and the mirthful sparkle in his eyes was reflected in her own.

“You are very obstinate!” she said, as she drew her hands away from his—­“But I suppose you really do think smoking is wrong for women?”

His heart was beating, his pulses thrilling under the influence of her touch, her appealing look and sudden change of manner,—­but he was not to be moved from his convictions, though all the world should swim round him in a glamour of blue eyes and gold hair.

“I think so, most certainly!”

“But why?”

He hesitated.

“Well, the act of smoking in itself is not wrong—­but the associations of the habit are unfit for womanhood.  I know very well that it has become usual in England for ladies to smoke,—­most unfortunately—­but there are many habits and customs in this country as well as in others, which, because they are habitual, are not the less, but rather the more, pernicious.  I confess to a strong prejudice against smoking women.”

“But men smoke—­why should not women smoke also?” persisted Maryllia.

Walden heard this plea with smiling patience.

“Men,—­a very large majority of them too—­habitually get drunk.  Do you think it justifiable for women to get drunk by way of following the men’s example?”

“Why no, of course not!”—­she answered quickly—­“But drunkenness is a vice—–­”

“So is smoking!  And it is quite as unhealthy as all vices are.  There have been more addle-pated statesmen and politicians in England since smoking became a daily necessity with, them than were ever known before.  I don’t believe in any human being who turns his brain into a chimney.  And.—­pardon me!—­when you deliberately put that cigarette in your mouth—–­”

“Well!” and a mischievous dimple appeared on each soft cheek as she looked up—­“What did you think of me?  Now be perfectly frank!”

“I will!” he said, slowly, with an earnest gravity darkening in his eyes—­“I should not be your true friend if I were otherwise!  But if I tell you what I thought—­and what I may say I know from long experience all honest Englishmen think when they see a woman smoking—­you must exonerate me in your mind and understand that my thoughts were only momentary.  I knew that your better, sweeter self would soon reassert its sway!”