"Don't you think you and Laura Lou could be happy, making your home with me?" she pleaded.

Yes, Vance said, he was sure they could; it was long since his eyes had rested on anything as soothing as the vision of that little house. "I'd have a big kitchen table, six feet long, for my writing," he mused voluptuously; and then roused himself to his grandmother's summary of the "Storecraft" offer for a three months' tour, for which she was to be featured as: "God's Confidant, Mrs. Loraine Scrimser," who was to "tell the world about her New Religion."

"You see, Vanny, Saidie Toler's been all over the figures with him, and she says I ought to clear twenty or thirty thousand dollars. And perhaps that would be only a beginning… ." Her face glowed with tenderness, and Vance, trembling a little, took her large warm hand and pressed it against his cheek.

"Why, Van darling, don't—don't cry! You mustn't! I guess your troubles are all over now."

He sat silent, holding her hand. How could he tell her what was in his mind? Perhaps the inertness of his hand betrayed the lack of response in his thoughts; for she questioned him with eyes softened by perplexity. "Maybe you don't care for the way he's featured me?" she suggested timidly. "I guess you could find something more striking yourself—only I wouldn't want to bother you." He shook his head, and she went on, still more timidly: "Or is it the way I was received last night among those fashionable people? Don't suppose I didn't see it, Vanny; I was a failure; I know it as well as you do. My message didn't get over to them … it was a terrible disappointment to me. But Mrs. Mennenkoop says that in that set they're dreadfully inexperienced in the spiritual life … infants wailing in the dark … and that maybe what I gave them was too startling, too new… ."

"Oh, no, that's not it," Vance interrupted with sudden vehemence. "It was not new to them—that's the trouble."

"Not new—?" Her hand began to tremble in his, and she drew back a little. "Do you mean to say, Vanny, that every profound and personal spiritual adventure is not new, is not different …  ?"

"No, it's not. That's the point. Lots of people have thought they'd had spiritual adventures that were personal to them, and then, if they've taken the time to study, to look into the religious experiences of the past—"

"But what does the past matter? What I bring is a forward-looking faith, a new revelation—something God's given to me."