"No, no," he broke out uncontrollably. "You don't understand me; you must listen. I can't take your money—no matter how much of it you make. I want you to give up lecturing; to give it up at once. I want you to go back home now—tomorrow. Don't you see, Granny, we can't either of us live on money that isn't honestly got?"

Mrs. Scrimser stood listening with a face of gentle bewilderment. He felt the uselessness of his words; no argument of that sort could penetrate through the close armour of her conviction. Under her genuine personal humility there was a spiritual pride, the sense of a "call," of the direct mandate of the Unseen. The word "honestly" had not even caught her attention, and she evidently attributed Vance's scruples to the pride of a young man unwilling to be helped out of money difficulties by an old woman. He did not know what to say next; and for a minute or two they stood and faced each other in an embarrassed silence. Then he saw a tremor cross her face, followed by a look of painful enlightenment.

"Vanny," she said, laying her hand on his shoulder, "perhaps, as you say, I haven't understood what you meant. But you've got to tell me. Is it because you're afraid I'll hurt your reputation—a foolish old woman going about telling people about things she doesn't half understand? I know that's the way it struck you and your fashionable friends last night—and maybe you don't want them to go round saying: 'Who'd ever have thought that old evangelist woman with her Salvation Army talk was Vance Weston's grandmother—the novelist's grandmother?'" She paused, and let her eyes rest on his. "That it, Vanny? You see I'm not so stupid, after all." She smiled a little, and drew him closer. "If you do feel that, sonny, I guess I'll have to give up after all."

Vance could find no reply. The words choked in his throat. "It's not that—how could you …  ?" he mumbled, answering her embrace. She groped in a big silk bag, drew out a crumpled handkerchief, and wiped her spectacles. When she had put them back, she plunged again into the deeper recesses of her reticule, and finally produced a hundred-dollar bill. She smoothed it out and pressed it into her grandson's hand. "No, it's not for you—it's for Laura Lou. And you can let her take it, Vanny"—a whimsical twinkle crept into her eyes—"because I didn't earn a dollar of it lecturing. I made every cent baking gingerbread for charity sales last winter—and see here, Vanny, it's twice the work it is coaxing folks back to Jesus… ."

Chapter 8