George, I understand you: thy people shall be my people and thy gods my gods.
George, won't you take me back ?" "Lucy, are you sure you understand me ?" And in the darkness George's bodily lips moved in unison with those which uttered the words in his imaginary rendering of this scene.

An eavesdropper, concealed behind the column, could have heard the whispered word "sure," the emphasis put upon it in the vision was so poignant.

"You say you understand me, but are you sure ?" Weeping, her head bowed almost to her waist, the ethereal Lucy made reply: "Oh, so sure! I will never listen to father's opinions again.

I do not even care if I never see him again!" "Then I pardon you," he said gently.
This softened mood lasted for several moments--until he realized that it had been brought about by processes strikingly lacking in substance.
Abruptly he swung his feet down from the copestone to the floor of the veranda.

"Pardon nothing!" No meek Lucy had thrown herself in remorse at his feet; and now he pictured her as she probably really was at this moment: sitting on the white steps of her own front porch in the moonlight, with red-headed Fred Kinney and silly Charlie Johnson and four or five others--all of them laughing, most likely, and some idiot playing the guitar! George spoke aloud: "Riffraff!" And because of an impish but all too natural reaction of the mind, he could see Lucy with much greater distinctness in this vision than in his former pleasing one.