"Tell us why."
"Because it brought upon me such an avalanche of scorn and arguments. I didn't much mind the scorn, but the arguments bored me."
"Did they convince you?"
"Mr. Armine! Now, did you ever know a woman convinced of anything by argument?"
He laughed.
"Then you still believe that you have an immortal soul?"
"More, far more, than ever."
She was laughing, too. But, quite suddenly, the laughter died out of her, and she said, with an earnest face: "I wouldn't let any one--any one--take some of my beliefs from me."
The tone of her voice was almost fierce in its abrupt doggedness.
"I must have some coffee," she added, with a complete change of tone. "I sleep horribly badly, and that's why I take coffee. Mere perversity! Three black coffees, waiter."
"Not for me!" said Meyer Isaacson.
"You must, for once. I hate doing things alone. There is no pleasure in anything unless some one shares it. At least"--she looked at Armine--"that is what every woman thinks."
"Then how unhappy lots of women must be," he said.
"The lonely women. Ah! no man will ever know how unhappy."
There was a moment of silence. Something in the sound of Mrs. Chepstow's voice as she said the last words almost compelled a silence.
For the first time since he had been with her that night Meyer Isaacson felt that perhaps he had caught a glimpse of her true self, had drawn near to the essential woman.
The waiter brought their coffee, and Mrs. Chepstow added, with a little laugh: "Even a meal eaten alone is no pleasure to a woman. To-night, till you came to take pity upon me, I should have been far happier with 'something on a tray' in my own room. But now I feel quite convivial. Isn't the coffee here good?"
Suddenly she looked cheerful, almost gay. Happiness seemed to blossom within her.
"Never mind if you lie awake for once, Doctor Isaacson," she continued, looking across at him. "You will have done a good action; you will have cheered up a human being who had been feeling down on her luck. That talk I had with a doctor had depressed me most horribly, although I told myself that I didn't believe a word he said."
Meyer Isaacson sipped his coffee and said nothing.
"I think one of the wickedest things one can do in the world is to try to take any comforting and genuine belief away from the believer," said Armine, with energy.
"Would you leave people even in their errors?" said the Doctor. "Suppose, for instance, you saw some one--some friend--believing in a person whom you knew to be unworthy, would you make no effort to enlighten him?"