She was more interested in the stranger of the hillside than in the story.

Then she found herself recalling every trifling word or action of her contact with the handsome stranger, from the moment when he addressed her in the church to his farewell smile and the set of his fine shoulders as he walked away, when Ruddy Van so annoyingly appeared on the scene.

She remembered each expression of his face, each intonation of his voice; she thrilled at the memory of his handclasp and the almost reverent way in which he lifted her from the hillside and helped her to her feet. She remembered every word he spoke. Somehow the words he had read from his little Testament had gone deep into her heart. She could not throw them off though she tried hard to do so. It was not going to be pleasant having such words clinging in her mind when she got back to college. But of course college and a normal life would drive them out again, just as college had first driven away the early teaching of her grandmother and her Sunday school teachers.

Before her journey was over, Constance had made the incident of the stranger into a lasting memory of her life. She thought that she was going to be able to shake it off as soon as she arrived at her destination, but she found herself succumbing more and more to the memory of the man. She even allowed herself to think wistfully what it would be to have such a man for an intimate friend, perhaps the most intimate friend of her life. Of course it would be utterly unthinkable to live up to such standards as he held, but there were ways in which such a friend and companion would be wonderful. It would put living on an entirely different plane. Of course she never would be willing to pay the price. She was too fond of her world and its ways, too eager for matched pearls and the like. Yet she found herself thinking wistfully of a future in which there might appear such a person who would yet be satisfied with herself as she was.

She was roused from her absorption by the stir of the passengers getting ready to get out, and the porter appeared to brush her shoes, take her baggage, and receive her generous tip.

Half-reluctantly she opened her eyes and came back to her regular life again, knowing that Seagrave must henceforth have no part in her thoughts and plans. He was merely a pleasant, romantic little incident, like the flowers he had given her that were likely withered by this time and would soon be forgotten.

Getting back to college again was always an interesting occurrence. There was the happy stir of fellow students’ greetings, the unpacking and getting in order again, the running back and forth to other rooms to chat and hear the news, to tell all that had befallen one during the few days’ absence. In the excitement Constance snapped back to normal and was as cheerful and flippant as the rest. The hillside and the stranger and the lovely blue flowers, even the steady, earnest brown eyes, were forgotten. Constance was her former self again.

It was not until Doris Hampden, her roommate, after a burst of confidence about a new admirer she had met at a dance, said, “Well, Connie, what’s the news? Any great thrills? Meet any new men?” that Seagrave’s face came back to her and his eyes seemed to be smiling at her again.

The color, to her utmost confusion, flamed into her cheeks without warning. She was not a girl given to showing emotion and it annoyed her.

“Oh yes,” she owned in a drawl of indifference, “one perfectly stunning one, but wait, Dorrie, I haven’t shown you my pearls yet.”

“Your pearls? The real pearls! You princess! How come?”

Constance twisted a little grimace. “Oh, my grandmother gave them to me,” she said lightly.

“But I thought they were to be a graduating present if you got them. You weren’t at all sure when you went home, you know.”

“Well, there they are,” said Constance, proudly exhibiting them, “but I had to pay the price.”

“What do you mean ‘pay the price’?” asked her friend curiously. “Was there a string attached to them?”

“Yes,” said Constance, shrugging her shoulders, “a theological string. Grandmother got these pearls herself the day she joined the church, and she had set her heart on giving them to me when I joined the church. I found she was going to be quite stubborn about it. There was even danger she might give them to my country cousin who happens to be quite religiously inclined, so I gave in. I joined the church last Sunday. What do you think of that after all my noble renunciation of the faith of my fathers?”

“You don’t mean it, Connie; you really joined the church? Say, isn’t that rich? But I don’t blame you, of course, for pearls like that. They’re wonderful! I’d have done it myself, of course. What harm could it do? It doesn’t mean a thing, of course.”

“Of course not,” said Constance and felt suddenly a pair of steady brown eyes upon her soul, a keen, disappointed look in them.

“But to think of you standing up before the congregation joining church! Con Courtland. It’s a scream! What’ll the girls say when they hear it?”

“It’s none of their business, of course,” said Constance gravely.