Part 10 (2/2)

”She makes light of everything,” Miss Filbert said, smiling toward Alicia, who stood silent, the prey of her impression. Discovering the blue salts bottle, Laura walked over to her and took it from her hands.

”And what,” said the barefooted Salvation Army girl to Miss Livingstone, ”might your name be?”

There was an infinite calm interest in it--it was like a conventionality of the other world, and before its a.s.surance Alicia stood helpless.

”Her name is Livingstone,” called Hilda from the bed, ”and she is as good as she is beautiful. You needn't be troubled about HER soul--she takes Communion every Sunday morning at the Cathedral.”

”Hallelujah!” said Captain Filbert, in a tone of dubious congratulation.

”Much better,” said Hilda cheerfully, ”to take it at the Cathedral, you know, than nowhere.”

Miss Filbert said nothing to this, but sat down upon the edge of the bed, looking serious, and stroked Hilda's hair.

”You don't seem to have much fever,” she said. ”There was a poor fellow in the Military Hospital this morning with a temperature of one hundred and seven. I could hardly bear to touch him.”

”What was the matter?” asked Hilda idly, occupied with hypotheses about the third person in the room.

”Oh, I don't know exactly. Some complication, I suppose, of Satan's tribute--”

”Divinest Laura!” Hilda interposed quickly, drawing her head back. ”Do take a chair. It will be even more soothing to see you comfortable.”

Captain Filbert spoke again to Alicia, as she obeyed. ”Miss Howe is more thoughtful for others than some of our converted ones,” she said, with vast kindness. ”I have often told her so. I have had a long day.”

”It may improve me in that character,” Hilda said, ”to suggest that if you will go about such people, a little carbolic disinfectant is a good thing, or a crystal or two of permanganate of potash in your bath. Do you use those things?”

Laura shook her head. ”Faith is better than disinfectants. I never get any harm. My Master protects me.”

”My goodness!” Hilda said. And in the silence that occurred, Captain Filbert remarked that the only thing she used carbolic acid for was a decayed tooth. Presently Alicia made a great effort. She laid hands on Hilda's previous reference as a tangibility that remained with her.

”Do you ever go to the Cathedral?” she said.

The faintest shade of dogmatism crossed Captain Filbert's features, as when on a day of cloud fleeces the sun withdraws for an instant from a flower. Since her sect is proclaimed beyond the boundaries of dogma it may have been some other obscurity, but that was the effect.

”No. I never go there. We raise our own Ebenezer; we are a tabernacle to ourselves.”

”Isn't it exquisite--her way of speaking!” cried Hilda from the bed, and Laura glanced at her with a deprecating, reproachful smile, in reproof of an offence admittedly incorrigible. But she went on as if she were conscious of a stimulus.

”Wherever the morning sky bends or the stars cl.u.s.ter is sanctuary enough,” she said; ”a slum at noonday is as holy for us as daisied fields; the Name of the Lord walks with us. The Army is His Army, He is Lord of our hosts.”

”A kind of chant,” murmured Hilda, and Miss Livingstone became aware that she might if she liked play with the beginnings of magnetism. Then that impression was carried away as it were on a puff of air, and it is hardly likely that she thought of it again.

”I suppose all the elite go to the Cathedral?” Laura said. The sanct.i.ty of her face was hardly disturbed, but a curiosity rested upon it, and behind the curiosity a far-off little, leaping tongue of some other thing. Hilda on the bed named it the constant feminine, and narrowed her eyes.

”Dear me, yes,” she said for Alicia. ”His Excellency the Viceroy and all his beautiful A.D.C.'s, no end of military and their ladies, Secretaries to the Government of India in rows, fully choral, Under-Secretaries so thick they're kept in the vestibule till the bells stop. 'And make Thy chosen people joyful'!” she intoned. ”Not forgetting Surgeon-Major and Miss Alicia Livingstone, who occupy the fourth pew to the right of the main aisle, advantageously near the pulpit.”

”You know already what a humbug she is,” Alicia said, but Captain Filbert's inner eye seemed retained by that imaginary congregation.

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