Part 18 (1/2)

I

Readers who have hearts will remember that while these things were taking place in the political world, something of more intimate and personal concern had happened to Prince Max. That young man, whose head was so crowded with ideals for others, had discovered--or glimpsed, it would be more correct to say--an ideal of his own, in the shaping of which he had nothing whatever to do. G.o.ddess-like she had descended upon him from skies in which previously he had held no faith at all; and even yet it was a tussle for his conscience to accept anything coming from that quarter as really divine. He was agnostic; he did not like the Church, and he rather despised that att.i.tude of mind which accepted miracle as a directing power in human affairs, and looked to an unseen world for the inspirations of life. It was as though some modern Endymion gazing up at the round and prosaic surface of the moon, and refusing to admit that there entered into its composition anything even of so low a vitality as green cheese--it was as though such an one had seen the affirmed negation suddenly take to itself life and form, and disclose from afar a whole heaven of thoughts, beauties, and aspirations which he had not believed existent. And then, having seen that gracious form so well defined that it must for ever remain imprinted upon his consciousness, he had watched it steal from him into obscurity, wilfully concealing its whereabouts, though ever since the silver haze of that hidden presence had permeated his world.

Concealment and flight are, we know, the very arrows of love when directed with subtle intent against the hunter's heart in man; and they are scarcely less powerful to kindle his ardor when undirected and without purpose, or, as in this case, of a purpose wholly negative and without lure.

His lady had disappeared, because in very truth parting was her intent; and in haunting for a while the dark and crooked ways which her feet had blessed, he had but the poor satisfaction of knowing that he was depriving of her ministrations lives inconceivably more miserable than his own. That consciousness when it came touched him in a point of honor, and forced him to relinquish the quest; but there remained with him thenceforth a maddening sense that if, accepting his withdrawal, she had resumed her avocations, he now knew daily where she was, and had only to break with his scruples in order to find her.

They had met less than half-a-dozen times; and he, driven by his mental pugnacity to test so unreasonable an apparition, had spared neither himself nor her. The sincerity of her faith had angered him, though anything else, had he detected it, would have destroyed his dream; and when he had scoffed she had not troubled to rebuke him, had only glanced at him amused, not with pity or condescension or kind Christian charity, but with a very friendly understanding and often with what seemed agreement. He was astonished to find that a rippling sense of humor could go hand in hand with a blind gift of faith, and to hear sayings as bold as his own uttered as though they were the merest common-sense.

”Why yes, of course,” she admitted, in answer to one of his tirades, ”if you want envy, hatred, and uncharitableness in a concentrated form you will find them in the Church; that stands to reason.” And when he inquired why, she answered, quite simply, ”Because a bad Christian is Satan's best material.”

Nor had she any illusions about that particular branch of the Church militant for which she labored; she regarded it rather as a half-baked body of territorials than a regular army equipped for the field. Still it served a purpose, gave useful occupation to many, and stood for the time being against unreasoning panic or callous desertion of duty; nor would she surrender its few poor healing virtues for any of the nostrums he sought to set in their place. ”It does more than you with all your talking,” she said quietly, and, as they pa.s.sed by, took him into a mission church where he might see--a small corrugated iron hut, set down in the midst of slums. Under the scent of incense the smell of disinfectants was strong; near a stove sat a lay reader, and about her a dozen poor weary women plying needle and thread. Two or three of them held children at the breast; in a pen near by lay half-a-dozen others asleep. Over the stove was a large boiler supplying hot water to poor paris.h.i.+oners; away by a small side altar knelt a single figure in prayer. Brightly colored ”stations of the Cross,” and something upon the altar that looked like a large tea-cozy, before which burned a light, told how here the law was systematically broken, and that the ”nonsense”

inveighed against by the old Queen Regent had not yet been put down.

”That is the bit of Christianity I work for,” she said as she led him out again, ”a sort of mother-hen whose cluckings, scratchings, and incubations are run in a parish of five thousand half-starved people on less than 300 a year. Have you anything better to show?”

”I want revolution,” he said.

”Choose your own time,” she answered mildly. ”Here every day we are facing a far worse thing.”

”Making it endurable,” he objected. ”These people are patient because of you and your like.”

”Impatience would only make it harder for them,” she returned. ”You can't argue with them; they haven't the brains.”

”Not in working order, I admit.”

”Meanwhile they have to live.”

”And when you help them to that end--are they at all grateful?”

”A few; yes, that is one of the hardest things we have to bear,--we who are living stolen lives; for whether we will it or not our vitality comes from them; daily we drain it from their blood, and nothing we can do will stop it.”

”Are you in need of money?”

”Always; but five million pounds given us to-morrow would not go to the root of this.”

”What would?”

”Nothing but true wors.h.i.+p.”

”You wors.h.i.+p an alibi,” said Max.

”What nearer divinity has brought you here?” she inquired. And he, too conscious of the personal motive, forbore to explain.

At their fifth meeting she told him quite frankly that he was interfering with her work, that she could not have him accompanying her, waiting for her, picking her up as if by chance.

”If you want to do work you must find it for yourself; you will if you are sincere,” she said in answer to his request that she would commission him.

”But may I not be your follower?” he pleaded, choosing the word for its double sense.