"Then why have you come here?"
"The Crossthwaites were going. They asked me to come too. It was the only chance I knew I should ever have--our City of Beautiful Nonsense--I had to come."
Still John gazed at her, as though she were unreal. One does not always believe one's own eyes, for there are some things, which the readiness to see will constitute the power of vision. He put out his hand again.
"I can hardly believe it," he said slowly. "Here, just a minute ago, I was telling St. Anthony all I had lost. You--the best thing in my life--my ideal as well--even my sense of humour."
She looked up at his face wondering. There had been strange lost things for which she had prayed to St. Anthony--things to which only a woman can act as valuer. But to pray for a lost sense of humour. She touched the hand that he put out.
"You're very funny," she said gently--"You're very quaint. Do you think you'll find the sense of humour again?"
"I've found it," said John.
"Already?"
"Yes--already." One eye lifted to St. Anthony.
Then he told her about the hawker and that rare, that valuable coin--the English penny--and in two minutes, they were laughing with their heads in their hands.
This is not a reverent thing to do in a church. The least that you can offer, is to hide your face, or, turning quickly to the burial service in the prayer-book--granted that you understand Latin--read that.
Failing that of burial, the service of matrimony will do just as well.
But before the image of St. Anthony, to whom you have been praying for a lost gift of laughter--well, you may be sure that St. Anthony will excuse it. After all, it is only a compliment to his powers; and the quality of saintliness, being nothing without its relation to humanity, must surely argue some little weakness somewhere. What better then than the pride that is pardonable?
At length, when she had answered all his questions, when he had answered all hers, they rose reluctantly to their feet.
"I must go back to them," she said regretfully.
"But I shall see you again?"
"Oh, yes."
"Does Mrs. Crossthwaite know that you have seen me?"
"Yes. Her husband doesn't. He wouldn't understand."
John smiled.
"Men never do," said he. "They have too keen a sense of what is wrong for other people. When shall I see you?"
"This afternoon."
"Where?"
"Anywhere----" she paused.
"You were going to say something," said John quickly. "What is it?"
She looked away. In the scheme of this world's anomalies, there is such a thing as a duty to oneself. They have not thought it wise to write it in the catechism, for truly it is but capable of so indefinite a rendering into language, that it would be only dangerous to set it forth. For language, after all, is merely a sound box, full of words, in the noisy rattling of which, the finer expression of all thought is lost.
But a thousand times, Jill had thought of it--that duty. Its phrases form quite readily in the mind; they construct themselves with ease; the words flow merrily.
Why, she had asked herself, should she sacrifice her happiness to the welfare of those who had brought her into the world? What claim had they upon her, who had never questioned her as to a desire for existence?
All this is so simply said. Its justice is so palpably apparent. And if she had gained nothing herself by the transaction, it would have been so easy of following. But the mere knowledge that she stood to win the very heart of her desire at the cost of some others' welfare, filled her with the apprehension that she was only inventing this duty of self for her own gratification, as a narcotic to the sleeplessness of her own conscience.
The education of the sex has so persistently driven out egotism from their natures, that the woman who finds paramount the importance of herself, has but a small place in this modern community.
Fast in her very blood, was bred in Jill that complete annihilation of selfishness, that absolute abandonment to Destiny. Strive as she might, she could not place her own desires before the needs of her father and mother; she could not see the first essential of happiness in that gain to herself which would crush the prospects of her brother Ronald.
To such women as these--and notwithstanding the advent of the tradeswoman into the sex, there are many--to be able to give all, is their embarrassment of riches, to withhold nothing is their conception of wealth.
In the ideal which she had formed of John, Jill knew that he was possessed of more in himself, than ever would be the bounty bequeathed to those three people dependent upon her generosity. And so, she had given her consent of marriage to one, whom she might have valued as a friend, whom, as a man, she respected in every way, but who well, since brevity is invaluable--like poor St. Joseph, had a brown beard.
All this, in the pause that had followed John's question, had passed for the thousandth time through Jill's mind, bringing her inevitably once more to the realisation of her duty to others. And when he pressed her again, offering, not perhaps the penny for her thoughts, but an equivalent, just as valuable as that most valuable of coins, the promise of his eyes, she shook her head.
"Ah, but you were going to say something!" he pleaded.
"I was going to ask you," said she, "if you would take me to see your people." She hesitated. "I--I want to have tea with them out of the little blue and white cups with no handles. I want to go and buy lace with the little old white-haired lady in the arcades."
He seized her hand so that she winced.
"You've not forgotten! You shall come this afternoon." And there, with a smile, she left him, still standing by the silent image of St.
Anthony; and, gratitude being that part of prayer which belongs to the heart and has nothing in common with delay, John knelt down again. When Jill looked back over her shoulder, his head was buried in his hands.
The little old white-haired lady was waiting over the mid-day meal for him when he returned. His father had taken his food and gone out again, leaving her alone to keep John company. She was sitting patiently there at the head of the table and, by the side of her empty plate, stood a small bottle containing white pills, over which she hurriedly laid her hand as he entered.
But clever as they are, in their cunning, childish ways, old people lose all the superior craft of deceit. They go back to childhood when they imagine that once a thing is hidden, it is out of sight. That is not at all the case. There comes a moment when it is too late to conceal; when curiosity will bring the hidden thing twice vividly before the eyes.
Under the very nose of John, was the best place for that secret bottle of pills, had she needed it not to be seen.
As it was, his eyes travelled more quickly than her hand. She made a gentle little effort to hide her concern as well. She smiled up at him, asking where he had been. But it would not do. The child is parent to the man, he is parent to the woman too--a stern parent, moreover, who will brook no simple trifling with his authority, who overlooks nothing and whose judgments are the blind record of an implacable justice. John could not let that little deception pass. Instead of answering her question, instead of taking his place at the table, he came to her side and put one arm gently round her neck.
"What are you hiding, dearest?" he asked.
Like a child, who is discovered in the act of nefarious negotiations with the good things of this world, she quietly took her hand away.
There stood the innocent little bottle in all its nakedness. John stared at it questioningly--then at his mother.
"Is it something that you have to take, dearest?" he asked. "Aren't you well?"
"Yes, I'm quite well," she said, and she played nervously with the cork in the little bottle. It was a delicate subject. She began to wish that she had never embarked upon it at all. But faith brings with it a rare quality of courage, and so firmly did she believe, with the quaint simplicity of her heart, in the course she had determined to adopt, that the wish broke like a bubble on the moment.
"Well, what is in the bottle?" persisted John.
"Ignatia."
There was just the faintness of a whisper in her voice. She had not found full courage as yet. Even in their firmest beliefs, old people are pursued by the fear of being thought foolish. The new generation always frightens them; it knows so much more than they.
"Ignatia?" John repeated.