CHAPTER XXXVIII
A PROCESS OF HONESTY
The very best of us have a strain of selfishness. The most understanding of us are unable to a nicety to grasp the other person's point of view; and there will always be some little thing, some subtle matter, which it is not in the nature of us to perceive in the nature of someone else.
Perhaps this is the surest proof of the existence of the soul.
When, on the steps of the hotel, John bid good-night to Jill, there was but one regret in the minds of both of them, that that blessing which they had received at the hands of the old gentleman had come too soon; that in the receipt of it, they had been impostors, unworthy of so close a touch with the Infinite.
There is nothing quite so distressing to the honest mind as this and, to avoid it, to mitigate the offence, it is quite a simple process for the honest mind to project itself into some further evil of selfishness, so long as it may gain peace and a free conscience.
"There is only one thing that we can do," said John, and, if good intentions weigh, however lightly, in the sensitive scales of justice, let one be here placed in the balance for him.
"I know what you are going to say," replied Jill.
Of course she knew. They had begun to think alike already.
"We must tell her."
She nodded her head.
"We can't deceive her," he went on--"It's bad enough to have deceived him. And now--well, it's such a different matter now. She must understand. Don't you think she will?"
With a gentle pressure of his hand, she agreed.
They both pictured her glad of the knowledge, because in the hearts of them both, they were so glad to be able to tell. For this is how the honest deceive themselves, by super-imposing upon another, that state of mind which is their own. With all belief, they thought the little old white-haired lady must be glad when she heard; with all innocence and ignorance of human nature, they conceived of her gratitude that such an ending had been brought about.
"When shall we tell her?" asked Jill.
"Oh--not at once. In a day or so. The day you go, perhaps."
"And you think she'll forgive me?"
He smiled at her tenderly for her question.
"Do you think you know anything about the little old white-haired lady when you ask that? I'll just give you an example. She abominates drunkenness--loathes it--in theory has no pity for it, finds no excuse.
Well, they had a gardener once, when they were better off. There's not a school for the trade in Venice, as you can imagine. Tito knew absolutely nothing. He was worthless. He was as likely as not to pull up the best plant in the garden and think it was a weed. But there he was. Well, one day Claudina reported he was drunk. Drunk! Tito drunk!
In their garden! Oh, but it was horrible--it was disgusting! She could scarcely believe that it was true. But Claudina's word had to be taken and Tito must go. She could not even bear to think he was still about the place.
"Tito--I have heard so and so--is it true?" she said.
Well--Tito talked about not feeling well and things disagreeing with him. At last he admitted it.
"Then you must go," said she--"I give you a week's wages."
But a piteous look came into Tito's face and he bent his head and he begged--'Oh, don't send me away, _egregia signora_!' and that cry of his went so much to her heart, that she almost took his head on her shoulder in her pity for him. And you say--will she forgive you? Why, her capacity for forgiveness is infinite! I often think, when they talk of the sins that God cannot pardon, I often think of her."
She looked up and smiled.
"Do you always tell a little story when you want to explain something?"
she asked.
"Always," said he--"to little children."
She shut her eyes to feel the caress in the words.
"Well, then," she said, opening them again--"we tell her the day after to-morrow."
"That is the day you go?"
"Yes--I must go then. And may I say one thing?"
"May you? You may say everything but one."
"What is that?"
"That I have been dreaming all this to-night."
"No, you haven't been dreaming. It was all real."
"Then--what do you want to say?"
"That the little old white-haired lady is not to live alone. I'm going to live with her as much of the year as you'll let me--all of it if you will."
For one moment, he was silent--a moment of realisation, not of doubt.
"God seems to have given me so much in this last hour," he said, "that nothing I could offer would appear generous after such a gift. It shall be all the year, if you wish it. I owe her that and more. But for her, perhaps, this would never have been."
He took her hand and pressed his lips to it.
"Good-night, sweetheart. And the day after to-morrow then, we tell her everything."
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE END OF THE LOOM
When the little door had closed behind them, the old lady stood with head inclined, listening to the sound of their footsteps. Then, creeping to the high window that looked over the _Rio Marin_,--that same window at which, nearly a year before, she had stood with her husband watching Jill's departure--she pressed her face against the glass, straining her eyes to see them to the end.
It was very dark. For a moment, as John helped Jill into the gondola, she could distinguish their separate figures; but then, the deep shadow beneath the hood enveloped them and hid them from her gaze. Yet still she stayed there; still she peered out over the water as, with that graceful sweeping of the oar, they swung round and swayed forward into the mystery of the shadow beyond.
To the last moment when, melting into the darkness, they became the darkness itself, she remained, leaning against the sill, watching, as they watch, who long have ceased to see. And for some time after they had disappeared, her white face and still whiter hair were pressed against the high window in that vast chamber, as if she had forgotten why it was she was there and stood in waiting for her memory to return.
Such an impression she might have given, had you come upon her, looking so lost and fragile in that great room. But in her mind, there was no want of memory. She remembered everything.
It is not always the philosopher who makes the best out of the saddest moments in life. Women can be philosophic; the little old white-haired lady was philosophic then, as she stood gazing out into the empty darkness. And yet, no woman is really a philosopher. To begin with, there is no heart in such matter at all; it is the dried wisdom of bitterness, from which the burning sun of reason has sucked all blood, all nourishment. And that which has no heart in it, is no fit food for a woman. For a woman is all heart, or she is nothing. If she can add two and two together, and make a calculation of it, then let her do it, but not upon one page in your life, if you value the paper upon which that life be written. For once she sees that she can add aright, she brings her pen to all else. The desire of power, to a woman who has touched it, is a disease.