Part 12 (1/2)

”Ah! how sweet of you! And what a lovely little hand! But no; let me take it for myself.”

He reached one arm around her shoulder, put his hand under her chin, tipped up her face, and kissed her on the lips.

”Darling!” he whispered.

Then in a moment she awoke from her world of wonder and enchantment, and the intoxication of the evening left her. She did not speak; her head dropped; she felt her cheeks burn red, and she hid her face in her hands. There was a momentary sense of dishonour, almost of outrage.

Drake treated her lightly, and she was herself to blame.

”Forgive me, Glory!” he was saying, in a voice tremulous and intense.

”It shall never happen again--never--so help me G.o.d!”

The day was dawning, and the last raindrops were splas.h.i.+ng on the wet and empty pavement. The great city lay asleep, and the distant thunder was rolling away from it.

XII.

The chaplain of Martha's Vineyard had not been to the hospital ball.

Before it came off he had thought of it a good deal, and as often as he remembered that he had protested to Glory against the company of Polly Love he felt hot and ashamed. Polly was shallow and frivolous, and had a little crab-apple of a heart, but he knew no harm of her. It was hardly manly to make a dead set at the little thing because she was foolish and fond of dress, and because she knew a man who displeased him.

Then she was Glory's only companion, and to protest against Glory going in her company was to protest against Glory going at all. That seemed a selfish thing to do. Why should he deny her the delights of the ball?

He could not go to it himself--he would not if he could; but girls liked such things--they loved to dance, and to be looked at and admired, and have men about them paying court and talking nonsense.

There was a sting in that thought, too; but he struggled to be magnanimous. He was above all mean and unmanly feelings--he would withdraw his objection.

He did not withdraw it. Some evil spirit whispered in his heart that Glory was drifting away from him. This was the time to see for certain whether she had pa.s.sed out of the range of his influence. If she respected his authority she would not go. If she went, he had lost his hold of her, and their old relations were at an end.

On the night of the ball he walked over to the hospital and asked for her. She had gone, and it seemed as if the earth itself had given way beneath his feet.

He could not help feeling bitterly about Polly Love, and that caused him to remember a patient to whom her selfish little heart had shown no kindness. It was her brother. He was some nine or ten years older, and very different in character. His face was pale and thin--almost ascetic--and he had the fiery and watery eyes of the devotee. He had broken a blood-vessel and was threatened with consumption, but his case was not considered dangerous. When Polly was about, his eyes would follow her round the ward with something of the humble entreaty of a dog. It was clear that he loved his sister, and was constantly thinking of her. But she hardly ever looked in his direction, and when she spoke to him it was in a cold or fretful voice.

John Storm had observed this. It had brought him close to the young man, and the starved and silent heart had opened out to him. He was a lay-brother in an Anglican Brotherhood that was settled in Bishopsgate Street. His monastic name was Brother Paul. He had asked to be sent to that hospital because his sister was a nurse there. She was his only remaining relative. One other sister he had once had, but she was gone--she was dead--she died---- But that was a sad and terrible story; he did not like to talk of it.

To this broken and bankrupt creature John Storm found his footsteps turning on that night when his own heart lay waste. But on entering the ward he saw that Brother Paul had a visitor already. He was an elderly man in a strange habit--a black ca.s.sock which b.u.t.toned close at the neck and fell nearly to his feet, and was girded about the waist by a black rope that had three great knots at its suspended ends. And the habit was not more different from the habit of the world than the face of the wearer was unlike the worldly face. It was a face full of spirituality, a face that seemed to invest everything it looked upon with a holy peace--a beautiful face, without guile or craft or pa.s.sion, yet not without the signs of internal strife at the temples and under the eyes; but the battles with self had all been fought and won.

As John Storm stepped up, the old man rose from his chair by the patient's bed.

”This is the Father Superior, sir,” said Brother Paul.

”I've just been hearing of you,” said the Father in a gentle voice. ”You have been good to my poor brother.”

John Storm answered with some commonplace--it had been a pleasure, a happiness; the brother would soon leave them; they would all miss him--perhaps himself especially.

The Father resumed his chair and listened with an earnest smile. ”I understand you, dear friend,” he said. ”It is so much more blessed to give than to receive! Ah, if the poor blind world only knew! How it fights for its pleasures that perish, and its pride of life that pa.s.ses away! Yet to succour a weaker brother, or protect a fallen woman, or feed a little child will bring a greater joy than to conquer all the kingdoms of the earth.”

John Storm sat down on the end of the bed. Something had gone out to him in a moment, and he was held as by a spell. The Father talked of the love of the world--how strange it was, how difficult to understand, how tragic, how pitiful! The l.u.s.ts of the flesh, the l.u.s.ts of the eye--how mean, how delusive, how treacherous! To think of the people of that mighty city day by day and night by night making themselves miserable in order that they might make themselves merry; to think of the children of men scouring the globe for its paltry possessions, that could not add one inch to the stature of the soul, while all the time the empire of peace and joy and happiness lay here at hand, here within ourselves, here in the little narrow compa.s.s of the human heart! To give, not to get, that was the great blessedness, and to give of yourself, of your heart's love, was the greatest blessedness of all.

John Storm was stirred. ”The Church, sir,” he said, ”the Church itself has to learn that lesson.”