Diana Part 77

"Well, now, ask my wife," Mr. Brandt answered, laughing. "She thinks it is 'worldly' to have a c.o.c.kade on your coachman's hat; it is not worldly to have the coachman, or the carriage, and she don't object to a coat with b.u.t.tons. Then it is not worldly to give a party,--but it is worldly to dance; it is very worldly to play cards. There's hair-splitting somewhere, and my eyes are not sharp enough to see the lines."

Diana sat with her book in her hand, looking up at the speaker; a look so fair and clear and grave that Mr. Brandt was again moved by curiosity, and tempted to try to make her speak.

"Can _you_ make it out?" he said, smiling.

"Why, yes!" said Diana; "but there is no hair-splitting. It is very simple. There are just two kingdoms in the world, Mr. Brandt; and whatever does not belong to the one, belongs to the other. Whatever is not for G.o.d, is for the world."

"Then your definition of the 'world' is?"--

"All that is not G.o.d's."

"But I am not clear yet. I don't see how you draw the line. Take my mills, for example; they belong to this profane, work-a-day world; yet I must run them. Is that worldly?"

"Yes, if you do not run them for G.o.d."

Mr. Brandt stared a little.

"I confess I do not see how that is to be done," he owned.

"The business that you cannot do for G.o.d, you had better not do at all," said Diana gently.

"But spinning cotton?"--

"Spinning cotton, or anything else that employs men and makes money."

"How?"

"You can do it for G.o.d, cannot you?" said Diana in the same way. "You can employ the men and make the money for his sake, and in his service."

"But that is coming pretty close," said the millowner. "Suppose I want a little of the money for myself and my family?"

"I am speaking too much!" said Diana, with a lovely flush on her cheek, and looking up to her husband. "I wish you would take the word, Basil."

"I hope Mr. Masters is going to be a little more merciful to the weaknesses of ordinary humanity," said Mr. Brandt, half lightly. "So tremendous a preacher have I never heard yet."

Basil was silent, and Diana looked down at the volume in her hand.

"Won't you go on, Mrs. Masters?" said her host. "What do you find for me there?"

"I was looking for my quotation," said Diana; "I had not got it quite right."

"How is it?"

"Here is a list of the luxuries in which Babylon traded:--'The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of bra.s.s, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, _and slaves_, _and souls of men_.'"

"Sounds for all the world like an inventory of the things in my house,"

said Mr. Brandt. "Pray what of all that? Don't you like all those things?"

"'--For in one hour so great riches is come to nought.'"

"But what harm in these things, or most of them, Mrs. Masters?"

Diana glanced up at Basil and did not answer. He answered.

"No harm--so long as business and the fruits of business are kept within the line we were speaking of; so long as all is for G.o.d and to G.o.d. If it is not for him, it is for the 'world.'"

"O my dear Mrs. Masters!" cried Mrs. Brandt, running in,--"here you are. I was looking for you.--I came to ask--shall I order the landau for five o'clock, to drive to the lake?"

Diana was glad to have the conversation broken up. When the hour for the drive came, and she sank into the luxurious, satiny depths of the landau, her thoughts involuntarily recurred to it. The carriage was so very comfortable! It rolled smoothly along, over good roads, drawn by well-trotting horses; the motion was delightful. Diana's thoughts rolled on too. Suddenly Mr. Brandt leaned over towards her.

"Is this carriage a 'worldly' indulgence, Mrs. Masters?"

Diana started. "I don't know," she said.

"Ah," said the other, laughing at her startled face,--"I am glad to see that even you may have a doubt on that subject. You cannot blame less etherealized persons, like my wife and me, if we go on contentedly, with no doubts."

"But you mistake me,"--said Diana.

"You said, you did not know."

"Because I don't know you."

"What has that to do with it?"

"If I knew you well, Mr. Brandt, I should know whether this carriage is the Lord's or not."

The expression of the gentleman's face upon this was hardly agreeable; he sat back in his seat and looked at the prospect; and so Diana tried to do, but for a time the landscape to her was indistinguishable. Her thoughts went back to the mills and the mill people; pale, apathetic, reserved, sometimes stern, they had struck her painfully as a set of people who did not own kindred with other cla.s.ses of their fellow-creatures; apart, alone, without instruction, without sympathy; not enjoying this life, nor on the way to enjoy the next. The marks of poverty were on them too, abundantly. Diana's mind was too full of these people to allow her leisure for the beauties of nature; or if she felt these, to let her feel them without a great sense of contrast.

Then she did not know whether she had spoken wisely. Alone in her room at night with Basil she began to talk about it. She wished that he would begin; but he did not, so she must.

"Basil,--did I say too much to Mr. Brandt to-day?"

"I guess not."

Diana knew by the tone of these words that her husband was on this subject contented.

"What do you think of the mill people?"

"I am very curious to find out what impression they make on you."

"Basil," said Diana, her voice trembling, "they break my heart!"

"What's to be done in that case?"

"I don't know. Nothing follows upon that. But how do you feel?"

"Very much as if I would like to prove the realizing of that old prophecy--'To whom he was not spoken of, they shall see; and they that have not heard shall understand.'"

"That is just how I feel, Basil. But they do not go to church, people say; how could you get at them?"