The Christian Part 73

"And then why--why should we prolong a painful interview, Glory?"

She shot up a look under her eyebrows. His eyes had a hara.s.sed expression, but there was a gleam in them that set her heart beating.

"Is it so painful? Is it?"

"Glory, I meant to tell you I could not come again."

"No! You're not so busy as all that, are you? Surely" (the Manx again, only she seemed to be breathless now)--"surely you're not so ter'ble busy but you can just put a sight on a girl now and again for all?"

He made a gesture with his hand. "It disturbs, it distracts----"

"Oh, is that all? Then," with a forced laugh, "I'll come to see you instead. Yes, I will, though."

"No, you mustn't do that, Glory. It would only torment----"

"Torment! Gough bless me! Why torment?" and a fugitive flame shot up at him.

"Because"--he stammered, and she could see that his lips quivered; then calmly, very calmly, p.r.o.nouncing the words slowly, and in a voice as cold as ice--"because I love you!"

"You!"

"Didn't you know that?" His voice was guttural. "Haven't you known it all along? What's the use of pretending? You've dragged it out of me.

Was that only to show your power over me?"

"Oh!"

She had heard what her heart wanted to hear, and not for worlds would she have missed hearing it, yet she was afraid, and trembling all over.

"We two are of different natures, Glory, that's the trouble between us--now, and always has been. We have nothing in common, absolutely nothing. You have chosen your path in life, and it is not my path. I have chosen mine, and it is not yours. Your friends are not my friends.

We are two different beings altogether, and yet--and yet I love you! And that's why I can not come again."

It was sweet, but it was terrible. So different from what she had dreamed of: "I love you!--you are my soul!--I can not live without you!"

Yet he was right. She had slain his love before it was born to her--it was born dead. In an unsteady voice, which had suddenly become husky, she said:

"No doubt you are right. I must leave you to judge. Perhaps you have thought it all out."

"Don't suppose it will be easy for me, Glory. I've suffered a good deal, and I dare say I shall suffer more yet. If so, I'll bear it. But for the sake of my work----"

"Ah!--But of course I can't expect--Naturally you love your work also----"

"I _do_ love my work also, and therefore it's no use trifling. 'If thine eye offend--'"

She was stung. "Well, since there's no help for it, I suppose we must shake hands and part."

Not until then--not until he had p.r.o.nounced his doom and she had accepted it did he realize how beautiful she seemed to him. He felt as if something in his throat wanted to cry out.

"It isn't what I expected, Glory--what I dreamed of for years."

"But it's best--it seems best."

"I tried to make a place for you, too, but you wouldn't have it--you let it go; you preferred this other lot in life."

She remembered Josephs, and Sefton, and the newspaper, and the part, and she covered her face with her hands.

"How can I go on, Glory, to the peril of my--It's dangerous, even dangerous."

"Yes, you are a clergyman and I am an actress. You must think of that.

People are so ignorant, so cruel, and I dare say they are talking already."

"Do you think I should care for that, Glory?" Her hands came down from her face. "Do you think I should care one jot if all the miserable scandal-mongering world thought----"

"You'll think the best of me, then?"

"I'll think of both of us as we used to be, my child, before the world came between us, before you----"

She was fighting against an impulse to fling herself into his arms, but she only said in a soft voice: "You are quite right, quite justified. I have chosen my lot in life, and must make the best of it."

"Well----" He was holding out his hand.

But nevertheless she put her hand behind her, thinking: "No; if I shake hands with him it will be the end of everything."

"Good-bye!" and with an expression of utter despair he left her.

She did not cry, and when Rosa came down immediately afterward she was smiling and her eyes were very bright.

"Was that your friend Mr. Storm? Yes? You must beware of him, my dear.

He would stop your career and think he was doing G.o.d's service."

"There's no danger of that, Rosa. He only came to say he would come no more," and then something flashed in her eyes and died away, and then flashed again.

"Yes," thought Rosa, "there's an extraordinary attraction about her that makes all other women seem tame." And then Rosa remembered somebody else, and sighed.

John Storm went back to Soho by way of Clare Market, and when people saluted him in the streets with "Good-morning, Father," he did not answer because he did not see them. On going to church that night he came upon a group of Charlie's cronies betting six to one against his getting off, and a girl in gay clothes was waiting to speak to him. It was Aggie. She had come to plead for Charlie.

"It's the drink, sir. 'E's a good boy when 'e's not drinking. But I ask pardon for 'im; and if you would only not prosecute----"

John was ashamed of himself at sight of the girl's fidelity to her unworthy lover.

"And you, my child--what about you?"

"Oh, I'm all right. What's broken can't be mended."

And meanwhile the church bells were ringing and the cabs were running to the theatres.