CHAPTER XII

“I hear you walked home from the Temple,” St Armand remarked lightly. “Now, that’s what I call sensible. Nothing like a healthy walk! It stirs the megrims.”

“I almost agree with you. I enjoyed it, I believe--if I remember anything about enjoyment. And on my way home I paid a call.”

“A professional one?”

“Well, partly. Yes, wholly, I suppose. I called upon the beggar girl.”

“I saw her at vespers to-night. I like the little beggar girl. She has a rather interesting face.”

“She is scarcely more than a child. When you see her with her hat off, she looks ridiculously young.”

“Pretty?”

“Yes. I should say very pretty, and an exceptionally sweet voice. But she reminds me of some one--I cannot think whom; but every now and then her eyes bring back the strongest recollection of--I don’t know what.”

“Some half-forgotten love affair perhaps.”

“No; the only woman I ever cared at all about had dark eyes.”

St Armand did not even smile; you cannot afford to be flippant when you are acting Father Confessor to the highest priest.

“Then I can make no other suggestion. What is the colour of her eyes?”

“Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. If they were not green, I would swear they were blue. As it is, I believe oftentimes they are the next best thing to black.”

“You say her eyes are green?”

“I’m bound to say so.”

“Whom do we know with green eyes?”

“No one with pretensions to any beauty--no one at all.”

“Except the Serpent.” How easily and subtly the words fell out, linking the two names together--woman and the God of Lucifram!

“Ah, yes! the Serpent,” said Alphonso, almost with a start. “But her eyes convey no impression of power--only beauty.”

“When will you see her again?” St Armand asked the question thoughtfully, as if taking it quite for granted he must see her soon.

“I do not know. Perhaps never. Our lives lie so very far apart.”

The other’s lips curled almost, yet not quite imperceptibly, and he knocked the ash from the end of his cigar. “Why should the lives of the poor always lie so far from the lives of the rich? Can’t you make her into a respectable woman?”

“I believe she is respectable. Her aunt with whom she lives looked bourgeois and respectable enough for the most fastidious.”

“Oh, I thought she lived with her father and a large family.”

Alphonso laughed. “I’m afraid it was all a pack of lies--from some childish whim to gain admittance to the Palace.”

“When will you see her again?”

“I’m afraid I shall never see her.”

Then for the first time in their short friendship--for their personal introduction had taken place within the month--St Armand turned the blaze of his strong eyes on to the less powerful ones, and from them gleamed all those strange passions and desires that men feel in their weaker moments and scarcely understand. And as he looked into the human eyes before him, probing their weakness with no mercy nor forbearance, the High Priest’s shell-like armour invisibly gave way. Neither shame nor dismay came over him; he did not know the shell was broken--he felt only some tight band had loosened, giving him--was it relief? And how the dark eyes fascinated him! He read in them so many things long since forgotten--so many feelings years since passed away.

And then they blame a woman--her beauty or her fascination--and God, the Afterthought, stands silent.

“Can it be you don’t intend to see her after going this far?” He spoke with neither passion nor hurry, neither contempt, only wonder perfectly feigned--and his eyes turned slowly to the fireplace, his hand shading his face.

Alphonso sat still looking at him, wishing weakly the eyes would turn again back towards him. But, as if reading his thoughts, St Armand continued:

“She has very pretty eyes, and she is fond of you. I think, child-like, she would never tire of looking at you, and you would learn from the changing light in her eyes all that a man has ever need to know. I am old, my eyes are growing dim and duller; but she is young--what she has not learnt you can teach her it, and grow young again listening to the light chattering of youth.”

The other moved restlessly in his chair.

“I can never see her, St Armand. I am bound in by priests and servants and machine-like routine.”

“I think I will be your servant. As your friend I will walk out with you. For a week or two you shall take the light holiday that your state of health requires. Give Eaglestone a rest; I will become Vice-Chaplain,” and he laughed a light, pleasant laugh suggestive of good-nature and light-heartedness.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that in the morning you and I shall take a stroll through the Temple Close. I am engaged upon a few poor sketches to fill my leisure hours. We shall neither of us find the time dull, I promise you.”

Just then some guests of the evening were announced--high dignitaries in that golden church; and all were stiff and formal like their master.

But before his eyes all evening danced a vision--a pretty face, a sylph-like figure, fairy fingers, and a voice ridiculously sweet and child-like too, and above all, the blazing coal-black eyes, blinding his vision, yet compelling him to feel as they dictated--to _feel_, the first time for over twenty years.