CHAPTER XXXIII

“The black moments at end, the elements change.”

IT was early, and the sunlight with sharp shadows had a chilly and almost stage effect. The sky was dazzling over Notre Dame. Geoffrey Grant sat in the great church, watching the sunbeams catch up and glorify the dust. Worshippers and sightseers slipped in and out, and many candles gleamed.

The thought of Muriel had driven him there; and now he was alone with it, he thought half cynically how many had been driven there from the effects of unhappy love affairs, only they had called it aspiration. He at least was honest with himself; he knew it was Muriel.

In his early youth he had been embittered by a girl. It was the usual story of love and no money, and the girl had chosen not to wait. When success and good fortune came to him, he was indifferent to it. He treated all women with a sort of good-natured contempt, thinking them creatures of diseased nerves and hysterical affections. Necessary evils distinctly, but of the two perhaps more evil than necessary. His sister had been the one exception; he almost worshipped her. Then came her story. A crisis which he had passed through, by an extraordinary power, but once faced, he had resolutely killed, and hidden all traces of the past. His sister never knew what agony she had brought into his life. She believed that his perceptions were blunted, instead they were too delicate to be obvious; he had encased them in reserve, and bore without wincing because the worst pain stings into silence. Muriel had been a revelation to him, her gaiety was so spontaneous, her brightness so infectious. She had thrown her life, all dusty and human, into the glory of the sunbeam, and she was strong. He had watched her with Jack Hurstly, and he watched her afterwards. As a doctor her magnificent healthiness appealed to him. He could not imagine her having nervous prostration; as a man he marvelled at her. She knew that he loved her, yet she could look him straight in the eyes and be frankly friendly.

It had become the purpose of his life to strengthen their friendship into something more. For a long while he had struggled against it, but it was a passion that found grace with his whole nature; and, when he had come to the conclusion that strength lay in submission, Cynthia needed him, and he laid down his love and his work to face the Arch Fear of his life. If Cynthia should fail!

The last month had worn lines in his face, and his keen eyes in repose looked sadder than ever. He had fought, and the worst was over; he had watched and fenced, waited and listened, seized opportunities, avoided dangers, guided and guarded, and slaved that Cynthia should be safe and ignorant of his efforts. He had felt happier when Launcelot came, and this afternoon had left her with a mind at rest.

The figure of a woman with a child in her arms attracted him. She had evidently come a long way; she was tired and footsore, and very poorly dressed. He watched her buy a candle for the Virgin’s shrine and kneel there till overcome with weariness, she slept, her head against a pillar, but even though she slept she clasped the child. He felt less impatience than usual with the wasteful, senseless candle-buying, and the love, the unconscious love of motherhood, and all things beautiful touched him closely. After all, he wondered, there was something strangely more than human in women who could give so much as Muriel and that mother. No physical passion could explain it all—it was so selfless, so extraordinary, so unnatural in another mood he might have called it, but here and now “supernatural” seemed the more fitting word. The baby stirred in its sleep, and the mother’s eyes opened watchfully. She changed its position to a more comfortable one in her arms, then she made the sign of the Cross on its forehead, and crossing herself rose to her feet and left the church. The doctor rose too, and then, moved by an emotion he could never account for knelt and prayed. He smiled a little whimsically to himself. “Why, I believe I am becoming a Christian,” he thought. But he had not changed; he was only beginning to see what all along the tremendous struggle of his life had been making him. People who are so much better than their creeds often wake up to find their creeds are higher than they dreamed.