CHAPTER XL

“How Love is the only good in the world.”

“NOW I have come to make my apologies, Miss Dallerton,” said the doctor in a cheery voice.

It was a cold day, and he looked aggressively warm and reassuring. He never needed to be made allowances for, and Muriel could never quite forgive him that. She had made so many allowances for Jack.

“I’m afraid you thought me a little short with you the other day—in fact, you were so displeased you had half a mind to walk through Stepney by yourself—now, hadn’t you?” he asked smiling.

“You were very rude to me the other day, Dr. Grant, and though you seem to take my forgiveness for granted, you have not yet given me any explanation.” The doctor laughed, but his eyes grew colder.

“Well!” he said, “so you won’t forgive me without?” Muriel frowned.

“If you have a reason I should like to hear it,” she suggested.

The doctor walked once or twice up and down the room. She watched him unwillingly; he had the most splendid shoulders; she did not think he could be more than thirty-six. Then he stopped before her chair and looked at her very gravely. He was so tall that she felt at a disadvantage; some instinct made her rise too, and they stood there face to face, their eyes doing battle. She looked away at last.

“Well?” she questioned. She was conscious that her breath was coming quickly, and she thanked Heaven she didn’t blush easily.

“I was short to you,” said the doctor deliberately, “because it seemed to me the only way of getting help from you. If I hadn’t made you thoroughly angry you would probably have fainted.”

“I should not have fainted,” she said, her eyes flashing fiercely. She knew she was not speaking the truth, but it was too desperately difficult. If she submitted in one thing, where would they stop? She was beginning to lose her self-control and her sense of proportion at the same time. It is dangerous for a man to lose both, but it is fatal to a woman to lose either.

“There was another reason,” said the doctor slowly. Muriel was silent. “Do you want to hear it?”

“If——” she began icily. “Yes, I may as well hear it,” she finished in confusion. She did not want him to think she cared enough to be angry.

“I love you!” he said with the same quiet deliberation and a pause between each word, “and it was a little difficult to let you help in any other way.”

The room grew suddenly tense; each breath was a terrible sword which shook the universe; there seemed an awful conspiracy in the room to win some concession; the very chairs and table seemed to wait and listen. A hand-organ in the street clanged them back into facts again. The doctor, still looking at her, picked up a paper-knife; Muriel sank back into the chair. There seemed nothing left in the world to say, but she felt as if there might be if he would only keep still a moment.

“I am very sorry,” she said at last, and then she could have bitten her tongue out, it sounded so commonplace. She noticed that he was looking suddenly very tired, but he smiled with grave eyes.

“I knew you would be,” he said, “and I must go and make some calls. But you do understand now, don’t you?”

“I suppose I do,” said Muriel; “but are you going away?” He almost laughed at her thoughtlessness.

“Well! yes, Miss Dallerton,” he said; “I think I must go now.”

Muriel rose to her feet, and a great wave of desolation swept over her. She stood there alone, and before her eyes passed the vision of those who had left her—Alec—Jack—Cynthia—her uncle. All with their different lives, their different circles. And now he was going, the friend who had made life and her work, her youth and her beauty so excellently well worth while—with whom she had argued, quarrelled and discussed—and he was leaving her. All of a sudden she knew she could not bear it—that she, too, needed help and comfort and sympathy—that though one may give all and prosper, yet it is blessed to receive as well. And then he looked so tired. He was waiting for her to dismiss him, and he could not understand why she was keeping him.

“I don’t want you to go,” said Muriel at last. “I’m sure I need you more—more than the other patients, only you must learn to ask questions and not to make assertions only if you want me to be a satisfactory case!”

“What made you say that you were sorry?” he asked her after a long, wonderful pause.

“I was sorry,” she laughed at him, “that you didn’t tell me so before!”

* * * * *

When Jack heard of her marriage he shrugged his shoulders. “I always thought she would run _amôk_ on some sort of a professional chap, but I rather thought it would be a parson,” he said, and thought how much better she might have done for herself if she had only known when she had a good thing.

“I thought she was cut out for an old maid,” Edith le Mentier told her friends; “but those sort of women generally marry and have fourteen children.”

* * * * *

It mattered very little to Muriel what was said. She looked at things now with the eyes of the woman in Damores’ picture; and she and Geoff having found so much for themselves were the more anxious to give their sunshine to the world. They believed that the purposes of love, in human and material things, were the channels through which the spirit finds soaring room—never apart from earth, but ever nearer heaven.

Their one need left was to join the gospel of example, which is simply loving everything for love’s sake, whether it visibly love back or no. To acquaintances they seemed to have positively left the world, but they themselves knew that they had found the true one.

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes:

A few obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without note. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

A cover has been created for this ebook and is placed in the public domain.

[End of _Life, the Interpreter_ by Phyllis Bottome]