XI

"I--I haven't got the address on me just now! By George, that's just

... Ha, ha, ha!"

"What is the joke? Do tell me!" she urged, puzzled by the mirthless

bark of laughter.

He could not have explained. His Irish sense of humor had been

tickled to realize that in actual fact he did carry his address about

him. Did not the shabby old frieze greatcoat constitute his hotel,

chambers and club? To change the subject he began to question her

experiences in the Novitiate. She looked happy, he admitted. He did

not hide that her decision to take the Veil had been a surprise.

"You see, you'd always been such a jolly girl," he told her. "Such a

stunning companion--I'd never have expected it of you."

Her bright laugh rang through the room.

"Dear boy, do you suppose that nuns are dismal things, or indifferent

to pleasant companionship? You should hear us laugh and chatter at

Recreation. Perhaps because the time for fun is limited, as the time

for other things--we enjoy that half-hour's freedom all the more.

Not"--her smile did not leave her, but it changed in

expression,--"not that I did not have my miserable hours. For the

matter of that I have them still!"

He got up and went over to the hearth-side, where a tiny gas-fire

made pretense of cheerfulness.

"I never thought it was all jam in the Novitiate. A fellow I knew

who had wanted to be a Carthusian monk--and found it impossible to

stick out the preliminaries!--hinted as much to me."

"I suppose," she said calmly, "that he could not submit to

the--necessary experiences that lead to the final breaking of the

will."

"Breaking of the will!" He kicked the old-fashioned fender savagely.

"What do they do to break yours, in Heaven's name?"

"What is done is done in Heaven's name," she said, "and that is why

one can submit cheerfully. But my first weeks in the noviceship were

cloudlessly happy." She laughed a little. "I thought it was always

going to be like that!"

"I see! ... I twig! ... They made much of you in the beginning...."

He gritted his teeth and turned his face away.

"Perhaps they did! ... I remember I had all the nicest things to do,

and nobody minded.... I was allowed to dust the High Altar, change

the flowers in the vases, and help the Sister-Sacristan brush and

fold the vestments away. And one day I was permitted to wash the

lunette of the monstrance. It was a wonderful experience. One could

understand how the Magdalene must have felt when she wiped the Sacred

Feet."

He was silent, for she had soared to heights beyond him.

"Perhaps it made me proud, for next day I was set to tidy the

linen-room presses. I worked for some weeks there, darning and

mending and folding. Then I was sent to the Refectory." The smile

was only in her eyes now. "I liked laying the long tables, but I

hated washing dirty plates and dishes, and I simply loathed cleaning

knives and forks."

"I should think so! Housemaid's duty! I understand now what you

meant a minute back! ... By George! ... 'Miserable hours!' ..."

Her deep eyes rested on him calmly:

"And after I am clothed--after I have received the habit--I shall

most likely go on having them! I daresay I shall have them after I

have taken the Veil."

He kicked the fender again, his hands shoved deep into his empty

pockets, and felt the shilling, sole coin remaining to him, burn

against his aching ribs. He would have given ten years of life to

have been able to tell her that a home with him was ready and

waiting,--in case she shrank from the final plunge. He made a great

effort and groaned out:

"But that won't be for two years to come. And things may happen--who

knows!"

"Oh! I pray," she said with a sudden flush, "that I need not wait

two years!"

Her eagerness lifted a load that had been crushing him. In sheer

relief he began to stammer:

"What a blessed idiot I am! I didn't understand ... I thought you

... I believed you.... Of course you don't do the dirty work now.

That was only for a time, at the beginning. Well, I'm glad! I'd

hate to think of my sister tackling servants' duties, anyway! All

right! Well, what are you on to now, eh? Back at dusting the Altar

and doing the flowers?"

"No. That is for others.--There are many others, and each of them

must have a turn at the pleasant things. When you have lived in the

community only a short time, you begin to understand that.... And

when you have lived in it only a little longer you learn that between

the pleasant duties and the unpleasant duties there is no difference,

whatever. Nothing being done that is not done for God. When I was

scrubbing the desks in the Little Class to-day,--there are seventy

children, and the tiny ones come in with muddy boots from the garden

in wet weather, and splash the ink over everything,--I was dusting

the Altar.... When I was washing the slates I was washing the Feet

of Christ. It is no matter what we do as long as it is nothing to be

ashamed of--and is done with a right intention! ... The lowest

service counts as the highest in the sight of Almighty God. It is

one of the great mysteries of Faith that this should be so. But it

is so! ... There's the first bell for Benediction!"

It was too late now. But even as she rose with that wonderful look

in the calm face framed in by the triple row of little starched

frills, and took his hand and led him to the door, P. C. Breagh

realized that he ought from the first to have told the truth to her.

The parlor door led them into the corridor upon the boarders' side.

She guided him along it, left him at the entrance of the chapel,

pressed his hand, whispered "Good-bye for now!" and vanished through

a curtained archway on the right hand, communicating with the

cloister, possibly.

He entered the chapel. A small portion of the nave, near the west

door, was open to the public. Some dozen worshipers, chiefly elderly

ladies, knelt or sat upon the rush-bottomed chairs. Beyond, a high,

wrought-iron grille partitioned off the capacious choir, separated

from the cloisters upon either hand by the tall carved screen that

backed the rows of stalls. And the dying daylight of the January

afternoon shone through high windows, stained in hues tender as

flower-petals or brilliant as jewels, depicting the various scenes in

the life of the Virgin Mother of Christ.

The second bell had not yet rung for Benediction as Carolan bent the

knee and slipped into a chair near the central gate of the grille.

The place was full of the presence and perfume of flowers, and the

spice of incense burned at the morning Mass. Tapers tall and short

blazed on the High Altar, and a nun in purple habit and creamy veil

knelt at a faldstool, absorbed in adoration of the Throned Mystery of

Faith. Within the space of a Paternoster the second bell rang. The

choir-sister rose, knelt in adoration, moved her stool carefully

aside, and went out by a side-door in the sanctuary. And a sound as

of many moving waters began to grow upon the ear. A curtain was

drawn that masked an archway upon the farther side of the grille upon

the right side: there was the invariable convent signal of a

hand-clap, and two girlish shapes, in long white muslin veils over

dark uniform dresses, entered together; and went to the bottom of the

broad aisle between the rows of benches, moving sedately side by

side. One wore a pale blue, the other a crimson ribbon supporting a

silver medal. One was of solid Teutonic build, with magnificent

plaits of golden hair, vivid red and white coloring, and rather

stiff, if dignified, bearing. The other--a slender creature of

stature almost childlike, yet with womanly coils of duskiness shot

through with a tortoiseshell arrow, seemed insignificant as she

walked beside her stately white-veiled mate. And yet, it was not

walking, but gliding, hovering, floating ... such airy grace of

movement as P. C. Breagh had never dreamed

of,--Britomart-Krimhilde-Brünhilde having covered the ground with the

magnificent indolence of a glacier, or traversed it with the

overwhelming rush of an avalanche, when the exigencies of some

imaginary scene of passion had compelled her to "fly from her

conqueror's presence," or "impetuously gain his side." Now for the

first time her inventor found himself wavering.... Was his heroic

ideal too Titanic, too colossal, too big and too clumsy? Would it

not be just as well to shorten her by half a dozen superfluous

inches--reduce her superabundant flesh? And if at the same time one

were to darken her dandelion tresses?--tone down the staring

china-blue of her eyes into----

What was the color? The blue of the spring flower or the blue of the

sapphire? ... You never knew until she looked at you ... and then you

weren't certain ... you kept wanting her to look again! Meek or

tigress-like, in whatever mood you found her, you would always be

wanting Juliette to look, and look again.

The revelation of his monstrous folly, the knowledge of his

faithlessness came in the instant of recognition, hit him like a

seventh wave and bowled him off his mental legs.

Before he had recovered, the white-veiled hovering figure had

vanished. The aisle had noiselessly filled with a great procession

of similar figures, standing motionless, waiting, two by two. There

was a second clap of hands,--and the white-veiled column knelt in

adoration. At a third signal they rose and slowly filed into their

seats. And a second double line of younger girls, the Middle Class,

also white-veiled and white-gloved, formed in the place of them, and

the orderly, impressive maneuver was repeated by these. Little

children took their places, and did as their seniors. A noble

voluntary burst from the organ in the high-placed loft, and the

purple-habited, creamy-veiled choir-sisters poured in and took their

stalls, and the lay-sisters and novices followed, filling the great

choir to overflowing, as the door of the vestry was opened by a

sweet-faced child in a red cassock and white cotta, and the vested

priest, a scholarly-looking, gray-haired man, came in and went to his

place. And the strains from the organ changed, and a voice fresh and

sweet as a thrush's, passionless-pure as an angel's, began to chant

_O Salutaris_,--and something like a sob broke from P. C. Breagh's

throat, and hot tears came crowding, and one at least fell.

He had been shipwrecked, and here was a little green-palmed islet of

peace to rest on--his only for a moment, but a moment in which to

gather strength, and breath to face the raging seas again. His mood

changed. He was glad he had not told Monica that he was homeless,

half-clothed, and all but penniless in big, black, brutal, noisy

London, and would have to water cab-horses, or sweep a crossing, or

clean boots to keep alive.

Ah, what was it Monica had said? Without her knowing it those words

had been somehow meant for Carolan. Let's see--how did they go? ...

Something this way....

"_It is no matter what we do, as long as it is nothing to be ashamed

of, and is done with a right intention. The lowest service counts as

the highest in the sight of Almighty God. It is one of the great

mysteries of Faith that this should be so. But it is so!_"

"I--see!"

He had sheltered his shamed and burning face in his big hands. But

with that ray of inward light had come courage and resourcefulness.

He lifted his head bravely now and drew in a deep chestful of the

sweet, warm, pleasant air.

"Perhaps the money was spoiling me!--making me look to it instead of

to myself--and I've been stripped and pitched into deep water as the

big fellows used to do to us little chaps, when we funked. Perhaps

this is for the best--and I'll find it so one day. Perhaps I can

make up for some of the caddish things I've done--refusing that

girl's offered help so savagely among 'em--by taking this thing well!

Facing what there is to face--and putting up with what I've got to.

Well, I'll have a shot at it!" said P. C. Breagh to P. C. Breagh.

"I'll do nothing that I'm ashamed of--and be ashamed of nothing

that's honest; I'll labor for my daily bread--and for my nightly

bed,--with these hands and shoulders,--if nobody will pay me for my

brains!--And what I do I'll do cheerfully. Shall I kick at sweeping

a crossing, when He was a carpenter?"

It seemed to him that he had not prayed, and yet he had without

knowing it. The Benediction seemed to fall on him like dew. He went

out by the west door with the small congregation, and found himself

in the foggy London square within sound of the roaring traffic of the

London streets, with a return of the old hideous shrinking. A

sensation paralleled by that of the shipwrecked castaway who has

found brief resting-place upon the tiny coral atoll and must perforce

commit himself, upon his crazy raft of planks and hencoops, to the

shark-infested, treacherous Pacific seas again.