"But yes. Is it so wonderful?"
"I! What could have put that into your head?"
Madame Lemaire nodded wisely. "Perhaps it was her pretty face, perhaps
it was chance. Who knows? After all it is of monsieur we are talking."
M. Deshoulieres shook his head, and went away smiling, yet with a
half-hidden sadness in his tone. "You must look for romances elsewhere,
madame," he said. "I have no heart to spare except for my patients."
No one ever entirely realises how much his life is moulded by what we
call trifles. We do not want a lion in our path to turn us, a straw
will do it as effectually. It is only an indifferent word occasionally
that opens the floodgates and lets the torrent in. A look affects a
life; perhaps such insignificant instruments are chosen to keep us
humble. Looking back, when we have gone further on our journey, we
dimly understand it, but at the time the influences seem too small to be
admitted. Yet it is the teaching of all creation, whether physical or
spiritual. In the drop of water, in the blade of grass, in the moment
of time, in the thought of our heart, God teaches us the immensity of
little things.