The Christian Part 25

"I don't, Glory. I set them down to the egotism of the religious man.

The religious man can not believe that anybody can live a moral life and act on principle except from the religious impulse.... I suppose he has warned you against me, hasn't he?"

"Well--yes."

"I'm at a loss to know what I've done to deserve it. But time must justify me. I am not a religious man myself, you know, though I hate to talk of it. To tell you the truth, I think the religious idea a monstrous egotism altogether, and the love of G.o.d merely the love of self. Still, you must judge for yourself, Glory."

"Are we not wasting our time a little?" she said. "I am here; isn't that proof enough of my opinion?" And then in an agitated whisper she added: "I have only half an hour, the gates will be closing, and I want to ask your advice, you know. You remember what I told you in my letter?"

He patted the hand on his arm and said, "Tell me how it happened."

She told him everything, with many pauses, expecting every moment that he would break in upon her and say, "Why didn't you box the woman's ears?" or perhaps laugh and a.s.sure her that it did not matter in the least, and she was making too much of a mere bagatelle. But he listened to every syllable, and after she had finished there was silence for a moment. Then he said: "I'm sorry--very sorry; in fact, I am much troubled about it."

Her nerves were throbbing hard and her hand on his arm was twitching.

"If you had left of your own accord after that scene in the board room, it would have been so different--so easy for me to help you!"

"How?"

"I should have spoken to my chief--he is a governor of many hospitals--and said, 'A young friend of mine, a nurse, is uncomfortable in her present place and would like to change her hospital.' It would have been no sooner said than done. But now--now there is the black book against you, and G.o.d knows if ... In fact, somebody has laid a trap for you, Glory, intending to get rid of you at the first opportunity, and you seem to have walked straight into it."

She felt stunned. "He has forgotten all he has said to me," she thought.

In a feeble, expressionless voice she asked:

"But what am I to do now?"

"Let me think."

They walked some steps in silence. "He is turning it over," she thought.

"He will tell me how to begin."

He stopped, as if seized by a new idea.

"Did you tell them where you had been?"

"No," she replied, in the same weak voice.

"But why not do so? There is hope in that. The chaplain was your friend--your only friend in London, so far as they know. Surely that is an extenuating circ.u.mstance so plausible----"

"But I cannot----"

"I know it is bitter to explain--to apologize--and if I can do it for you----"

"I will not allow it!" she said. Her lips were set, and her breath was coming through them in gusts.

"It is a pity to allow the hospitals to be closed against you. Nursing is a good profession, Glory--even a fas.h.i.+onable one. It is true womanly work, and----"

"That was what he said."

"Who? John Storm? He was right. Indeed, he was an entirely honourable and upright man, and----"

"But _you_ always seemed to say there were other things more worthy of a girl, and if she had a mind to---- But no matter. We needn't talk about the hospitals any longer. I am not fit for them and shall never go back to them, whatever happens."

He looked down at her. She was biting her lips, and the tears were gathering in her eyes.

"Well, well, never mind, dear," he said, and he patted her hand again.

The moon had begun to wane, and out of the dark shadows they walked in they could see the lines of houses lit up all around.

"Look," she said, with a feeble laugh, "in all this great busy London is there nothing else I'm fit for?"

"You are fit for anything in the world, my dear," he answered.

Her nerves were throbbing harder than ever. "Perhaps he doesn't remember," she thought. Should she tell him what he said so often about her talents, and how much she might be able to make of them?

"Is there nothing a girl can do except go down on her knees to a woman?"

He laughed and talked some nonsense about the kneeling. "Poor little woman, she doesn't know what she is doing," he thought.

"I shouldn't mind what people thought of me," she said, "not even my own people, who have been brought up with such narrow ideas, you know.

They might think what they liked, if I felt I was in the right place at last--the right place for me, I mean."

Her nervous fingers were involuntarily clutching at his coat sleeve.

"Now, any other man----" he thought.

She began to cry. "He _won't_ remember," she told herself. "It was only his way of being agreeable when he praised me and predicted such wonderful things. And now his good breeding will not allow him to tell me there are hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of girls in London as likely to----"

"Come, you mustn't cry, Glory. It's not so bad as that."

She had never seemed to him so beautiful, and he wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her.

"I had no one but you to come to," she murmured in her confusion. But she was thinking: "Why didn't you stop me before? Why have you let me go on all these months?"

"I must try to think of something, and I'll speak to my friend Rosa--Miss Macquarrie, you know."

"You are a man," said Glory, "and I thought perhaps----" But she could not speak of her fool's paradise now, she was so deeply ashamed and abased.

"That's just the difficulty, my dear. If I were not a man, I might so easily help you."

What did he mean? The frogs kept croaking at the margin of the lake, disturbed by the sound of their footsteps.

"Whatever you were to tell me to do I should do it," she said, in the same confused murmur. She was ruining herself with every word she uttered.

He drew up and stood before her, so close that she could feel his breath, on her face. "My dear Glory," he said pa.s.sionately, "don't think it isn't terrible to me to renounce the happiness of helping you, but I must not, I dare not, I will not take it."

She could scarcely breathe for the shame that took sudden hold of her.

"Heaven knows I would give anything to have the joy of looking after your happiness, dear, but I should despise myself forever if I took advantage of your circ.u.mstances."