"
"Oh, all that! It's of the least consequence." He spoke with a curious,
governed impulse coming from beneath his shaded eyes. "It's seeing
another ideal pulled down, gone under, something that held, as best it
could, a ray from the source. It's another glimpse of the strength of
the tide--terrible. It's a cruel hint that one lives above it in the
heaven of one's own hopes, by some mere blind accident. To have set
one's feeble hand to the spiritualising of the world, and to feel the
possibility of that----"
"I see," said Hilda, and perhaps she did. But his words oppressed her.
She got up with a movement which almost shook them off, and went to a
promiscuous looking-glass to remove her hat. She was refreshed and
vivified--she wanted to talk of the warm world. She let a decent
interval elapse, however; she waited till he took his hand from his
eyes. Even then, to make the transition easier, she said, "You ought to
be lifted up to-day, if you are going to baptise Kally Nath to-morrow."
"The Brother Superior will do it. And I don't know--I don't know. The
young woman he is to marry withdraws, I believe, if he comes over to
us----"
"The young woman he is to marry! Oh, my dear and reverend friend! _Avec
ces gens la!_ I have had a most amusing afternoon," she went on,
quickly.
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