"And quite right, too. Don"t you believe it?"
"It used to be true, but it isn"t now. A girl can"t marry without a man, and the world"s all disjointed. It"s a part of that strange new leaven which causes civilization to drive men and women both to become homeless by separating them widely on earth."
"Of course it"s a governmental crime to send men by the hundreds of thousands to fight it out alone in Canada and leave their sisters to be old maids in England, but governments are pretty stupid, nowadays."
"We are all pretty stupid. We build all our difficulties and then hang to them and their consequences for dear life. It"s too bad in us."
"Do you mean woman?"
"No, I mean everybody."
"It"s depressing, isn"t it?"
"I don"t think so. I think it"s grand."
"Grand!"
"Yes, because I like to struggle in a big way. And then, too, if I"m a woman forced to work because I"m one part of the problem, I"m also gloriously happy in being part of the new upburst of comprehension that"s balancing and will soon overbalance such a lot of the troubles."
"You mean? Oh, you mean your way of looking at things."
"Of course I do. I"m so blessedly glad of every circ.u.mstance in my life, because each one led to my getting hold of just what I have got hold of.
I"m perfectly happy and perfectly content. It"s so beautiful to be guided by a rule that never fails."
Lorenzo couldn"t but laugh. "I tell you what," he said gayly, "I"ll let you into a little secret. I"ve made up my mind to go to work and learn how to work that game of yours myself. I want to be blessedly glad and gloriously happy, too."
"You"ve got to be in earnest, you know," Jane said. "It"s handling live wires to amuse oneself with any force of G.o.d, and will-power is more of a force than electricity."
"Oh, I"m in earnest," said the artist. "I"ve made my picture--as you say--and I hang to it for grim death. Only I can"t see, if you feel as you do about home and marriage, and all that, why you don"t make one, too."
"I"m making ever so many homes," said Jane. "I"m teaching home-making.
That"s a Sunshine Nurse"s business, and it would be selfish in me to desert my task. Besides--" she paused.
CHAPTER XVI
THE MOST WONDERFUL THING EVER HAPPENED
SHE stopped and hesitated.
"Yes," he said impatiently, "besides--?"
"I wonder if it would be right to be quite frank with you?"
"Nothing sincere is ever wrong. Of course you ought to be quite frank with me,--aren"t you that with every one?"
Still she considered.
"What stops you?" he asked. "Go on. Tell me everything. It"s my right."
"Why is it your right?"
"Because I love you, and you know it."
She started violently, then turned very white. "Don"t say that. I"ve always thought of you as engaged to Madeleine. She was talking to me, and I thought--I--" She stopped, quite shaken.
"You misunderstand her. She"s always been in love with one fellow--the one that her parents are against. He"s even poorer than I am."
Then Jane pressed her lips together and interlocked her fingers. "I can never marry. I never think of it. There"s money to be paid, n.o.body to pay it but me, and no way to get it except to earn it."
Lorenzo looked almost sternly at her. "What about the book you lent me; it would say that that was setting limits. It says that we"ve not to concern ourselves with ways and means. I"ve only to concern myself with loving you. The rest will come along of its own accord."
She shook her head. "No, it won"t. This world is all learning, and it"s part of my lesson not to be able to apply it in absolute faith to myself. So many teachers have wisdom to give away which they can"t quite take unto themselves, you know." She smiled a little tremulously.
"But you ought to take it unto yourself. It ought to be easy and simple for you to realize that if conditions are false, they don"t exist; that if you want a home, it"s because you are going to have one; that if I love you, it"s because it"s right that you should be loved."
She put her hands down helplessly on each side of the chair-seat. "I never even think of such things," she said, almost in a whisper.
"But why not?"
"I"ve always been so necessary to others. I"ve no rights in my own life."
"But if life is a thing to guide, why not guide your beneficence as well from a basis of home as from one of homelessness?"
"Nothing has ever seemed to be for me, myself. Everything has always pointed to me for others."
Lorenzo paced back and forth. "But it is the women like you who should show the way out of the wilderness and back to the right, instead of attempting to order the chaos while sweeping on with it. If there be a real truth in this new teaching which lays hold of all those who are in earnest so easily and so quickly, its first care should be to demonstrate happiness in the lives of its believers,--not the negative happiness of wide-spread devotion to others, but the positive lessons of joy in the center from which springs--must spring--the next generation of better, wiser men and women, those among whom I expect to live as an old man."
Jane turned her face away, her eyes filled with tears. "You make me feel very small and petty," she said; "you show me a way beyond what I had guessed. But I can"t grasp at it; I"m too used to asking nothing for myself. I"m always so sure that G.o.d is managing for me. And I have so much to do."
"Perhaps realization that G.o.d is managing is all that you need to set right. Perhaps that confidence will bring you all things. Even me." He laughed a little.
"It has brought me all that I needed. Daily bread, daily possibilities of helpfulness,--I don"t ask more, except "more light.""
"It sounds a little presumptuous coming from me, but perhaps I can help you towards your end, even as to "more light." At any rate, I"ll try if you"ll let me."
She sat quite still. Finally she lifted up her eyes--and they were beautiful eyes, big and true--and said, the words coming softly forth: "It would be so wonderful."
Lorenzo didn"t speak. He felt choked and gasping. To him it was also "so wonderful," as wonderful as if he hadn"t lived with it night and day ever since the first minute of knowing her. "I think I"d better go," he said very gently, realizing keenly that he must not press her in this first blush of the new spring-time. "I"ve "made my picture" you know, and I won"t let it fade, you may be sure. And you must believe in happiness for yourself,--you tell us that the first step is all that counts. Get the seed into the ground then. I"ll do the rest."
She sat quite still. "If I could only try," she whispered. He turned quickly away and was gone.
After a dizzy little while she rose and went into the kitchen. Susan was moving briskly about.
"Two cups flour, four teaspoonfuls baking powder, one of sugar, one of salt, two of b.u.t.ter, two of lard, cup half water, half milk, pour in pan greased and bake in hot oven. Scotch scone-bread for lunch," she said, almost suiting the deed to the word. "Is Mr. Rath still here?"