That was the sentence that had done it. He felt certain. Combined with the spiritual presentment of the woman, this apparently stray remark had dropped down into his heart with almost startling effect—like the grain of powder a chemist adds to his test tube that suddenly changes the colour and nature of its contents. As yet he could not determine quite what the change meant; he felt only that it was there—disappointment, dissatisfaction with himself.
‘Cousin Joan has a real Society.’ She was in earnest.
‘Real lost children’—perhaps potential Nixies, Jonahs, Tobys, all waiting to be ‘picked up.’
The thoughts ran to and fro in him like some one with a little torch, lighting up corners and recesses of his soul he had so far never visited. For thus it sometimes is with the chemistry of growth. The changes are prepared subconsciously for a long while, and then comes some trivial little incident—a chance remark, a casual action—and a match is set to the bonfire. It flames out with a sudden rush. The character develops with a leap; the soul has become wiser, advanced, possessed of longer, clearer sight.
Paul was certainly aware of a new standard by which he must judge himself; and, for all the apparent slightness of its cause, a little reflection will persuade of its truth. Real, inner crises of a soul are often produced by causes even more negligible.
The desire, always latent in him, to be of some use in the world, and to find the things he sought by losing himself in some Cause bigger than personal ends, had been definitely touched. It now rose to the surface and claimed deliberate attention.
What in the world did it matter—thus he reflected while dressing for dinner—whether his own personal sense of beauty found expression or not? Of what account was it to the world at large, the world, for instance, that included those ‘lost children’ who needed to be ‘picked up’? To what use did he put it, except to his own gratification, and the passing pleasure of the children he played with? Were there no bigger uses, then, for his imagination, uses nobler and less personal?...
The thoughts chased one another through his mind in some confusion. He felt more and more dissatisfied with himself. He must set his house in order. He really must get to work at something real!
Other thoughts, too, played with him while he struggled with his studs and tie. For he noticed suddenly with surprise that he was taking more trouble with his appearance than usual. That black tie always bothered him when he could not get the help of Nixie’s fingers, and usually he appeared at the table with the results of carelessness and despair plainly visible in its outlandish shape. But to-night he tied and re-tied, determined to get it right. He meant to look his best.
Yet this process of beautifying himself was instinctive, not deliberate. It was unconscious; he did not realise what he had been about until he was half-way downstairs. And then came another of those swift, subtle flashes by which the soul reveals herself—to herself. This ‘dressing up,’ what was it for? For whom? Certainly, he did not care a button what Joan Nicholson thought of his personal appearance. That was positive. Then, for whom, and for what, was it? Was it for some one else? Had the arrival of this ‘woman’ upon the scene somehow brought the truth into sudden relief?...