"'This man, if He were really a prophet, would know who and what sort of person this is who is touching Him, for she is an immoral woman.'
"In answer to his thoughts Jesus said to him: 'Simon, I have a word to say to you.'
"'Rabbi, say on,' he replied.
"'Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You gave me no water for my feet; but she has made my feet wet with her tears, and then wiped the tears away with her hair. No kiss did you give me; but she, from the moment I came in, has not left off tenderly kissing my feet. No oil did you pour even on my head; but she has poured perfume on my feet. This is the reason why I tell you that her sins—her many sins—are forgiven—because she has loved much."
He shut the book with something of a bang. "So they used to do that sort of thing even then!... The water for the feet, and the kiss, and the oil, must have corresponded to our shaking hands and asking people to sit down.... And they wouldn't show Him the courtesy.... He was their inferior.... I wonder if He minded it.... It looks as if He did because of the way He had it in His mind, and referred to it.... If the woman hadn't turned up He would probably not have referred to it at all.... He would have kept it to Himself ... without resentment.... The little disdains of little people were too petty for Him to resent.... He could only be hurt by them ... but on their account."
He sat late into the night, thinking, thinking. Suddenly he thumped the table, and sprang up. "I won't resent it. They're good people in their way. They don't mean any unkindness. It's only that they think like everybody else. Honey would call them orthodocks. They're courteous among themselves; they only don't know how far courtesy can be made to go. They're—they're little. I'll be big—like Him."
XXVIII
The resolution helped him through the summer. It was a pleasant summer, and yet a trying one. It was the first time he had ever done work of which the essence lay in satisfying individuals. In his market jobs the job had been the thing. Even if done at somebody's order, it was judged by its success, or by its lack of it. His work at the inn-club brought him hourly into contact with men and women to whom it was his duty to be specially, and outwardly deferential. He sprang to open the door for them when they entered or left the car; he touched his hat to them whenever they gave him an order. His bearing, his manner of address, formed a part of his equipment only second to his capacity to drive.