“You are working too hard,” he said, gently; “you look fatigued.”
“Oh no,” she replied, looking up cheerfully; “I'm a regular machine. I get run down, and then I wind up. I get tired, and then I get rested. It isn't the work,” she added, after a moment, “if only I could see any good of it. It seems so hopeless.”
“From your point of view, my dear doctor,” he answered, but without any shade of reproof in his tone. “But no good deed is lost. There is nothing else in the world—nothing for me.” The close of the sentence seemed wholly accidental, and he stopped speaking as if he could not trust himself to go on.
Ruth Leigh looked up quickly. “But, Father Damon, it is you who ought to be rebuked for overwork. You are undertaking too much. You ought to go off for a vacation, and go at once.”
The father looked paler and thinner than usual, but his mouth was set in firm lines, and he said: “It cannot be. My duty is here. And”—he turned, and looked her full in the face—“I cannot go.”
No need to explain that simple word. No need to interpret the swift glance that their eyes exchanged—the eager, the pitiful glance. They both knew. It was not the work. It was not the suffering of the world. It was the pain in their own hearts, and the awful chasm that his holy vows had put between them. They stood so only an instant. He was trembling in the extort to master himself, and in a second she felt the hot blood rising to her face. Her woman's wit was the first to break the hopeless situation. She turned, and hailed a passing car. “I cannot walk any farther. Good-night.” And she was gone.
The priest stood as if a sudden blow had struck him, following the retreating car till it was out of sight, and then turned homeward, dazed, and with feeble steps. What was this that had come to him to so shake his life? What devil was tempting him to break his vows and forsake his faith? Should he fly from the city and from his work, or should he face what seemed to him, in the light of his consecration, a monstrous temptation, and try to conquer himself? He began to doubt his power to do this. He had always believed that it was easy to conquer nature. And now a little brown woman had taught him that he reckons ill who leaves out the strongest human passion. And yet suppose he should break his solemn vows and throw away his ideal, and marry Ruth Leigh, would he ever be happy? Here was a mediaeval survival confronted by a nineteenth-century skepticism. The situation was plainly insoluble. It was as plainly so to the clear mind of the unselfish little woman without faith as it was to him. Perhaps she could not have respected him if he had yielded. Strangely enough, the attraction of the priest for her and for other women who called themselves servants of humanity was in his consecration, in his attitude of separation from the vanities and passions of this world. They believed in him, though they did not share his faith. To Ruth Leigh this experience of love was as unexpected as it was to the priest. Perhaps because her life was lived on a less exalted plane she could bear it with more equanimity. But who knows? The habit of her life was endurance, the sturdy meeting of the duty of every day, with at least only a calm regard of the future. And she would go on. But who can measure the inner change in her life? She must certainly be changed by this deep experience, and, terrible as it was, perhaps ennobled by it. Is there not something supernatural in such a love itself? It has a wonderful transforming power. It is certain that a new light, a tender light, was cast upon her world. And who can say that some time, in the waiting and working future, this new light might not change life altogether for this faithful soul?
There was one person upon whom the tragedy of life thus far sat lightly. Even her enemies, if she had any, would not deny that Carmen had an admirable temperament. If she had been a Moslem, it might be predicted that she would walk the wire 'El Serat' without a tremor. In these days she was busy with the plans of her new house. The project suited her ambition and her taste. The structure grew in her mind into barbaric splendor, but a barbaric splendor refined, which reveled in the exquisite adornment of the Alhambra itself. She was in daily conferences with her architect and her artists, she constantly consulted Jack about it, and Mavick whenever he was in town, and occasionally she awakened the interest of Henderson himself, who put no check upon her proceedings, although his mind was concerned with a vaster structure of his own. She talked of little else, until in her small world there grew up a vast expectation of magnificence, of which hints appeared from time to time in the newspapers, mysterious allusions to Roman luxury, to Nero and his Golden House. Henderson read these paragraphs, as he read the paragraphs about his own fortune, with a grim smile.
“Your house is getting a lot of free advertising,” he said to Carmen one evening after dinner in the library, throwing the newspaper on the table as he spoke.
“They all seem to like the idea,” replied Carmen. “Did you see what one of the papers said about the use of wealth in adorning the city? That's my notion.”