“Ah, yes; unique in that she goes about putting her arms around people and telling them that she loves them. Yes, that certainly is unique! And she is unique in that her purity and goodness hang about her like an exquisite aura, and make people instinctively turn and look after her as she passes. Unique in that in her sweet presence one seems to hear a strain of heavenly music vibrating on the air. So unique that the dawn, the nesting birds, the wild flowers, the daily sunset, fairly intoxicate her with ecstasy and make her life a lyric.”
Hitt essayed to reply; but the words hung in his throat.
“Yes,” continued Father Waite, “she is so unique that when the empty-headed, vain young Duke of Altern, learning that she had been thrown out of society because of the base rumor regarding her parentage, sent her a written statement to the effect that there was no engagement between them, and demanded 29 that she sign it, she did so, with a happy smile, with an invocation, with a prayer for blessing upon those who had tried to ruin her.”
“Good God! Did she do that?”
“Aye, she did. And when Mrs. Hawley-Crowles and Ames and Lafelle filched La Libertad from her, she would have given them the clothes on her back with it, if they had demanded them. Yes, she’s unique––so unique that again and again I hear her murmur, as she looks off absently into space: ‘If it is right that he should have a son, then I want it to be so.’”
“Referring to––that priest––Josè de Rincón?”
“Yes, doubtless. And time and again I have heard her say: ‘God is light. Sight depends upon light. Therefore Anita’s babe sees.’ Old Rosendo’s grandson, you know.”
Hitt nodded. “Waite,” he said earnestly, “she is simply illustrating what would happen to any of us if we threw ourselves wholly upon God’s protecting care, and took our thoughts only from Him. That’s why she can lose her home, her family, her reputation, that mine––everything––and still stand. She does what we don’t dare to do!”
“She is a living illustration,” replied Father Waite, “of the mighty fact that there is nothing so practical as real Christianity. I want you to tell Professor Cane that. He calls her ‘the girl with the Utopian views,’ because of her ingenuous replies in his sociological class. But I want you to show him that she is very far from being impractical.”
“I’ll do it,” said Hitt emphatically. “I’ll prove to Cane that her religion is not a visionary scheme for regulating a world inhabited only by perfect beings, but is a working principle for the every-day sinner to use in the solution of his daily problems. Moreover, Waite, she is a vivid illustration of the fact that when the individual improves, the nation does likewise. Do you get me?”