So the great loom clashed and crossed, and two more threads were woven, side by side, into the garment of God.
[CHAPTER V.]
There is a distinct tendency, if we may trust books on travels and early stages of religious belief among the uncivilised, dusky masses of the world to assign every event to a direct supernatural influence. Certain savages, if they hit their foot against a stone, will say that there is a demon in that stone, and they hasten to appease him by sacrificial sops. We see the exact opposite of this among those nations, which, like those in our own favoured isle, assign every event to pure chance. There is no harm in calling it chance, and there is no harm in assigning the most insignificant event to a local god, and the lesson we may learn from these elementary reflections is, that there are, at least, two points of view from which we may regard anything.
To adopt, however, the nomenclature of the day, this chance that led Lady Hayes to walk down that room at the French Embassy, when Reggie was standing at the door, was a very big chance. One of the least important results of it was that it occasioned this book to be written.
Reggie was, as I have mentioned before, a very susceptible young man. He fully realised, in propriâ personâ, Mrs. Davenport's "healthy condition" of being in a chronic state of devotion, and this, coupled to his extreme susceptibility, will fully account for the fact that he moved slowly after Lady Hayes, till, by another chance meeting, she fell in with his mother, who had followed him from the top of the stairs, and got introduced. Mrs. Davenport pronounced the mystic words, "Lady Hayes, may I introduce my son Reggie," and the thing was done.
Lady Hayes was amused to find herself so quickly introduced to the "pretty boy" who had stared at her, and as her prince had gone away, she was ready to talk to him, and it appeared that he was ready to talk to her.
"I was so sorry I couldn't come to lunch yesterday," he began, "and I forgot to send a note to say I couldn't."
"We have lunch every day," remarked Lady Hayes, gravely. "Come to-morrow. I shall think it very rude if you cut me again. So will Percy. I shall send him to call you out."
"I know Percy very well," said Reggie. "I'm awfully fond of him. I don't believe he'd call me out."