"You must uphold the idea then, and live to do fine things."
"I will try—if only—" then she paused, she could not say "if only John would be human and unfreeze to me, and love me, and let us go on the road together hand in hand!"
"It is quite useless for a family merely to continue from generation to generation piling up possessions, and narrowing its interests. It must do this for a time to become solid, and then it should take a vaster view, and begin to help the world. Nearly everything is spoiled in all civilisation because of this inability to see beyond the nose, this poor and paltry outlook."
"People rave vaguely," Amaryllis argued, "about one's duty and vast outlooks and those things, but it is difficult to get any one to give concrete advice—what would you advise me to do, for instance?"
"I would advise you first to begin asking yourself the reason of everything, each day, since Pandora's box has been opened for you in any case. 'What caused this? What caused that?' Search for causes—then eradicate the roots, if they are not good, do not waste time on trying to ameliorate the results! Determine as to why you are put into such and such a place, and accomplish what you discover to be the duty of the situation. But how serious we have become! I am not a priest to give you guidance—I am a man fighting a tremendously strong desire to take you in my arms—so come, we will return to the ball room, and I will deliver you to your husband."
Amaryllis rose and stood facing him, her heart was beating fast. "If I try to do well—to climb the straight road of the soul's advancement, will you give me counsel should I need it by the way?"
"Yes, this I will do when I have complete control, but for the moment you are causing me emotions, and I wish to keep you a thing apart—of the spirit. Hermits and saints subdue the flesh by abstinence and fasting; they then become useless to the world. A man can only lead men while he remains a man, with a man's passions, so that he should not fight in this beyond his strength—only he should never sully the wrong thing. Come! Return to the husband—and I shall go for a while to hell."
And presently Amaryllis, standing safely with John, saw Verisschenzko dancing the maddest one-step with Madame Boleski, their undulations outdoing all others in the room!
CHAPTER IV
The day after the wonderful rejoicing which the homecoming of Amaryllis had been the occasion of at Ardayre, she was sitting waiting for her husband in that exquisite cedar parlour which led from her room.