"It is too late. He loved me in the beginning, as he has loved a dozen women since—as he loves a woman of the town—for an hour."
A shiver of disgust crossed her face.
"I know." He was familiar with the story. He had heard it from her lips before. He had seen the whole tragic outcome of man's and woman's ignorance—the ignorance of passion and the ignorance of innocence. He had seen it pityingly, condemning neither the one nor the other, neither the man surfeited with lust nor the woman famished for love.
"I cannot help you," he said. "I can only say what I have said before, and said badly. There is no happiness in the things you cry for. So long as self is self, gratification will fail it. When it has waded through one mirage it looks for another. Take your life as you find it, face it like a woman, make the best of what remains of it. The world is full of opportunities for usefulness—and you have your faith and your child."
She started. "Yes," she said. "The child is everything." Then she rose. "I want to show him to you," she said, "while he sleeps."
Father Algarcife made a sudden negative gesture; then, as she left the room, he followed her.
As they passed the billiard-room on their way up-stairs there was a sound of knocking balls, and Ryder's voice was heard in a laugh.
"This way," said Mrs. Ryder. They mounted the carpeted stairs and stopped before a door to the right. She turned the handle softly and entered. A night-lamp was burning in one corner, and on the hearth-rug a tub was prepared for the morning bath. On a chair, a little to one side, lay a pile of filmy, lace-trimmed linen.
In a small brass bedstead in the centre of the room a child of two or three years was sleeping, its soft hair falling upon the embroidered pillow. A warm, rosy flush was on its face, and the dimpled hands lay palms upward on the blanket.
Like a mounting flame the passion of motherhood illuminated the woman's face. She leaned over and kissed one of the pink hands.