"It was the answer," said Miss Montaubyn, with entire simplicity as she bit off her thread, "that's wot it was."
Antony Dart lifted his heavy head.
"You believe it," he said.
"I'm livin' on believin' it," she said confidingly. "I ain't got nothin' else. An' answers keeps comin' and comin'."
"What answers?"
"Bits o' work—an' things as 'elps. Glad there, she's one."
"Aw," said Glad, "I ain't nothin'. I likes to 'ear yer tell about it. She ses," to Dart again, a little slowly, as she watched his face with curiously questioning eyes—"she ses 'E's in the room—same as 'E's everywhere—in this 'ere room. Sometimes she talks out loud to 'Im."
"What!" cried Dart, startled again.
The strange Majestic Awful Idea—the Deity of the Ages—to be spoken of as a mere unfeared Reality! And even as the vaguely formed thought sprang in his brain he started once more, suddenly confronted by the meaning his sense of shock implied. What had all the sermons of all the centuries been preaching but that it was Reality? What had all the infidels of every age contended but that it was Unreal, and the folly of a dream? He had never thought of himself as an infidel; perhaps it would have shocked him to be called one, though he was not quite sure. But that a little superannuated dancer at music-halls, battered and worn by an unlawful life, should sit and smile in absolute faith at such a—a superstition as this, stirred something like awe in him.
For she was smiling in entire acquiescence.