It is strange how childish memories awaken in us suddenly. As I laid down Ascher’s book there came to me a picture of a scene in my old home. We were at prayers in the dining-room. My father sat at a little table with a great heavy Bible before him. Ranged along the wall in front of him was the long line of servants, the butler a little apart from the others as befitted the chief of the staff. My governess and I sat together in a corner near the fire. My father read, in a flat, unemotional voice, read words which he absolutely believed to be the words of God. “Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
Well, that is a different creed. To me it seems more consonant with the facts of life. Man as he is can neither enter into nor create a great society nor enjoy peace which comes of love. Hitherto the new birth of the Spirit, which bloweth where it listeth, has been for a few in every generation. The hour of rebirth for the mass of men still lingers. Will it ever come—the time when all the young men see visions and all the old men dream dreams?
I stirred uneasily in my chair and looked up. I had not heard him enter the room, but Ascher stood beside me.
“I am glad you are here,” he said. “I hoped you would be; but I am very late.”
“Yes,” I said, “you are very late. It is long after midnight. Where have you been? What have you been doing?”
Ascher sat down opposite to me, and for some time he did not speak. I made no attempt to press my questions. If Ascher wanted to talk to me he would do so in his own time and in the way he chose. I supposed that he did want to talk to me. He had asked me to his house. He had bidden me wait for him.
“I have no right,” said Ascher at last, “to trouble you with my difficulties. I ought to think them out and fight them out for myself; but it will be a help to me if I can put them into words and feel that you are listening to me.”
He paused for so long that I felt I must make some reply to him, though I did not know what to say.
“I don’t suppose I can be of any use to you,” I said, “but if I can——”
“Perhaps you can,” said Ascher. “You can listen to me at least. Perhaps you can do more. It is a large call to make upon your friendship to treat you in this manner, but—I am in some ways a lonely man.”