“Peace is the penalty of silence and inaction,” he said to himself meditatively. “Where there is action there is no peace. If the brain and body fatten, then there is peace. Kathleen and I have lived at peace, I suppose. I never said a word to her that mightn’t be put down in large type and pasted on my tombstone, and she never said a word to me—till to-day—that wasn’t like a water-colour picture. Not till to-day, in a moment’s strife and trouble, did I ever get near her. And we’ve lived in peace. Peace? Where is the right kind of peace? Over there is old Sainton. He married a rich woman, he has had the platter of plenty before him always, he wears ribbons and such like baubles given by the Queen, but his son had to flee the country. There’s Herring. He doesn’t sleep because his daughter is going to marry an Italian count. There’s Latouche. His place in the cabinet is begotten in corruption, in the hotbed of faction war. There’s Kenealy. His wife has led him a dance of deep damnation. There’s the lot of them—every one, not an ounce of peace among them, except with old Casson, who weighs eighteen stone, lives like a pig, grows stuffier in mind and body every day, and drinks half a bottle of whiskey every night. There’s no one else—yes, there is!”
He was looking at a small black-robed figure with clean-shaven face, white hair, and shovel-hat, who passed slowly along the wooden walk beneath, with meditative content in his face.
“There’s peace,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve known Father Hallon for twenty-five years, and no man ever worked so hard, ever saw more trouble, ever shared other people’s bad luck mere than he; ever took the bit in his teeth, when it was a matter of duty, stronger than he; and yet there’s peace; he has it; a peace that passes all understanding—mine anyhow. I’ve never had a minute’s real peace. The World, or Nature, or God, or It, whatever the name is, owes me peace. And how is It to give it? Why, by answering my questions. Now it’s a curious thing that the only person I ever met who could answer any questions of mine—answer them in the way that satisfies—is Suzon. She works things down to phrases. She has wisdom in the raw, and a real grip on life, and yet all the men she has known have been river-drivers and farmers, and a few men from town who mistook the sort of Suzon she is. Virtuous and straight, she’s a born child of Aphrodite too—by nature. She was made for love. A thousand years ago she would have had a thousand loves! And she thinks the world is a magnificent place, and she loves it, and wallows—fairly wallows—in content. Now which is right: Suzon or Father Hallon—Aphrodite or the Nazarene? Which is peace—as the bird and the beast of the field get it—the fallow futile content, or—”
He suddenly stopped, hiccoughed, then hurriedly drawing paper before him, he sat down. For an hour he wrote. It grew darker. He pushed the table nearer the window, and the singing of the choir in the church came in upon him as his pen seemed to etch words into the paper, firm, eccentric, meaning. What he wrote that evening has been preserved, and the yellow sheets lie loosely in a black despatch-box which contains the few records Charley Steele left behind him. What he wrote that night was the note of his mind, the key to all those strange events through which he began to move two hours after the lines were written:
Over thy face is a veil of white sea-mist,
Only thine eyes shine like stars; bless or blight me,
I will hold close to the leash at thy wrist,
O Aphrodite!
Thou in the East and I here in the West,
Under our newer skies purple and pleasant:
Who shall decide which is better—attest,
Saga or peasant?
Thou with Serapis, Osiris, and Isis,
I with Jehovah, in vapours and shadows;
Thou with the gods’ joy-enhancing devices,
Sweet-smelling meadows!
What is there given us?—Food and some raiment,
Toiling to reach to some Patmian haven,
Giving up all for uncertain repayment,
Feeding the raven!
Striving to peer through the infinite azure,
Alternate turning to earthward and falling,
Measuring life with Damastian measure,
Finite, appalling.
What does it matter! They passed who with Homer
Poured out the wine at the feet of their idols:
Passing, what found they? To-come a misnomer,
It and their idols?
Sacristan, acolyte, player, or preacher,
Each to his office, but who holds the key?
Death, only Death—thou, the ultimate teacher
Wilt show it to me.
And when the forts and the barriers fall,
Shall we then find One the true, the almighty,
Wisely to speak with the worst of us all—
Ah, Aphrodite!
Waiting, I turn from the futile, the human,
Gone is the life of me, laughing with youth
Steals to learn all in the face of a woman,
Mendicant Truth!
Rising with a bitter laugh, and murmuring the last lines, he thrust the papers into a drawer, locked it, and going quickly from the room, he went down-stairs. His horse and cart were waiting for him, and he got in.
The groom looked at him inquiringly. “The Cote Dorion!” he said, and they sped away through the night.
CHAPTER VIII. THE COST OF THE ORNAMENT
One, two, three, four, five, six miles. The sharp click of the iron hoofs on the road; the strong rush of the river; the sweet smell of the maple and the pungent balsam; the dank rich odour of the cedar swamp; the cry of the loon from the water; the flaming crane in the fishing-boat; the fisherman, spear in hand, staring into the dark waters tinged with sombre red; the voice of a lonely settler keeping time to the ping of the axe as, lengthening out his day to nightly weariness, he felled a tree; river-drivers’ camps spotted along the shore; huge cribs or rafts which had swung down the great stream for scores of miles, the immense oars motionless, the little houses on the timbers blinking with light; and from cheerful raftsmen coming the old familiar song of the rivers: