It was strange, for now that he sat there in that quiet room that had once witnessed the trying out of a manly soul, and saw the calm eyes of the plain mother on the wall opposite, and the true eyes of the dowdy school-boy on the other wall, he was feeling the Presence again!
Why hadn't he felt its power in the church? Was it because of the presence of such people in the temple as that little mean-souled professor, whom everybody knew to be insincere from the crown of his head to the soles of his sly little feet? Was it because the people were cold and careless and didn't sing even with their lips, let alone their hearts, but hired it all done for them?
And then there had been that call of his name when he was with Gila Dare, as clear and distinct, like a friend he had left outside who had grown tired of waiting, and worried about him. Why hadn't the sense of the Presence gone with him into the room? Would a Presence like that be afraid of hostile influences? No. If it was real and a Presence at all it would be more powerful than any other influence in the universe. Then why?
Could it be that he had gone deliberately into an influence that would make it impossible for the Presence to guide?
Or was it possible that his own attitude toward that girl had been at fault? He had gone to see her regarding her somewhat lightly. As a gentleman he should regard no woman with disrespect. Her womanhood should be honored by him even if she chose to dishonor it herself. If he had gone to see Gila with a different attitude toward her, expecting high, fine things of her, rather than merely to be amused by one whom he scarcely regarded seriously, perhaps all this strange mental phenomena would not have come to pass.
Finally he locked the door and knelt down with his head upon the worn Bible. He had no idea of praying. Prayer meant to him but a repetition of a form of words. There had been prayers in his childhood, brought about by the maiden aunt who kept house for his father after his mother's death, and assisted in bringing him up until he was old enough to go away to boarding-school. They were a good deal of a bore, coming as they did when he was sleepy. There was a long, vague one beginning, "Our Father which art," in which he always had to be prompted. There was, "Now I lay me," and "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, bless the bed I lie upon; Wish I may, wish I might, get the wish I wish to-night!" Or was that a prayer? He never could remember as he grew older.
He did not know why he was drawn to kneel there with his eyes closed and his cheek upon that Bible. Strange that when he was in that room all doubt about the Presence vanished, all uneasiness about reconciling it with realities, laws, and science fled away.
Later he stood in his own room by the window, watching the great red sun go down in the west and light a ruby fire behind the long line of tall buildings that stretched beyond the campus. The glow in no wise resembled, but yet reminded him, of the fire in the glowing grate of the Dare library. Why had that room affected him so strangely? And Gila, little Gila, how sweet and innocent she had looked when they met her that morning with her prayer-book. How wrong he must have been to take the idle talk that people chattered about her and let it influence his thoughts of her. She could not be all that they said, and yet look so sweet and innocent. What had she reminded him of in literature? Ah! he had it. Solveig in Peer Gynt!
How fair! Did ever you see the like?
Looked down at her shoes and her snow-white apron!—
And then she held on to her mother's skirt-folds,
And carried a psalm-book wrapped up in a 'kerchief!—
That ample purple person by her side, with the dark eyes, the double chin, and the hard lines in her painted face, must be Gila's mother! Perhaps people talked about the daughter because of her mother, for she looked it fully! But then a girl couldn't help having a foolish mother! She was to be pitied more than blamed if she seemed silly and frivolous now and then.