“Do you remember, my dear?” went on Mary, “the conversation we had one day in your workshop before we were engaged—that’s years ago, isn’t it—about star-gazing considered as a fine art?”
“I remember something,” he said.
“That I told you, for instance, that it might be better if you paid a little more attention to matters physical, lest otherwise you should go on praying for vision till you could see, and for power until you could create?”
Morris nodded.
“Well, and I think I said—didn’t I? that if you insisted upon following these spiritual exercises, the result might be that they would return upon you in some concrete shape, and take possession of you, and lead you into company and surroundings which most of us think it wholesome to avoid.”
“Yes, you said something like that.”
“It wasn’t a bad bit of prophecy, was it?” went on Mary, rubbing her chin reflectively, “and you see his Satanic Majesty knew very well how to bring about its fulfilment. Mystical, lovely, and a wonderful mistress of music, which you adore; really, one would think that the bait must have been specially selected.”
Crushed though he was, Morris’s temper began to rise beneath the lash of Mary’s sarcasm. He knew, however, that it was her method of showing jealousy and displeasure, both of them perfectly natural, and did his best to restrain himself.
“I do not quite understand you,” he said. “Also, you are unjust to her.”
“Not at all. I daresay that in herself she was what you think her, a perfect angel; indeed, the descriptions that I have heard from your father and yourself leave no doubt of it in my mind. But even angels have been put to bad purposes; perhaps their innocence makes it possible to take advantage of them——”