Mrs. Wyndwood sprang up in alarm and closed the window.
“Olive, Olive, calm yourself,” she said, tenderly, pressing the girl’s face to her bosom.
Olive broke from her with a peal of laughter. “You look as if you had seen a ghost, Nor. Are you afraid of the black night that you shut it out? Are you out of tune with it already?”
“You exaggerate the pain of the world, dearest,” said Eleanor, soothingly.
Herbert looked startled. “The pain of the world?” he said. “The futility of the world, you mean. People eat and drink and go to theatres, and over their graves the parson prates of infinities and immortalities. Religion is too big for us. We’re like mice in a cathedral.”
“You are right.” Olive dropped wearily into the grandfather’s chair. “God said, ‘Let man be,’ and nascitur ridiculus mus.”
Eleanor’s eyes kindled. “We are small most times,” she said. “But there are moments when, as Wordsworth says:
“ ‘Through Love, through Hope, and Faith’s transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.’
I’m not afraid, Olive. There! I open the window again. Come and look—not at the black night, but up at the stars.”
Matthew’s soul melted in worship. He moved to her side and, refreshed by the cool sea air, lifted his eyes to the far-sprinkled vault where the moon had now suffused the dark clouds, which seemed to have grown light and porous. The two infinities of sky and sea brooded together in the night, ineffably solemn.