"Confess!" Nan insisted. "Am I not right?"
"Absolutely wrong," he replied slowly. "Why the wicked prosper has never worried me in the least. The first big religious idea I ever got hold of was that this is the best possible world God could have created—because it's free. Man must choose, otherwise his deeds have no meaning. A deed of mine is good merely because I have the power to do its opposite if I choose. In this free world step by step I can rise or fall through suffering and choosing."
"Oh, Jim," Nan broke in softly, "I've made you suffer horribly. You have the right to be hard and bitter."
"But I'm not, Nan," was the quiet answer. "I've been made generous and warm and tender by disappointment. Through the gates of pain I've entered into fellowship with my fellow-men, the humblest and the greatest. This sense of kinship has given me a larger vision. I've learned to love all sentient things. I've made friends with all sorts and conditions of men, the rich, the poor, the good, the bad. You have taught me the greatest secret of life."
"I wish I could blot out the memory of the pain."
"Well, I'm glad you can't. Life has become to me a thing so wonderful, so mysterious, so beautiful—just life within itself—I'd live it all over again if I could."
"Every moment of it?"
"Every moment with every light and shadow. It's glorious to live!"
A solemn English butler entered and announced dinner.
Seated by Nan's side alone in the great dining room, while servants in gorgeous liveries hurried with soft light footfall to do her slightest bidding, Stuart could scarcely shake off the impression that he was dreaming. Such pictures he had weaved in his fancy the first wonderful days of their conscious love-life. But it seemed centuries ago now. They had both died and come to life again in a new mysterious world, a world in which he was yet a stranger and Nan at home. The splendours of the stately room pleased his poetic fancy and in spite of his hostile effort he had to confess in his heart that Nan's magnificent figure gave the scene just the touch of queenly dignity which made it perfect. He tried again and again to recall the girl he had known in the old days, but the vision faded before the dazzling light of the present.