“Perhaps I do, certainly and perhaps fortunately, the one is much rarer than the other. The best things in life are the commonest. There are flowers, and children, and love, and friendship for everybody, if they will have them.”
“And death and disillusion.”
“You, turning pessimist, Padre mio! This will never do. You are too serious—far too serious. I prescribe a course of Anthony Hope immediately. I have the ‘Dolly Dialogues’ with me, and you must force yourself to appreciate them. It’s plain you have met with little real tragedy in your life, or you would be more cheerful.”
“Have you a tragic past, that you are always gay?”
Mary shivered, but she did not answer. She called to Wiggins to come out of the water, for it was growing cold.
The minister scourged himself for four hours afterward, for he noticed that she was pale, and that there were shadows under her brown eyes. What had he said?
VI
MARY’S HUSBAND
Mary had gone to play golf at St. Andrews. The minister called on Mrs. Urquhart anent some parish matters and she detained him, rather against his will, to talk of Mary and her perfections. She never spoke of her except as “My Miss Mary,” and it was apt to bewilder the uninitiated. Suddenly she asked the minister:
“Does she ever talk to you of the wee girlie who was killed?”
“What wee girlie? Never!”