“How about monks and nuns, who shut themselves up, and never see their fellow-creatures at all?” he had retorted, greatly pleased with himself for the retort.
Trix had opened eyes of wonder.
“The contemplative orders! Why, Mr. Danver, they’re the cog-wheels of the whole machinery. They only keep their bodies apart that their minds may be more free. Nobody has the good of mankind so much at heart as a contemplative. They are keeping the machinery going by prayer the whole time.”
The utter conviction in her words was unmistakable. For an odd flashing moment he had had something like a mental vision of an irresistible force pouring forth from those closed houses, a force like the force of a great river, carrying all things with it, and with healing virtue in its waters. The thought was utterly foreign to him. But it had been there.
“I am not much of a believer in prayer,” he had said dryly. He had expected her to ask if he had ever tried it. She had not done so.
“Most of us do it so badly,” she had said with a little sigh, “but they don’t.” And then she had flashed a glance of amusement at him. “Did you ever hear of the story of the old lady who said she was going to pray one night with entire faith that the hill beyond her garden might be removed? In the morning she found it still there. ‘I knew it would be!’ said the old lady triumphantly.”
Nicholas joined in her laugh, but somewhat grimly.
“We’re all like that,” he said.
Trix shook her head.
“Not all, mercifully; but a good many.” And then she had returned to her former charge.