"Very little!" she said—"So little that it is not worth a regret! Good-bye! But not for long! Come and see me soon!"
Moving across the cloister with her light step she seemed to float through the sunshine like a part of it, and as she disappeared a kind of shadow fell, though no cloud obscured the sun. Don Aloysius watched her till she had vanished,—then turned aside into a small chapel opening out on the cloistered square—a chapel which formed part of the monastic house to which he belonged as Superior,—and there, within that still, incense-sweetened sanctuary, he knelt before the noble, pictured Head of the Man of Sorrows in silent confession and prayer.
CHAPTER X
Roger Seaton was a man of many philosophies. He had one for every day in the week, yet none wherewith to thoroughly satisfy himself. While still a mere lad he had taken to the study of science as a duck takes to water,—no new discovery or even suggestion of a new discovery missed his instant and close attention. His avidity for learning was insatiable,—his intense and insistent curiosity on all matters of chemistry gave a knife-like edge to the quality of his brain, making it sharp, brilliant and incisive. To him the ordinary social and political interests of the world were simply absurd. The idea that the greater majority of men should be created for no higher purpose than those of an insect, just to live, eat, breed, and die, was to him preposterous.
"Think of it!" he would exclaim—"All this wondrous organisation of our planet for THAT! For a biped so stupid as to see nothing in his surroundings but conveniences for satisfying his stomach and his passions! We men are educated chiefly in order to learn how to make money, and all we can do with the money WHEN made, is to build houses to live in, eat as much as we want and more, and breed children to whom we leave all the stuff we have earned, and who either waste it or add to it, whichever suits their selfishness best. Such lives are absolutely useless,—they repeat the same old round, leading nowhere. Occasionally, in the course of centuries a real Brain is born—and at once, all who are merely Bodies leap up against it, like famished wolves, striving to tear it to pieces and devour it—if it survives the attack its worth is only recognised long after its owner has perished. The whole scheme is manifestly unintelligent and ludicrous, but it is not intended to be so—of that I am sure. THERE MUST BE SOMETHING ELSE!"
When urged to explain what he conceived as this "something else," he would answer—
"There has always been 'something else' in our environment,—something that stupid humanity has taken centuries to discover. Sound-waves for example—light-rays,—electricity—these have been freely at our service from the beginning. Electricity might have been used ages ago, had not dull-witted man refused to find anything better for lighting purposes than an oil-lamp or a tallow candle! If, in past periods, he had been told 'there is something else'—he would have laughed his informant to scorn. So with our blundering methods of living—'there is something else'—not after death, but NOW and HERE. We are going about in the darkness with a candle when a great force of wider light is all round us, only awaiting connection and application to our uses."
Those who heard him speak in this way—(and they were few, for Seaton seldom discussed his theories with others)—convinced themselves that he was either a fool or a madman,—the usual verdict given for any human being who dares break away from convention and adopt an original line of thought and action. But they came to the conclusion that as he was direfully poor, and nevertheless refused various opportunities of making money, his folly or his madness would be brought home to him sooner or later by strong necessity, and that he would then either arrive at a sane every-day realisation of "things as they are"—or else be put away in an asylum and quietly forgotten. This being the sagacious opinion of those who knew him best, there was a considerable flutter in such limited American circles as call themselves "upper" when the wealthiest young woman in the States, Morgana Royal, suddenly elected to know him and to bring him into prominent notice at her parties as "the most wonderful genius of the time"—"a man whose scientific discoveries might change the very face of the globe"—and other fantastically exaggerated descriptions of her own which he himself strongly repudiated and resented. Gossip ran amok concerning the two, and it was generally agreed that if the "madman" of science were to become the husband of a woman multi-millionaire, he would not have to be considered so mad after all! But the expected romance did not materialise,—there came apparently a gradual "cooling off" in the sentiments of both parties concerned,—and though Roger Seaton was still occasionally seen with Morgana in her automobile, in her opera-box, or at her receptions, his appearances were fewer, and other men, in fact many other men, were more openly encouraged and flattered,—Morgana herself showing as much indifference towards him as she had at first shown interest. When, therefore, he suddenly left the social scene of action, his acquaintances surmised that he had got an abrupt dismissal, or as they more brusquely expressed it—"the game's up"!
"He's lost his chance!" they said, shaking their heads forlornly—"And he's poorer than Job! He'll be selling newspapers in the cars for a living by and by!"