“Well, speak not of such things!” said the Prior impatiently. “The generality understands them not. They think not that things are but lifted or lowered, set in light or in darkness. You but hurt yourself!”
“That is true enough!” thought the merchant’s son.
They paced the walk to a stone bench set before fruit trees whose shadow was now long upon the grass. The Prior, head sunk in cowl, was thinking. He sat down, the young man standing before him. “The miracles—”
Bettany set sail upon that story. Last week a woman had received her sight. Three days ago a man for years bedridden had walked. Yesterday had come a shipmaster carrying his daughter in his arms. “Praise! Praise!” shouted the people. It was like a Great Fair for numbers, at Saint Leofric’s! At times bridge was thick with folk.
And then midway in his recital to which he was warming, which he was now colouring rightly, Prior Matthew, with a sudden start and jerk, returned to the picture and had from him promise not to let pass his lips to any other that sinful fancy.
He promised, seeing himself that facts were not always for shouting.
Morgen Fay who was merchant and sold herself, who had great beauty and dark eyes, and who wore those reds and blues, might be picked—or one like her might be picked—a common rose out of common garden, and a painter might take her for line and feature and hue and sublimate all—and yet the Rosa Mystica, the God Bride and Mother, be never hurt, be never the worse for that, where she looked from high heaven, pitying all and helping who would be helped,—pitying, perchance, Morgen Fay!