"Sacrifice and death—somebody said those were the only terms on which the God of life has made life to exist," said Evelyn softly. "The French talk of the soul's secret garden as though it were a place of promise and perfume. I always think one's secret garden is Gethsemane. And sweat broke out even on Christ's brow in Gethsemane, you know. 'All bound together with one chain of darkness, and to themselves more grievous than the darkness.'"
"But the saints had a very great light," said Cummings. He shook his head back with a characteristic little gesture of decision. "Do you know what it is, Evelyn, suddenly, for no reason, when you are saying the same prayers in the same way, kneeling on the same step, practising the same austerities, whatever they may be, neither more nor less, to have your hardness break down and your heart like a little child's again? That has come before; it will, it must, come again."
Evelyn sighed wearily.
"It seems to me that sometimes one believes with one's heart and sometimes with one's head. I suppose the best of all is when the two work together. One can plant flowers in other people's gardens even when they won't flourish in one's own back yard. It's the same principle as telling a rosary. After you've hammered out half-a-dozen Pater and a hundred or so Aves, they begin to take some meaning, don't they? 'Vain repetitions' have their comfort after all. I heard such a nice story the other day about two dear Evangelical old ladies. At seventy-five and eighty, foreseeing the near approach of death, they began to take lessons on the harp, because they thought the knowledge could be turned to account later on in Paradise.
"Oh, delicious!" said Cummings. He pulled the blind up, so that the light fell more fully on Evelyn's face. "I've finished whining. Now tell me how the world has been treating you for the last few years."
Evelyn moved away restlessly to the window.
"What a nasty mean trick to let in that glare. You used to tease me as a child," she said from the back of the room. "What made you take these stuffy rooms, Jack? They're very ugly and uncomfortable."
"I didn't anticipate the visits of my female friends," said Cummings. "Come here, Evelyn; be a good girl and—you know the rest. No, I'm not chaffing now—you're bothered, aren't you?"
"I rather wish I hadn't come, Grand Inquisitor," said Evelyn. "Well, put down those glasses then; they worry me." She came and stood behind his chair. "Things are so horribly mixed up, Jack. One thinks perhaps it's—dangerous to go to a special place and see a special person—and then some one who has the right compels one to. Do you think what St. Philip Neri said about the way of escape was true?"
"Ungrammatical—but fairly concise for a woman. By the bye, I always gave St. Paul the credit of the remark you quote," said Cummings, his eyes twinkling.