She looked across the room with a transparent appeal for sympathy, but with a quick, glad laugh Vanna leapt to her feet and swept towards the door.
“Good-bye. I’m going. Thank you so much!”
“Going!” Jean rushed after her in dismay.
“Vanna, you’ve just come. Thank me for what? You mad creature, what do you mean?”
“My lesson! Don’t stop me, Jean, I’ll come again—I must go.”
She fled into the street, and the sound of her laughter floated back to Jean as she stood by the open door.
“The dining-room curtains don’t match!” Jean, the beloved, had said these astounding words; had advanced them in all seriousness as a reason for unhappiness! In the midst of plenty, this infinitesimal crumb could mar her joy. And Jean was but a type of her class. All over London while their lonely sisters were eating their hearts with envy, the women rich in home, husband, and children, were allowing pigmy trials to obstruct the sun, squandering their joy, wasting the precious days. And at the other end of the world that young girl who was Piers Rendall’s wife, the mother of his child, she too, perchance, was vexing herself over many things, bemoaning her trials, so dulled by custom that she no longer appreciated her joys.
The great, the supreme secret of life, came home to Vanna with overwhelming force as she walked through the quiet streets. Not without, but within, must man look for happiness; in himself, the divine soul of him, or nowhere lies his joy. All outer possessions are as naught—the baubles, the playthings of a child, which, once gathered, grow tame and lose their gilt.
Vanna had known great grief, and had travelled on bleeding feet through the desert of loneliness, but from the rough journey she had reaped her spoil. Her eyes were opened; she saw the riches of this world at their true worth; her heart was filled with an immense, encompassing love. It was impossible that she should ever again be lonely. She thanked God, and took courage.