“But I’m glad of it,” he told himself on the night when he made his great decision; “I’m glad it means out-and-out, downright, everlasting business; I hate a half-and-half anything.”
Very soon he made the surprising discovery that he was happy in his new life. He had not looked for that; at least, not yet, not for years and years, probably. He had expected to make sacrifices and meet crosses; he considered himself prepared for those, but the glow of new and genuine joy was unexpected and took hold of him with power. He began to understand some of the sentences in his book that had seemed like the extravagances of a diseased brain; he spent much time reading that book, studying the Bible quotations in it, hunting in the public library for other books from which his uncle had quoted as though they were familiar friends; he locked his manuscript book with his Bible in his private drawer and took them out together; he began to see that the life portrayed in the one had been lived as a commentary on the directions of the other. Still, he was chary of his new experience; it was not a matter to be talked of; at least, not yet. He told his mother a little about it one evening when they two were alone, and was astonished and touched to note that she cried; she told him they were tears of joy; and that she felt as though it didn’t matter much now how many troubles they had. He had not supposed that his mother would care so very much. The next morning when they walked down town together he managed to make his father understand what had come to him as a result of a step that he had taken, and he knew that he would never forget the words his father spoke in reply; nor the look on his face, a little later, when he straightened himself and threw back the shoulders that had begun to droop, as he said:
“My boy, I feel ten years younger than I did when we started.”
Ray did not have to be told; she seemed to know by intuition what great event had taken place. She lingered in the hall a moment after the others had passed into the sitting-room—they had all just come in from Sabbath evening service—and reaching up to her tall young brother kissed a lingering, tender kiss, as she said: “My soldier brother enlisted for life; I know I shall always be proud of him.” Yet nothing had occurred at church, nor during the walk home, to tell her that he had chosen a new Commander.
But with Jean, his heretofore confidante all occasions, Derrick played shy. He could not decide how to tell her about this momentous change which had come to him. A “new creature?” Yes, the phrase described it singularly well, but to feel it, know it, was one thing, and to describe it or account for it in terms that Jean would understand was quite another. He had a feeling that Jean would not want to understand; he and she had stood on the same plane as regards these matters; they had exchanged witticisms over the weaknesses of many professing Christians, especially among young people; they had agreed that Ray was not like any of the others, but was “unnecessarily good,” and, in short, had made the entire subject an embarrassment when one came to talk about it from a standpoint that the other had not seen. He decided finally not to say anything to her about it; if his life did not tell her, without words, he assured himself that it would not be much of a life; anyhow, he must wait and see.
And so, Jean did not understand; she only felt in her brother a subtle change difficult to define; she was not even sure that she approved it; Dick had always suited her well enough just as he was; she was able to see in it only the influence of the new member of the family, and this she instinctively resented.
“It is simply ridiculous,” she told herself, half angrily, “for him to be infatuated with that lame old woman, whom he called the homeliest person he ever looked at! That’s nothing against her, of course; I don’t think myself that she is so terribly homely, and she is kind, and unselfish, and all that, but then—I don’t see what has made the change in him! Of course, I am glad that he doesn’t want to stay out nights as he used to, nor go to places that father doesn’t quite like, but why couldn’t he have stopped all that long ago for all our sakes instead of waiting until that old woman—” Even unspoken words failed her, and she stopped abruptly; then, after a moment, added, aloud: “I believe I shall end by—” But she had to stop again; she had almost said she would end by hating that old woman; of course, she was not going to say, or do, any such thing; but as for falling down to worship her as the others were almost doing she never should, and they need not expect it; she was sure of one thing; she did wish Aunt Elsie would let Dick alone.
It might have been a restless dissatisfaction, born of the feeling that in some undefined way she had lost her boon companion, which made the usually sweet-spirited Jean appear at great disadvantage during this period of her life. She seemed suddenly to have grown self-assertive and obstinate. What she would and would not do grew daily more pronounced, and culminated, one afternoon when she must make a journey across town for her music lesson, in a fixed resolve to wear neither rubbers nor raincoat; no, nor carry any umbrella; though Florence assured her earnestly that even the cat could see that it was going to rain.
“I’m not a cat,” was Jean’s reply. “I don’t know why you should quote her to me; and I’m not going to bundle up like a rheumatic old maid when it doesn’t rain a drop.”
“Jean, dear,” came gently from Ray, “do wear your sandals, won’t you? Because you know those shoes you have on are really very thin, and if you should get caught in a shower—”