The monogram was V.A., and the A., I suppose, was the baptismal initial of the mysterious Curly, who won the great battle with the slave-dhow, and whose laugh and smile divided the honours of admiration with mankind. Victoria’s poor secret was hardly worth the telling, for, of course, I had guessed it long before. But what I had not guessed was this fidelity of daily, hourly remembrance to the vanished hero of a vanished ship—now, perhaps, firing her guns of joyous salutation in some haven on the other side of the world.
Did I hint this to the beautiful devotee? Not I! One moment of temptation came, but it passed; and I was spared the meanness of tormenting her with a doubt. Since Curly was her religion, let him be her religion still. Here was his shrine. It was hung all about with strange little memorials of him that looked like aids to worship, votive offerings of bits of ribbon on the branches of his sacred tree. A necklace of shells, fastened in its place with pins, formed a border in alto-relievo for the monogram and the date. In due course, no doubt, there would be an altar for the navy-button and a temple for the altar—so such things grow. I remembered what the girl had told me of the old strain of idolatry in her blood. Yet truth and love are so entrancing to the gaze that, in regarding them, the real amateur soon loses all thought of self. The picture in this virgin’s soul was a master-piece, not to be marred by a touch—Curly in his orisons, ever praying with his face towards the Isle; seas and continents between them, yet the electric thread of sympathy only the longer on that account.
All this I fancied forth, and, as usual, in that kind of snap-shooting at truth, I could not be quite sure of my mark. With all her hope and trust in Curly, Victoria seemed full of a strange disquiet about him, not easy to explain.
‘Five ships here since he left,’ she said, ‘and no word or token from him—not so much as one of these,’ and she returned the button to her breast. ‘The black people have killed him, perhaps. Every night and every morning this last month I have come here to ask for a sign of him, living or dead. You remember that night I saw the shape on the Ridge: I half fancied—that was why I was so afraid; just because I was with you. Have I done anything wrong? Have I done wrong? Nobody helps me. I seem to stand all alone.’
‘Victoria, if you talk like that, I must tell you that I am by your side.’
‘Dear, good friend, yes, I seem to be forgetting you. Why is it so hard to do right? Why is our choice always between pain and pain?’
‘You shall not choose, princess; I will choose for you. Be my comrade, and only that. I will ask for no more. As for me, let me be to you what I like, what is best for me. All wisdom is in loving you, and I want to be wise. If I must not speak to you, let me spend precious hours by your side, looking, learning, for your eyes light for me the dark places of the world.’
‘Comrades then,’ she said, smiling; and she gave me her hand.
CHAPTER XVII.
A MEDITATION.
So now, I think, I begin to see why I have been sent here—not to give lessons, but to take them. My education has been neglected, and I am coaching for a pass in the higher learning of life. I am reading with Victoria—reading in the deep eyes, without book. It is a course of social economy by a new method. The method is to look on this image of the Divine, as intently as may be without being caught in the act. I must not be caught; half of the gusty anger of the gods with adoring mortals comes of their dislike of being stared at. And, besides looking, there must be listening—listening with the heart. The ear will not do; the true message of this exquisite piece of being is only for a finer organ. Put a microphone in a cave, and it will register the beat of the earth’s breathing: with a still more delicate instrument, perhaps, this girl’s elemental nature, at its stillest, will be heard to speak. As soon as my heart was stirred, then truly she began to be audible to me—blessed day!