"Yes. Take those cards round to the Kesterns in the afternoon, will you. If you see him, tell him how pleased we are about the book."
"Yes. Good-night, mother."
"Good-night, dear. Sleep sound."
Madeline undressed slowly. Then she slipped on her dressing-gown and knelt by her bed. She habitually said the prayers that she had said since she was a little girl, and she said them now. But she said them a little more slowly than usual, and when she had finished, she did not jump at once between the sheets as she usually did. She knelt on, thinking.
She did not want to be a clergyman's wife anywhere really, in England or abroad. Yet she couldn't tell God that. But she did want to be a successful author's wife, only she could not tell God that either. She had never even told God properly about Paul, partly because she had never known quite what to tell. Now, however, she was realising just what it would mean to her if he became a Roman Catholic priest, utterly preposterous as it seemed. Besides, in her heart of hearts, it did not seem quite so preposterous as she had said. Paul was like that. Also, he was rather nice. Such a boy. Much to good for that Edith Thornton, only that also you couldn't tell God.
And then, quite suddenly, she did begin to tell God things. She really prayed. She said she was sorry for lots of things and that she would give them up. She prayed not to be always wanting nice clothes, and she prayed to have more faith. It was an expression, and she used it as such. For more grace too, she prayed, not really knowing what grace might be. And she meant that also. But her soul, not very big, at the best, truly immolated itself, and she did the very utmost she could with it. And when she had leaped upon the altar as well as she was able, and had gashed herself with great horrid knives of renunciation, she preferred her request. "Make Paul love me, O God," she whispered, "and make me love him very, very much."
So, then, at last, the pall of deep night settled down on half the world. Even Donaldson got to bed somehow. Manning, like Paul, walked back under the stars, whistling gently to himself in the more empty stretches. The dancer who had looked at Paul across the footlights slept, and the girl who had asked for a drink. Yet dancing and drinking and praying never cease altogether, nor does the voiceless cry of the world ever cease to echo through the silences.
CHAPTER VII
THURLOE END
MADMAN.