"Only a favored few, Sister."
"Yes, for everybody the refuge of faith is waiting."
"Belief may explain; but it can not reconcile," rejoined Halkett quietly. "Except for the mystery of God, there is no other mystery like man. None has yet explained him; not even himself. If his riddle is ever to be solved, I don't know when that will be, unless it is to happen after death."
There was a silence.
Halkett spoke again:
"Unbidden love comes; it abides as long as it chooses—a day, a lifetime—and after life, perhaps. But if it chooses to go, no one ever born can control its departure.... This is one mystery of man—only one among many.... I believe something of this sort occurred to me while—" he laughed—"I was coming a cropper in the sky this morning."
Sister Eila's eyes were fixed on space; Halkett laid aside his cigarette and picked up Ariadne.
"Well, old lady," he said, "there is only one solution to everything; go on with the business in hand and do it as thoroughly as your intellect permits. Your business, I suppose, is to look ornamental, have kittens, and catch mice. Bonne chance, little lady!"
He set her on the table and she marched gingerly among the coffee cups toward Philippa.
Sister Eila rose; all followed her example.