And the thoughts of youth are long, long
thoughts.”
They were middle-aged now, they two. It was extraordinarily hard to believe. They had felt so much, and shared so much. They had plunged at missionary work with such ardor. Grigg especially. He had thrown aside more than one early opportunity for a start in business. He had sacrificed useful worldly acquaintances. His heart had burned to save souls, to carry the flame of divine revelation into what had then seemed a benighted, materialistic land.
Grigg would have succeeded in business or in the service of his government. He had a marked administrative gift. And power.... Distinctly power.
Withery stepped within the room, closed the door behind him, and looked straight up into that mask of a face; in his own deep emotion he thought of it as a tragic mask.
“Grigg,” he said very simply, “what's the matter?”
There was a silence. Then Doane came toward the door.
“The matter?” he queried, with an effort to smile.
“Can't we talk, Grigg?... I know you are in deep trouble.”
“Well”—Doane rested a massive hand on a bedpost—“I won't say that it isn't an anxious time, Henry. I'm pinning my faith to Pau Ting Chuan. But... And, of course, if I could have foreseen all the little developments, I wouldn't have sent for Betty. Though it's not easy to see what else I could have done. Frank and Ethel couldn't keep her longer. And the expense of any other arrangement... She's nineteen, Henry. A young woman. Curious—a young woman whom I've never even seen as such, and my daughter!”