Yet he was heavy-hearted, and when Eloise Harper charged up to him, dressed somewhat scantily as a dryad, and handed him a foolish monkey on a stick, she seemed to suggest a heathen saturnalia rather than anything Christian and civilized.
“A monkey for a monk,” said Eloise. “Mr. Follette, your cassock is frightfully becoming. But you know you are a whited sepulchre.”
“Am I?”
“Of course. I’ll bet you never say your prayers.”
She danced away, unconscious that her words had pierced him. What reason had she to think that any of this meant more to him than it did to her? Had he borne witness to the faith that was within him? And was it within him? And if not, why?
He stood there with his foolish monkey on his stick, while around him swirled a laughing, shrieking crowd. Why, the thing was a carnival, not a sacred celebration. Was there no way in which he might bear witness?
Edith had asked him to sing the old ballads, “Dame, get up and bake your pies,” and “I saw three ships a-sailing.” Evans was in no mood for the dame who baked her pies on Christmas day in the morning, or the pretty girls who whistled and sang—on Christmas day in the morning.
When all the gifts had been distributed the lights in the room were turned out. The only illumination was the golden effulgence which encircled the tree.
In his monk’s robe, within that circle of light, Evans seemed a mystical figure. He seemed, too, appropriately ascetic, with his gray hair, the weary lines of his old-young face.
But his voice was fresh and clear. And the song he sang hushed the great room into silence.