She only half understood him, but she looked in his face with her sweet smile.
"It is like a dream. That I should be walking here with you, such as you, in this grand place—I, Gilead P. Beck. To be with you and Mr. Dunquerque is like getting back the youth I never had: youth that isn't always thinkin' about the next day; youth that isn't always plannin' for the future; youth that has time to enjoy the sunshine, to look into a sweet gell's eyes and fall in love—like you, my pretty, and Mr. Dunquerque—who saved my life."
He added these last words as an after-thought, and as if he was reminded of some duty forgotten.
Phillis was silent, because his words fell upon her heart and made her think. It was not her youth that was prolonged; it was her childhood. And that was dropping from her now like the shell of the chrysalis. She thought how, somewhere in the world, there were people born to be unhappy, and she felt humiliated when she was selfishly enjoying what they could not. Somewhere in the world—and where? Close to her, in the cottages where Mrs. L'Estrange had taken her.
For until then the poor, who are always with us, were not unhappy, to Phillis, nor hungry, nor deserving of pity and sympathy; they were only picturesque.
They went to St. George's Chapel, after over-ruling Gilead Beck's objections to attending divine service—for he said he hadn't been to meetin' for more than thirty years; also, that he had not yet "got religion"—and when he stood in the stall under the banner of its rightful owner he looked on from an outsider's point of view.
The ceremonial of the ancient Church of England was to him a pageant and a scenic display. The picture, however, was very fine; the grand chapel with its splendor of ornamentation; the banners and heraldry; the surpliced sweet-voiced boys; the dignified white-robed clergy-men; the roll of the organ; the sunlight through the painted glass; even the young subaltern who came clanking into the chapel as the service began,—there was nothing, he said, in America which could be reckoned a patch upon it. Church in avenue 39, New York, was painted and gilded in imitation of the Alhambra; that was considered fine, but could not be compared with St. George's, Windsor. And the performance of the service, he said, was so good as to have merited a larger audience.
Jack Dunquerque, I grieve to say, did not attend to the service. He was standing beside Phillis, and he watched her with hungry eyes. For she was looking before her in a sort of trance. The beauty of the place intoxicated her. She listened with soft eyes and parted lips. All was artistic and beautiful. The chapel was peopled again with mailed knights; the voices of the anthem sang the greatness and the glory of England; the sunshine through the painted glass gave colour to the picture in her brain; and when the service was over she came out with dazed look, as one who is snatched too suddenly from a dream of heaven.
This too, like everything else, was part of her education. She had learned the beauty of the world and its splendours. She was to see the things she had only dreamed of, but by dreaming had wrapped in a cloud of coloured mist.
When was it to be completed, her education? Phillis waited for that Coping-stone for which Joseph Jagenal was vainly searching. She laughed when she thought of it, the mysterious completion of Abraham Dyson's great fabric. What was it?