“Yes.”
She was slight and young and pale. She passed between the window and his eyes. Her brown hair seemed half-transparent. The day was bright, but not yellow; its soft gray luster was exactly the woman’s tone. There was a curious unreality about the whole figure. The light in her eyes was like the light in the window; gray eyes and very deep. So quietly, she came, and the day was quiet, the house—a queer hush everywhere.
“There are a few of us who meet the transports—and call on the sick soldiers. We talk to them—write letters or telegrams. Sometimes they are very glad. All we want is to help. I haven’t tried many times before——”
Someone had told him once of a woman in London, who met the human drift in from the far tides of chance—and made their passing or their healing dear as heaven. He had always kept the picture. He scarcely heard all that this young woman was saying.
She was not beautiful, not even pretty. You would see her last in a room full of women. Under her eyes—he could not tell just where—there was a line or shadow of strange charm; and where the corner of her eye-lids folded into the temple a delicate perfection lived; her frail back had a line of beauty—again, he could not describe this. The straightness of the figure was that of lightness, of aspiration.... Sometimes she seemed just a girl. Her underlip pursed a little; it was not red.... She seemed waiting with the lightness of a thistle—waiting and listening in the lull before a wind.
“My name is Betty Berry.”
“Mine is John Morning.”
She told him that she was a musician, and that San Francisco was her home, although she was much away. He saw her with something that Duke Fallows had given him. The hush deepened with the thought. Had he taken from that tired breast a certain age and clear-eyedness and judgment of the ways of love-women? There might have been reality in this; certainly there was reality in his not having seen a white girl in many months. He was changed; his work done for the moment; he was very tired and hungry for something she brought.... “Betty Berry.”
He was changed. This Western world was new to him. He seemed old to the East—old, much-traveled, and very weary; here was faith and tenderness and reality. Duke Fallows’ city—Duke had strangely intrenched himself here; and this wraith of an angel who came to him ministering!... Malice and ambition—reprisal and murder were gone. What a dirty little man he had been—how rotten with self, how furious and unspeakable. Why had he not seen it? Why had he rejected Duke Fallows with his brain and accepted him with his soul? The soul—what queer place in a man is this? Duke Fallows, Lowenkampf—were in and out, and Nevin, even the Ploughman now; and this little gray hushed spirit of a girl had come straight to his soul. Why could one not always feel these Presences? Would such destroying and malignant hatred return as that for Reever Kennard last night? Was it because he had been so passionate for self—that until now, (when he was resting and she came), decency, delight, nor vision had been able to break through the deadly self-turned currents?... This was like his finer self coming into the room.
“How did you know that boys coming home—need to see you?” he asked. He had to be very careful and arrange what he meant to say briskly and short. Most of his thoughts would not do at all to speak.