“That’s just it—one gets to lean on letters. One’s letters are never one’s self. I know that extended writing throws one out from the true idea of another. I shall think of to-night during the weeks.... It seems, we forgot the world to-night. There—behind the scenes—how wonderful.... There was no thought about it. I just found myself in your arms——”
“Then I am not to write—until I hear from you?” he asked. It had not occurred to him before that she could have any deeper reason than an uncertain itinerary.
“That will be best.... Don’t you see, writing is your work. It will make you turn your training upon me. Something tells me the peril of that. As to-night dimmed away—you would force the picture.... Trained as you, one writes to what he wishes one to be, not to what one is.... You would make me all over to suit—and when I came, there would be a shock.... And then think if some night—very eager and heart-thumping, I should reach a city—so lonely and hungry for my letter—and it shouldn’t be there.... No, to-night must do for me. I shall go on my way playing and biding my time, until the return steamer. Then some morning, about the first of March, you shall hear that I am back—and that I am waiting for my real letter——”
“And where did you learn all this—about a man writing himself out of the real?” John Morning asked wonderingly.
“If I were to be in one place to receive your letters, I might not have thought of it—yet it is true.... Then, my letters are nothing. Perhaps I am a little afraid to write to you. I think with the ’cello——”
“All that seems very old and wise, beyond my kind of thinking,” he said.
For a long time she was listening. It was like that first afternoon.... What did Betty Berry hear continually? It gave him a conception of what receptivity meant—that quiescence of all that is common, that abatement of the world and the worldly self, that quality purely feminine. It was like a valley receiving the afternoon sunlight. He realized vaguely at first that the mastery of self, necessary for such listening, is the very state of being saints pray for, and practice continually to attain.... Perhaps, he thought, this is the way great powers come—from such listening—the listening of the soul; perhaps such power would come again and again, if only the strength of it were turned into service for men; perhaps it was a kind of prayer.... It was all too vague for him to speak....
She was first to whisper that the dawn had come.
“I love you,” he said.
He saw her eyes with the daylight, as he had not seen them since that first afternoon—gray eyes, very deep. The same strange hush came to him from them. And there was a soft gray lustre with the morning about her traveling-coat; and her brown hair seemed half-transparent against the panes. No one was yet abroad in the coach.