And Miss Mallory lured back Bedient's strength. He ate, drank and slept at her bidding…. So little she said, so instant to understand, so strange and different she was, waiting upon his words as upon a master's…. The last evening at the hacienda (the Henlopen had arrived in the harbor) he played for them upon the orchestrelle. Music came forth new and of big import to his consciousness…. He had tried the soul-rousing heimweh from the slow movement of Dvorák's New World Symphony, when Miss Mallory, looking over the rolls, discovered the Andante of Beethoven's Fifth.
"Don't you remember—the orchestra—that night?… It's wonderful and mysterious—won't you——?" But she saw the look that came into his face, and did not finish. Instead, she put the roll away quickly, knowing she had touched a more vital association than a theatre fright.
"Don't mind, and please forgive me——"
…That night they stood together at the door of the little room, for she had refused to change. Bedient said:
"Every time I think of you I feel better, Adith Mallory…. I shall think of you often, always as if you were in the little room next to mine."
They went aboard the following night, and sailed at dawn. Bedient rode back to the hacienda during the morning…. How strange it will be—alone, he thought; stranger still, he faced the prospect without dread…. A hush had fallen upon the hills, and upon his heart. Some mysterious movement was stirring at the centres of his life….
A box of pictures had come on the Henlopen; also a letter from Torvin. There were three canvases in the latest shipment, and seven had come to the hacienda while he was in New York. He hung them all in a room where there was good North light, and kept the key with him. And so there was a gallery for the Grey One in that house, as well as the little room next to his. He smiled at the thought that a man's life becomes a house of his friends…. Torvin reported that Miss Grey had disposed of several pictures direct from her studio; that he had marketed eight pictures beside the ones shipped to Equatoria, and that there was a sprightly demand for her work….
* * * * *
That night, as Bedient ascended the stairs, a long sigh escaped him. So uncommon a thing was this, that he stopped to reflect. It was like one casting off a worn garment. Some old, ill, tired part of him passed away, and out of the great still house. He did not loathe it, but sped its passing, happily, gratefully…. Then the thought came, "Why do I attract all this beauty of friendship and loyalty?"… All the eager activity of others in his behalf recurred—the gracious image of that Mother of myriad services, before all—and the fragrant essence of a hundred deeds of love for him…. "I must hurry to keep pace, but I can't—with these infinite favors!" he whispered.
A passion for service surged through him—to pray, and serve, and love and do; to write and give and lift and smile; always to help; to fall asleep blessing the near and the far; to awake prodigal with strength…. Such a spirit of giving brimmed into his life, that his flesh thrilled with the ecstasy of illimitable service.