On the following Sunday morning, Adith Mallory's Equatorian news-feature appeared. The entire truth and all the names were not needed to make this as entertaining a Sunday newspaper story as ever drew forth her fanciful and flowing style. It was Equatoria that caught and held Beth's eye, and she saw Andrew Bedient in large movement behind the tale. The feature was dated in Coral City ten days before. Beth was so interested that she wanted to meet the correspondent, and wondered if Miss Mallory had returned to New York. She dropped a card with her telephone number, and the next morning Miss Mallory 'phoned. Her voice became bright with animation upon learning that Beth was upon the wire.
"There's no one in New York whom I'd rather talk with this moment, Miss
Truba."
"And why?"
"That portrait at the Smilax Club—I saw it yesterday. I'm writing about it…. The face I know—and you have done it tremendously! I can't tell you how it affected me. Don't bother to come down here. Let me go to you."
"I shall be glad to see you, Miss Mallory,—this afternoon?"
"Yes, and thank you."
The call had brightened Beth's mood somewhat. A bundle of letters had been dropped through her door as she talked. Beth saw the quantity of them and remembered it was Monday's first mail. She busied about the studio for a moment…. Letters, she thought,—these were all she had to represent her great investments of faith. Letters—the sum of her longings and vivid expectations. No matter what she wanted or deserved—a voice, a touch or a presence—it had all come to this, the crackle of letter paper. What a strange thing to realize! A fold of paper instead of a hand—a special delivery instead of a step upon the stair—a telegram instead of a kiss!…
"I belong in a cabinet," she sighed. "I guess I'm a letter-file instead of a lady."…
There was a large square envelope from Equatoria…. With stinging cheeks, Beth resented the buoyant happiness of the first few lines. Until a clearer understanding came, it seemed that he was blessing her refusal of him. How unwarranted afterward this thought appeared! The letter lifted her above her own suffering. Her mind was held by the great vital experience of a soul, a soul faring forth on its supreme adventure. He did not say what had happened in words, but she saw his descent in the flesh and his upward flight of spirit—the low ebb and the flashing heights…. How well she knew the cool brightness of his eyes, as he wrote! The god she had liberated that sunlit day was dead—not dead to her alone, but to any woman of Shore or Mountain or Isle…. With a gasp, she recalled Vina Nettleton's first conception, that Bedient was past, or rapidly passing beyond the attraction of a single woman.
Beth saw that she had helped to bring him to this greater dimension. There was a thrill in the thought. There would have been a positive and enduring joy, had he not gone from her to another. Truly, that was an inauspicious beginning for Illumination—but miracles happened. This thought fascinated her now: Had she seen clearly and made the great sacrifice of withholding herself—that he might rise to prophecy—there would have been gladness in that! She felt she could have done that—the iron Beth—given him to the world and not retained him for her own heart. He said that other women had done so. What an instrument!