“A sort of Seventeenth century average?” Bellair suggested.
“Don’t misunderstand me. I was wrong, too,” Fleury declared. “Wrong, in the young man’s way of thinking himself right. You know we’re just as baneful when we are getting into a new world of thought as when we are not yet out of the old. It’s only after we have settled down and got accustomed to the place, that we’re reasonable. A man should be big enough to talk to all men, and appear everlastingly true to the least and the greatest. Truth is big enough for that. I had only a different trail from theirs, and wanted them all to come to mine, forgetting that the trails are only far apart at the bottom of the mountain—that they all converge at the top——”
“You had to be honest with yourself,” Bellair said thoughtfully.
“That’s just what I thought, but maybe there was a lie in that,” Fleury answered. “It’s not so easy to be honest with one’s self and keep on using words for a living. The best way is to act——”
“You’ve said something, Mr. Fleury.”
And in his new respect for the other, Bellair wanted to make his view clearer. “It’s the old soil and seed story again,” he said. “It isn’t enough to get truth down to superb simplicity. The minds of men must be open beside. My objection to the Church is that it has separated religion from work and the week-day—tried to balance one day of sanctimoniousness against six days of mammon—taught men that heaven is to be reached in a high spiritual effusion because One has died for us. The fact is we’ve got to help ourselves to heaven.... Excuse me for being so communicative,” he added, “but what you said about putting down talk and taking up action interested me at once. I’ve a suspicion you won’t be long in finding something to do——”
“I’m hoping just that.”
Fleury smiled at him. The face was large and mild, not a fighter’s face nor a coward’s either.... The young woman appeared with the child. She seemed to hold it to the sun, and she walked with the beauty of a woman bringing a pitcher to the fountain. Bellair realised the heat of the day. Her face had an intense clearness, but was partly turned away. There was a delicacy about it that he had not known before. He recalled that she had just bowed to them.... They were passing an island shore—a line of sun-dazzle that stung the eyes, empty green hills and a fierce white sky. Bellair thought of the woman and the island as one ... he, the third, coming home, mooring his boat, hastening up the trail at evening.... Her frail back, bending a little to the right, made him think of a dancer he had once seen. He saw the child’s bare limbs in the sun.... His steps were quickened up that Island trail again.... The Jade seemed fainting in the cushions of hot wind. Just then a voice said:
“She’s quite the most remarkable woman. She isn’t a talker.”
He had forgotten Fleury.