It came all at once to Bellair that this was no new conception. He had heard and read of helping all his life. A touch, queerly electric, had come over him as a boy, when a certain old man passed, and some one whispered in the most commonplace way, “His whole thought is for others.”... He had read it in many books; especially of late, the note had been sounded. It was getting into the press—some days on every page. All the cultic and social ports, into which he had sailed (like a dingy whaler, he thought) had spoken of brotherhood, first and last.
Did a thing like this have to be talked by the few for several thousand years before it broke its way into the conception of the many, and finally began to draw the materials of action together? It had not been new in certain parts of the world two thousand years ago when Jesus brought the perfect story of it, and administered it through life and death. Had there been too much speech and too little action since; or did all this speech help; the result being slow but cumulative, toward the end of the clearly-chiselled thought on the part of the majority that would compel the atoms of matter into action, making good all thoughts and dreams?... He knew men who sat every Sunday listening courteously to more or less inspired voices that called upon them to Love One Another; yet these men, during the next six days, moved as usual about their work of rivalry and burning personal desire. Why was this?
The answer was in his own breast. He had made a mental conception of the good of turning the force of one’s life out to others, but he had not lived it; had never thought seriously of living it, until now that the results had been shown him, as mortal eyes were never given before to see. That was it; men required more than words. Would something happen to bring to all men at last the transfiguring facts as they had been brought to him in the open boat—squarely, leisurely, one by one? He was not different from many men. Given the spectacle of the fruits of desire and the fruits of compassion side by side, as he had been forced to regard them—any one would understand.
The woman was one of those who had got it all long ago. She had ceased to speak of it much, but had put it into action. The child was a part of her action, and his own love for her—that new emotion, deeper than life to him. She had mainly ceased to speak.... Action and not speech had been the way of Fleury, his main life-theme, his first and last words. Formerly Fleury had spoken, and then emerged into the world of action. It had been tremendous action—for them. These things never die.
“That’s the beauty of them,” he said aloud. “These things never die.”
“You were thinking of him?” the Faraway Woman said.
The Fomalhaut left them at Auckland—insular, high and breezy between its harbours and warm to the heart, from the southern summer. They took the train to Hamilton, near where she had lived....
“It seems so long since I was a part of the life here,” she told him, as they climbed a hill by the long road—the same upon which Olga’s Guest had come, “and yet it really isn’t. You can see—how little the Gleam is. He was born here.... There was so much to learn. It has been like a quick review of all life. When I think of it—and feel the child alive, unhurt—oh, do you know what it makes me want to do?”
Bellair was thinking of Fleury. He sensed her emotion, as he shook his head.