“Thank you for the talks. You do not know how I value them. They lift me into a different atmosphere.”
Raine looked at her a little wonderingly. Her point of view had never occurred to him. Thoroughly honest and free from vanity of every kind, he could not even now quite comprehend it.
“It is you who raise me,” he replied. “To talk with you is an education in all fine and delicate things. How many women do you think there are like you?”
His words rang soothingly in her ear until she slept. In the morning she seemed to wake to a newer conception of life.
And as the days went by, and their talks alone together on the balcony, in the Jardin Anglais, and where not, deepened in intimacy, and the nature of the man she loved unfolded itself gradually like a book before her perceptive feminine vision, this conception broadened into bolder, clearer definition. Hitherto she had been fiercely maintaining her inalienable right to whatever chance of happiness offered itself in her path. Now she felt humbled, unworthy, a lesser thing than he, and her abasement brought her a sweet, pure happiness. At first she had loved him, she scarce knew why, because he was he, because her heart had leapt towards him. But now the self-chastening brought into being a higher love, tender and worshipping, such as she had dreamed over in a lonely woman's wistful reveries. She lost the sense of rivalry with Felicia, strove in unobtrusive ways to win back her friendship. But Felicia, sweet and effusive to others, to Katherine remained unapproachable.
At last a great womanly pity arose in Katherine's heart. The victory that she was ever becoming more conscious of gaining awakened all her generous impulses and tendernesses. Her love for Raine had grown too beautiful a thing to allow of unworthy thrills of triumph.
For the rest, it was a happy sunlit time. The past faded into dimness. She lived from day to day blinded to all but the glowing radiance of her love.
Raine met her one day going with a basket on her arm up the streets of the old town by the cathedral. He had fallen into the habit of joining her with involuntary unceremoniousness when she was alone, and it did not occur to her as anything but natural that he should join her now and walk by her side. At the door of the basement where Jean-Marie and his wife dwelt, she paused.
“This is the end of my journey. My old people live here.”
“I am quite envious of them,” said Raine.