At the Gate of Samaria

by William John Locke

“I believe you could,” said Jack.

There was a world of childish faith in the remark and the manner in which it was delivered. Clytie was both touched and saddened. She regretted that she had raised hopes in the boy that from the nature of things were doomed to disappointment. The overpowering difficulties in the way of her sudden visionary aspirations for Jack's future ranged themselves before her mind. So it was with a sigh she answered his outburst of faith.

“I am afraid I can't, Jack,” she repeated. “But you yourself can do a great deal. If you like, one of these days when you are much older, you can enlist in the army, and then throw your soul into your duties, and keep before you at every minute of the day the words, 'I am going to be an officer,' and if you do this intensely, and never lose sight of it, you will succeed. That's the only way. They call it getting a commission through the ranks. But between now and then there are a great many years, and I'll do all I can for you, Jack. Yet, perhaps, after all, you'd be a happier and more useful man as a carver and gilder. Who knows!”

Jack did not heed the pessimism of the peroration. His mind was aflame with the possibilities of becoming an officer and he took his leave in high spirits.

Clytie sat for a little musing over the solution of the problem that had troubled her in the first days of her acquaintance with Jack. She was gratified at her intuitions having proved correct. But there was still much that was dark to her. The physiological side of the question, however, was shadowed at present by more practical considerations. Why could she not find a means of giving Jack a chance in life? She looked ahead at the years to come, as she often had done since that dark December morning, and a pain came at her heart as she beheld their blankness. And now fate had thrown across her path this drifting spar of humanity. Jack was hers if she chose to claim him. No one would dispute with her the privilege.

After luncheon she walked to the King's Road and sat with Winifred, in the hope that Kent would look in on his way upstairs. She wanted to take counsel with him. His sturdy common sense would help her. She did not confide her vague scheme to Winifred, because Winifred would have called her a darling, and put her arms round her neck, and made her feel as if she were meditating something peculiarly noble. So she waited for Kent's sobering presence.

He came in at his customary hour, bearing a paper bag of peaches which he had brought for Winifred. He had carried them from some distance through the streets, and there were little wet stains on the paper. But when the fruit was put on a plate beside the bread and butter on a flap of the wickerwork afternoon tea table it looked fresh and inviting. This sudden return of their old intimacy was delightful to all three of them, and they chatted during tea as if nothing had happened to break it.

Then Clytie propounded her case, and they formed themselves into a committee to consider it.

“I don't like social experiments,” said Kent. “It's constituting one's self a Providence without Providence's resources. If one bit of the machinery fails, the whole thing is apt to go wrong.”

“But I don't want to experiment!” cried Clytie. “It's quite wicked of you to say so.”