Chapter 25

Gila took herself off to a house-party the very next day, with only a tinted, perfumed note, like a flutter of painted wings, to explain that the butterfly had melted into the pleasant sunshine to taste honey in other flowers for a time.

In a way her going was a relief to Courtland. He didn't understand himself. There was something wrong, and he wanted to find out what before he saw her again.

It was while he was in this troubled state that he stumbled upon the Bible as something that might possibly bring light.

He had studied it before in his biblical literature classes, and found it much like other books, a literary classic, a wonderful gem of beauty in its way, a rare collection of legends, proverbs, allegories, and the like. But looking at it now, with the possible hypothesis that it was the Word of God, all was changed.

He remembered once seeing a tray of gems in an exhibit, and among them one that looked like a common pebble. The man who had charge of the exhibit took the little pebble and held it in the palm of his hand for a moment, when it suddenly began to glow and sparkle with all the colors of the rainbow and rival all the other gems. The man explained that only the warmth of the human hand could cause this marvelous change. You might lay the stone under the direct rays of a summer sun, yet it would have no effect until you took it in your hand, when it would give forth its beauty once more.

It was like this when he began to read the Bible with the idea that it was the Word of God. Things flashed out at him that fairly dazzled his thoughts; living, palpitating things, as if they were hidden of a purpose to be discovered only by him who cared to search. Hidden truths came to light that filled his soul with wonder. Gradually he understood that Belief was the touchstone by which all these treasures were to be revealed. Everywhere he found it, that belief in Christ was a condition to all the blessings promised. He read of hearts hardened and eyes blinded because of unbelief, and came to see that unbelief was something a man was responsible for, not a condition which settled down upon him, and he could not help. Belief was a deliberate act of the will. It was not a theory, nor an intellectual affirmation; it was a position taken, which necessarily must pass into action of some kind. He began to see that without this deliberate belief it was impossible for man to know the things which are purely spiritual. It was the condition necessary for revelation. He was fascinated with the pursuit of this new study.

Wittemore came to his room one evening, his face grayer, more strained and horse-like than ever. Wittemore's mother had made another partial recovery and insisted on his return to college. He was plodding patiently, breathlessly along in his classes, trying to catch up again. He had paid Courtland back part of the money he borrowed, and was gradually paying the rest in small instalments. Courtland hated to take it, but saw that it would hurt him to refuse it; so he had fallen into a habit of stopping now and then to talk about his settlement work, just to show a little friendly interest in him. Wittemore had responded with a quiet wistfulness and a patient hovering in the background that touched the other man's heart deeply.

"I've just come from my rounds," said Wittemore, sitting down, apologetically, on the edge of a chair. "That old lady you carried the medicine to--she's been telling me how you made tea and toast!" He paused and looked embarrassed.

"Yes," smiled Courtland. "How's she getting on? Any better?"

"No," said Wittemore, the hopeless gray look settling about his sensitive mouth. "She'll never be any better. She's dying!"

"Well," said Courtland, "that'll be a pleasant change for her, I guess."

Wittemore winced. Death had no pleasant associations for him. "She told me you prayed for her! She wants you to do it again!"

It was plain he thought the praying had been a sort of joke with Courtland.

Courtland looked up, the color rising slowly in his face. He saw the accusation in Wittemore's sad eyes.

"Of course I know what you think of such things. I've heard you in the class. I don't believe in them any more myself, either, now." Wittemore's voice had a trail of hopelessness in it. "But somehow I couldn't quite bring myself to make a mockery of prayer, even to please that old woman. You see _my mother still believes in prayer_!" He spoke apologetically, as of a dear one who had lacked advantages.

"But _I do_ believe in prayer!" said Courtland, earnestly. "What you heard me say in class was before I understood."

"Before you understood?" Wittemore looked puzzled.

"Listen, Wittemore. Things are all different now. I've met Jesus Christ and I've got my eyes open. I was blind before, but since I've felt the Presence everything has been different."

And then he told the story of his experience. He did not make a long story of it. He gave brief facts, and when it was finished Wittemore dropped his face into his hands and groaned:

"I'd give anything if I could believe all that again," came from between his long bony fingers. "It's breaking my mother's heart to have me leave the faith!"

The slick hay-like hair fell in wisps over his hands, his high, bony shoulders were hunched despairingly over Courtland's study table. He was a great, pitiful object.

"Why don't you, then?" said Courtland, getting up and going to the closet for his overcoat. "It's up to you, you know. You _can_! God can't do it for you, and of course there's nothing doing till you've taken that step. I found that out!"

"But how do you reconcile things, calamities, disasters, war, suffering, that poor old woman lying on her attic bed alone? How do you reconcile that with the goodness of God?"

"I don't reconcile it. It isn't my business. I leave that to God. If I understood all the whys and wherefores of how this universe is run I'd be great enough to be a God myself."

"But if God is omniscient I can't see how He can let some things go on! He must be limited in power or He'd never let some things happen if He's a good God!" Wittemore's voice had a plaintive sound.

"Well, how do you know that? In the first place, how can you be sure what is a calamity? And say, did it ever strike you that some of the things we blame on God are really up to us? He's handed over His power for us to do things, and we haven't seen it that way; so the things go undone and God is charged with the consequences."

"I wish I could believe that!" said Wittemore.

"You can! When you really want to, enough, you will! Come on, let's get that prayer down to the old lady! I'm sort of an amateur yet, but I'll do my best."

They went out into the mist and murk of a spring thaw. Wittemore never forgot that night's experience--the prayer, and the walk home again through the fog. The old woman died at dawning.

Courtland spent much time thinking about Gila these days. His whole soul was wrapped up in the desire that she might understand. He was longing for her; idealizing her; thinking of her in her innocent beauty, her charming ways; wondering how she would meet him the next time, what he should say to her; living upon her brief, alluring notes that came to him from time to time like fitful rose petals blown from a garden where he longed to be; but yet in a way it was a relief to have her gone until he could settle the great perplexity that was in his mind concerning her.

Gila prolonged her absence by a trip South with her father, and so it was several weeks before Courtland saw her again.

There seemed to be a settled sadness over his soul when he prayed about her, and when at last she returned and summoned him to her he was no nearer a solution of his difficulty than when he had last left her.

The hour before he went to her he spent in Stephen's room, turning over the leaves of Stephen's Bible. When he rose at last to go he turned again to this verse which had caught his eye among the marked verses that were always so interesting to him because they seemed to have been landmarks in Stephen's life:

My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.

It almost startled him, so well did it seem to suit his need. He read on a few verses:

And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. For wherein shall it be known that I and my people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and my people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.

Wonderful words those, implying a close relationship that shut out to a certain extent all others who were not one with that Presence. He wished he knew what it all meant! And in that moment was born within him a desire to understand the Bible and know how believing scholars explained everything.

But as he went from the room and on his way, he felt that to some extent he had a solution of his trouble. He was to be under the personal conduct of the Presence of God wherever he went, whatever he did! This was to make life less complex, and in some mysterious way the power of the Christ with him was to be made manifest to others. Surely he might trust this in the case of Gila, and feel sure that he would be guided aright; that she would come to see for herself how there was with him always this guiding power. Surely she would come to know it and love it also.

Gila met him with fluttering delight, poutingly reproaching him for not writing oftener, calling him to order for looking solemn, adoringly pretty herself in a little frilly pink frock that gave her the look of a pale anemone, wind-blown and sweet and wild.

She talked a good deal about the "dandy times" she had had and the "perfectly peachy" men and girls she had met; flattered him by saying she had seen none handsomer or more distinguished than he was. She accepted as a matter of course the lover-like attitude he adopted, let him tell her of his love as long as he was not too solemn about it, teased and played with him, charmed him with every art she knew, dancing from one mood to another like a sprite, winding her gossamer chains about him more and more, until, when he went from her again, he was fairly intoxicated with her beauty.

He had lulled his anxiety with the thought that he must wait and be patient until Gila saw. But more and more was it growing hard to approach her about the things that were of most moment to him. Sometimes when he was wearily trying to find a way back from the froth of her conversation to the real things he hoped she would enjoy with him some day, she would call him an old crab, and summon to her side other willing youths to stimulate his jealousy; youths of sometimes unsavory reputation whose presence gave him deep anxiety for her. Then he would tell himself he must be more patient, that she was young and must learn to understand little by little.

Gila developed a great interest in Courtland's future, his plans for a career, of which she chattered to him much and often, suggesting ways in which her father might perhaps help him into a position of prominence and power in the political world. But Courtland, with a shadow of trouble in his eyes, always put her off. He admitted that he had thought of politics, but was not ready yet to say what he would do.

So spring came on, with its final examinations, and Commencement drawing nearer every day.

Through it all Courtland found much time to be with Gila; often in company, or flashing through a crowded thoroughfare by her side; following her fancy; excusing her follies; laying her mistakes and indiscretions to her youth and innocence; always trying to lead up to his great desire, that she might see his Christ.

Tennelly watched the whole performance anxiously. He wanted Courtland to be drawn out of what he considered his "morbid" state, but not at the price of his peace of mind. He was very sure that Courtland ought not to marry Gila. He was equally sure that she meant nothing serious in her present relation to Courtland. He felt himself responsible in a way because he had agreed in the plot with his uncle to start her on this campaign. But if Courtland should come out of it with a broken heart, what then?

It was just a week before Commencement that the crisis came.

Gila had summoned Courtland to her.

Gila, in her most imperial mood, wearing a bewildering imported frock whose simple intricacies and daring contrasts were well calculated to upbear a determined spirit in a supreme combat, awaited his coming impatiently. She knew that he had that day received another offer from Ramsey Thomas, tempting in the extreme, and baited with alluring possibilities that certainly were dazzling to her if they were not to her lover. She meant to make him tell her of the offer, and she meant to make him accept it that very afternoon and clinch the contract by telephoning the acceptance to the telegraph-office before he left her home.

Courtland was tired. He had been through a hard week of examinations, he had been on several committees, and had a number of important class meetings, and the like. There had been functions galore to attend, and late hours that were unavoidable. He had come to her hoping for a rest and the joy of her society. Just to watch her dainty grace as she moved about a room, handling the tea things and giving him a delicate sandwich or a crisp cake, filled him with joy and soothed his troubled spirit; it was so like his ideal of what a woman should be.

But Gila was not handing out tea that afternoon. She had other fish to fry, and she went at her business with a determination that very soon showed him there was no rest to be had there.

Very prettily, but quite efficiently, she bored him for information about his plans. Had he no plans whatever about what he was going to do as soon as he had finished college? Of course she knew he had money of his own (he had never told her how much, and there hadn't really been any way of asking a man like Courtland when he didn't choose to tell a thing like that), but nowadays that was nothing. Even rich men all did _something_. One wasn't anything unless one was in something big! Hadn't he ever had any offers at all? It was queer, such a brilliant man as he was. She knew lots of young fellows who had no end of chances to get into big things as soon as they were done with their education. Didn't his father know of something, or have something in mind for him? Hadn't he ever been approached?

Goaded at last by her delicate but determined insinuations, Courtland told her. Yes, he had had offers; one in particular that was a fine thing from a worldly point of view, but he didn't intend to take it. It did not fit with his ideal of life. There were things about it that were not square. He wasn't quite sure how his his own plans were going to work out yet. He must have a talk with his father first. Possibly he would study awhile longer somewhere.

Gila frowned. She had no idea of letting him do that. She wanted him to get into something big right away, so that she might begin her career. So that was what had been standing in his way! Study! How stupid! No, indeed! She wanted no scholar for a husband, who would bore her with horrid old dull books and lectures and never want to go anywhere with her! She must switch him away from this idea at once! She returned to the rejected business proposition with zeal and avidity. What was it? What did it involve? What were its future possibilities? Great! What on earth could he find in that to object to? How ridiculous! How long ago had that been offered to him? Was it too late to accept? What? He had had the offer repeated even more flatteringly that very day? Where was the letter? Would he let her see it?

She bent over Uncle Ramsey's brusque sentences with a hidden smile of triumph and pretended to be surprised.

"How perfectly wonderful! All that responsibility and all those chances to get to the top! Even a hint of Washington!"

She dimpled and opened her great eyes imploringly at him. She pictured herself in glowing terms going with him and holding court among the great of the land! She wheedled and coaxed and all but commanded, while he sat and watched her sadly, realizing how well fitted she was for the things she was describing and how she loved them all!

So shall we be separated, I and my people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth!

He started upright! It was as if a Voice had spoken the words, those strange words from the Bible! Was this then what they meant? Separation! But Gila was "his people" now. Was she not one day to be his wife? He must explain it all to her. He must let her know that he had chosen a way of separation that forbade the paths wherein she was longing to wander. Would she shrink and wish to turn back? Nevertheless, he must make it plain to her.

Gently, quietly, he tried to make her understand. He told her of the visit of Ramsey Thomas and his own decision in the winter. He told her of the factory that was built to blind the eyes of those who were trying to uplift and help men. He tried to make conditions plain where girls as young as she, and with just such hopes and fears and ambitions, perhaps in some cases just as much sweetness and native beauty as she had, were obliged to spend long hours of toil amid surroundings that must crush the life out of any pure soul, and turn all the sweetness to bitterness, the beauty to a peril! He hinted at things she did not know nor dream of; dreadful things from which her life had always been safely guarded; and how he could not, for the sake of those crushed souls, accept a position that would close his mouth and tie his hands forever from doing anything about it. He told her he could not accept honor that was founded upon dishonor; that he had taken Christ for his pattern and guide; that he could do nothing that would drive God's presence from him.

She had been sitting with her face averted, her clasped hands dropped straight down at the side of her lap, the fingers interlaced and tense in excitement; her bosom heaving with agitation under the Paris gown; but when he reached this point in his argument she sprang to her feet and away from him, standing with her shoulders drawn back, her head thrown up, her chin out, her whole lithe body stiff and imperious.

"It is time this stopped!" she said, and her voice was cold like a frozen dagger and went straight through his heart. "It is time you put away forever this ridiculous idea of a Presence, and of setting yourself up to be better than any one else! This isn't religion, it is fanaticism! And it has got to stop now and _forever_, or I will have nothing whatever to do with you. Either you give up this idea of a ghost following you around all the time and accept Mr. Ramsey Thomas's offer this afternoon, or you and I part! You can choose, _now_, between me and your Presence!"