The Courage of Marge ODoone | Page 3

potent than his love and his own strong will."
Father Roland nodded.
"I understand," he said, and he sank back farther in his corner by the
window, so that his face was shrouded a little in shadow. "This other
man loved a woman, too. And she was beautiful. He thought she was
the most beautiful thing in the world. It is great love that makes
beauty."
"But this woman--my friend's wife--was so beautiful that even the eyes
of other women were fascinated by her. I have seen her when it seemed
she must have come fresh from the hands of angels; and at first, when
my friend was the happiest man in the world, he was fond of telling her
that it must have been the angels who put the colour in her face and the
wonderful golden fires in her shining hair. It wasn't his love for her that
made her beautiful. She was beautiful."
"And her soul?" softly questioned the shadowed lips of the Missioner.
The other's hand tightened slowly.
"In making her the angels forgot a soul, I guess," he said.

"Then your friend did not love her." The Little Missioner's voice was
quick and decisive. "There can be no love where there is no soul."
"That is impossible. He did love her. I know it."
"I still disagree with you. Without knowing your friend, I say that he
worshipped her beauty. There were others who worshipped that same
loveliness--others who did not possess her, and who would have
bartered their souls for her had they possessed souls to barter. Is that
not true?"
"Yes, there were others. But to understand you must have known my
friend before he sank down into the pit--when he was still a man. He
was a great student. His fortune was sufficient to give him both time
and means for the pursuits he loved. He had his great library, and
adjoining it a laboratory. He wrote books which few people read
because they were filled with facts and odd theories. He believed that
the world was very old, and that there was less profit for men in
discovering new luxuries for an artificial civilization than in
re-discovering a few of the great laws and miracles buried in the dust of
the past. He believed that the nearer we get to the beginning of things,
and not the farther we drift, the clearer comprehension can we have of
earth and sky and God, and the meaning of it all. He did not consider it
an argument for progress that Christ and His disciples knew nothing of
the telephone, of giant engines run by steam, of electricity, or of
instruments by which man could send messages for thousands of miles
through space. His theory was that the patriarchs of old held a closer
touch on the pulse of Life than progress in its present forms will ever
bring to us. He was not a fanatic. He was not a crank. He was young,
and filled with enthusiasm. He loved children. He wanted to fill his
home with them. But his wife knew that she was too beautiful for
that--and they had none."
He had leaned a little forward, and had pulled his hat a trifle over his
eyes. There was a moment's lull in the storm, and it was so quiet that
each could hear the ticking of Father Roland's big silver watch.
Then he said:

"I don't know why I tell you all this, Father, unless it is to relieve my
own mind. There can be no hope that it will benefit my friend. And yet
it cannot harm him. It seems very near to sacrilege to put into words
what I am going to say about--his wife. Perhaps there were extenuating
conditions for her. I have tried to convince myself of that, just as he
tried to believe it. It may be that a man who is born into this age must
consider himself a misfit unless he can tune himself in sympathy with
its manner of life. He cannot be too critical, I guess. If he is to exist in a
certain social order of our civilization unburdened by great doubts and
deep glooms he must not shiver when his wife tinkles her champagne
glass against another. He must learn to appreciate the sinuous beauties
of the cabaret dancer, and must train himself to take no offence when
he sees shimmering wines tilted down white throats. He must train
himself to many things, just as he trains himself to classical music and
grand opera. To do these things he must forget, as much as he can, the
sweet melodies and the sweeter women who are sinking into oblivion
together. He must accept life as a Grand Piano tuned by a new sort