"Have I developed some clairvoyant
faculty here?" At any other time I should have mocked.
And I sat down and faced my sister, feeling strangely comforted and at
peace for the first time since I had stepped beneath The Towers' roof a
month ago. Frances, I then saw, was smiling a little as she watched me.
"You know him?" I asked.
"You felt it too?" was her question in reply. "No," she added, "I don't
know him--beyond the fact that he is a leader in the Movement and has
devoted years and money to its objects. Mabel felt the same thing in him
that you have felt--and jumped at it."
"But you've seen him before?" I urged, for the certainty was in me that
he was no stranger to her.
She shook her head. "He called one day early this week, when you were
out. Mabel saw him. I believe--" she hesitated a moment, as though
expecting me to stop her with my usual impatience of such subjects--"I
believe he has explained everything to her--the beliefs he embodies, she
declares, are her salvation--might be, rather, if she could adopt them."
"Conversion again!" For I remembered her riches, and how gladly a
Society would gobble them.
"The layers I told you about," she continued calmly, shrugging her
shoulders slightly--"the deposits that are left behind by strong
thinking and real belief--but especially by ugly, hateful belief,
because, you see--unfortunately there's more vital passion in that
sort--"
"Frances, I don't understand a bit," I said out loud, but said it a
little humbly, for the impression the man had left was still strong upon
me and I was grateful for the steady sense of peace and comfort he had
somehow introduced.
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