CHAPTER XLI
I was sorry that the Doctor had arrived in time to catch the Altruist’s last remarks. She waited until he was gone, then sank wearily into a chair.
“How the angels in heaven must smile at that man’s assurance,” she exclaimed. “I wish, I wish he could tell the difference between his voice and the voice of God!”
I was in no mood to defend the Altruist, and so said nothing.
“If the Altruist knows what all this trouble means, he knows a great deal more than I do,” she went on grimly. “I cannot see, I cannot see how the Lad could so forget all the people who cared for him.”
The sentence ended in a half sob that almost frightened me. It had neveroccurred to me that the Doctor could shed tears.
“Have you seen Janet?” I asked, attempting to change the subject. I succeeded only in turning the Doctor’s wrath back upon the Altruist.
“Yes,” she said, “I have seen Janet, and I wish the Altruist were in Timbuctoo! He has been at the house and has utterly unnerved her.”
“How?” I asked.
“It is hard to believe, even of the Altruist. How do you suppose he greeted that hurt child? ‘Janet,’ he said, ‘I have always had an intuition that you were not meant for mere happiness.’”
I groaned. “He doesn’t mean to be cruel,” I said, “but he has not the simple instinct—”
“A few of the simpler human instincts are really necessary,” interrupted the Doctor, “in any attempt to help human beings. If the Altruist had more feeling and less transcendentalism, it would be better.”
“It isn’t a week,” I responded, “sincehe had an intuition of a directly opposite kind. And then I was trying to help him,” I confessed, for a sudden sense of guilt overcame me as I met the Doctor’s clear eyes, “in his attempt to explain to God what He means.”
The fierce expression in her face was changing into a look of tenderness.
“Go to see the child,” she said huskily, “to-morrow, not to-day. She will be quieter then.”
But I waited two long days. The hours were tedious and dull and heavy, full of cloud and rain. No birds were singing in the sunless air, and the grass had forgotten to grow. It seemed to me that in the ending of a life dear to me, all life had paused.