CHAPTER XVI
THE MOST WONDERFUL THING EVER HAPPENED
SHE stopped and hesitated.
"Yes," he said impatiently, "besides--?"
"I wonder if it would be right to be quite frank with you?"
"Nothing sincere is ever wrong. Of course you ought to be quite frankwith me,--aren't you that with every one?"
Still she considered.
"What stops you?" he asked. "Go on. Tell me everything. It's my right."
"Why is it your right?"
"Because I love you, and you know it."
She started violently, then turned very white. "Don't say that. I'vealways thought of you as engaged to Madeleine. She was talking to me,and I thought--I--" She stopped, quite shaken.
"You misunderstand her. She's always been in love with one fellow--theone that her parents are against. He's even poorer than I am."
Then Jane pressed her lips together and interlocked her fingers. "I cannever marry. I never think of it. There's money to be paid, nobody topay it but me, and no way to get it except to earn it."
Lorenzo looked almost sternly at her. "What about the book you lent me;it would say that that was setting limits. It says that we've not toconcern ourselves with ways and means. I've only to concern myself withloving you. The rest will come along of its own accord."
She shook her head. "No, it won't. This world is all learning, and it'spart of my lesson not to be able to apply it in absolute faith tomyself. So many teachers have wisdom to give away which they can't quitetake unto themselves, you know." She smiled a little tremulously.
"But you ought to take it unto yourself. It ought to be easy and simplefor you to realize that if conditions are false, they don't exist; thatif you want a home, it's because you are going to have one; that if Ilove you, it's because it's right that you should be loved."
She put her hands down helplessly on each side of the chair-seat. "Inever even think of such things," she said, almost in a whisper.
"But why not?"
"I've always been so necessary to others. I've no rights in my ownlife."
"But if life is a thing to guide, why not guide your beneficence as wellfrom a basis of home as from one of homelessness?"
"Nothing has ever seemed to be for me, myself. Everything has alwayspointed to me for others."
Lorenzo paced back and forth. "But it is the women like you who shouldshow the way out of the wilderness and back to the right, instead ofattempting to order the chaos while sweeping on with it. If there be areal truth in this new teaching which lays hold of all those who are inearnest so easily and so quickly, its first care should be todemonstrate happiness in the lives of its believers,--not the negativehappiness of wide-spread devotion to others, but the positive lessons ofjoy in the center from which springs--must spring--the next generationof better, wiser men and women, those among whom I expect to live as anold man."
Jane turned her face away, her eyes filled with tears. "You make me feelvery small and petty," she said; "you show me a way beyond what I hadguessed. But I can't grasp at it; I'm too used to asking nothing formyself. I'm always so sure that God is managing for me. And I have somuch to do."
"Perhaps realization that God is managing is all that you need to setright. Perhaps that confidence will bring you all things. Even me." Helaughed a little.
"It has brought me all that I needed. Daily bread, daily possibilitiesof helpfulness,--I don't ask more, except 'more light.'"
"It sounds a little presumptuous coming from me, but perhaps I can helpyou towards your end, even as to 'more light.' At any rate, I'll try ifyou'll let me."
She sat quite still. Finally she lifted up her eyes--and they werebeautiful eyes, big and true--and said, the words coming softly forth:"It would be so wonderful."
Lorenzo didn't speak. He felt choked and gasping. To him it was also "sowonderful," as wonderful as if he hadn't lived with it night and dayever since the first minute of knowing her. "I think I'd better go," hesaid very gently, realizing keenly that he must not press her in thisfirst blush of the new spring-time. "I've 'made my picture' you know,and I won't let it fade, you may be sure. And you must believe inhappiness for yourself,--you tell us that the first step is all thatcounts. Get the seed into the ground then. I'll do the rest."
She sat quite still. "If I could only try," she whispered. He turnedquickly away and was gone.
After a dizzy little while she rose and went into the kitchen. Susan wasmoving briskly about.
"Two cups flour, four teaspoonfuls baking powder, one of sugar, one ofsalt, two of butter, two of lard, cup half water, half milk, pour in pangreased and bake in hot oven. Scotch scone-bread for lunch," she said,almost suiting the deed to the word. "Is Mr. Rath still here?"
"No, he's gone."
"You know, Jane, he's caught your religion. I never heard anything likeit. He's got the whole thing pat. I'd be almost scared to go roundteaching a thing like that. Why, folks'll be doing anything they pleasesoon. I've been wondering if I could get strong enough to kind ofdispose of Matilda, in some perfectly right way, you know. I wouldn'tthink of anything that wasn't perfectly right, you know."
Jane seemed a little numb and stood watching the buttering of thescone-pan without speaking.
"I keep saying: 'Matilda doesn't want to come back. Matilda's disposedof in a perfectly pleasant way.' I've been saying it ever since I beganon those scones. I guess I've said it twenty times, and I'm beginning tomake a real impression on myself. I'm beginning to feel sure God isfixing things up. It's too beautiful to feel God taking an interest inyour affairs. Matilda doesn't want to come home. Matilda is completelydisposed of in a perfectly pleasant way." Susan's accents were veryemphatic.
"Auntie," said Jane, turning her eyes towards her and rallying herattention by a strong effort, "you know your perfect faith is becauseAunt Matilda really isn't anxious to come home. It's only if you'redoubting that there's any doubt about it. One doesn't alter Destiny, oneonly apprehends it. Oh, dear," she said though, sitting down suddenly,and hiding her face in her hands, "the thing about light is that italways keeps bursting over you with a new light, and my own teaching hassuddenly come to me as if I'd never known what any of it meant before.I'm too stunned at seeing how I've limited myself. I'm really toostupid."
Susan glanced at her as she poured the batter into the pan, and thenkept glancing. Her face grew softened, "I wouldn't worry, dear," shesaid finally, "don't you bother over anything. God's taking care ofeverything and everybody. It's every bit of it all right. You must knowthat yourself, or you never could have taught it to me."
"Yes, I do know it,--but in spite of myself I can't see--I can't darethink--"
"You told me not to worry over old Mrs. Croft," said Susan, comingaround by her side and putting her arm about her; "you said worryspoiled everything. And I did try so hard."
"Yes, I know, I'll try. I really will--But--" suddenly she turned deepcrimson, "it seems too awful for me to take one minute to work on myselfor my life. I need all my time for others."
"But you don't have to," said Susan, "all you've got to do is to knowthings are right. You know they're right because they are right.Everything's coming along fine, and you just feel it coming; that's yourpart. My goodness, Jane, isn't this funny? There isn't a blessed thingyou've preached to me that I ain't having to preach back to you now. Youdon't seem to have sensed hardly any of your own meaning. Talk aboutbeing a channel; you'd better choke up a little and hold back some foryourself."
Jane threw her arms around her and kissed her. "Auntie, you're right,you're right. I won't doubt a mite more. I'll try to know as much as Iseem to have taught."
"Just be yourself, you Sunshine Jane, you," Susan was clinging close tothe girl she loved so well, "just be yourself. Nothing else is needed."
"Yes," Jane whispered, "I will."
"That's the thing," said Susan; "'cause you've certainly taught us alot. I'll lay the table now," she moved towards the door, "Matildadoesn't want to come h
ome. Matilda wants to stay away in some perfectlypleasant way," she added with heavy emphasis, passed through, and letthe door close.
Jane was left alone in the kitchen.
"He said he loved me!" she thought over and over. "It seems sowonderful--the most wonderful thing that has ever happened since theworld was made. He said he loved me!"
She went up-stairs to her own room and shut the door softly. "Of courseI can never marry him," she whispered aloud, "but he did say he lovedme. Oh, I know that nothing so wonderful ever was in this world before!"