"You are very bitter against him," said the stranger calmly. "Be sure that his own actions will also be his own avengers. Life would be made much more tolerable if we would only keep that fact before us. To my mind there is no backbone or support in a religion that teaches irresponsibility. That is the great fault of you Christians. Your faith is not a thing you take hold of, and grasp and act upon. Hence your many national disasters. You shelve your future, or what you call your salvation, on the merits of a Sacrifice, and think yourselves relieved of all further trouble. In the world, and in society, religion is a tabooed subject--it is only kept for Sundays and for churches. I believe your clergy know no more of the _real_ doctrines of Christianity, those deep and _mystical_ truths underlying the teachings of Christ, than the child at his mother's knee. I have been to your great cathedrals and churches. I saw only lip-service and routine. I heard only stale maxims, weak explanations of the allegories and parables that fill your Biblical records; flowing rhetoric and vague expressions of some undefinable joy and glory in an equally undefinable Hereafter, that was sometimes described as a place, and sometimes as a state. That was all. I feel such things cannot long stand against the tide of advancing thought. Modern Christianity is not the Sermon on the Mount, and has little title to the name of its founder. It has not a feather's weight of importance in the minds of the worldly, the fashionable, the pleasure-seeking; its sentiment is extinct, save in a few faithful ignorant hearts, who adore what they cannot comprehend, and live in a state of hope that all will come right in some vague future."
The beautiful eyes had grown sad and thoughtful. They rested on the eager wondering face before her, yet seemed to look through and beyond it, as the eyes of one who sees a vision that is mere airy nothingness to the surrounding crowd.
"It will come right," she went on slowly and dreamily, "but not as men think, and not because the religion of earth teaches fear of punishment and hope of reward as the basis of spiritual faith. No. Something higher and holier and deeper than any motive of self-safety will perfect what is best in man and eliminate what is vile."
"If that is so," interposed Mrs Jefferson, glibly, as she rose from her chair to proceed to the Second Room--"I guess man will want a pretty long time to `perfect' in. I don't see how he's going to do it here."
"I did not say `here,'" answered the stranger, in her slow, calm way, as she, too, rose and prepared to follow the little American. "For what, think you, are the ages of Eternity intended?--sleep and dreams?"
Mrs Jefferson gave a little shudder. "I surmise we're getting a little too deep," she said. "Let's keep to Gladstone and the Irish Question while the thermometer's at 110."
CHAPTER TWO.
THE SECOND ROOM.
The second room differed in no way from the first, except in the matter of heat.
The beautiful stranger floated in--her face all the lovelier for the faint rosy flush that glowed through the clear skin. If Mrs Ray Jefferson's admiration was envious, at least it was genuine. She had never really believed in perfect feminine beauty before--beauty that shone supreme without the aid of dress and frippery--but here it was--a glowing and palpable fact. The simple white drapery with its border of scarlet floated with the grace of its own perfect simplicity around that perfect form, and never was royal mantle more splendid than the rippling hair that crowned her head and fell in its luxuriance of curls and waves to her feet. As they again seated themselves side by side, Mrs Jefferson remembered that she was not yet acquainted with the nationality of the stranger. She hastened to repair the error of such ignorance.
"You speak English wonderfully for a foreigner," she said; "it would puzzle anyone to make out where you were raised--Russian, I surmise?"
"No," said the stranger, quietly, "though I have lived there a great deal. It was my husband's country."
Mrs Jefferson looked radiant. She was married, then. That was something to have learnt. "_Was_,"--she said quickly, "Is he not living then?"
"No." The beautiful face grew a shade paler. "I would rather not talk about it," she said. "His death was very tragic and terrible."
"I'm sorry," said the little American, with ready contrition; "don't think I'm curious," she added, suddenly, "but one doesn't see a woman like you every day. I surmise you'll make a sensation in the hotel."
"I have my own private rooms here," was the quiet response. "I shall not mix with the other visitors."
"Oh," cried Mrs Jefferson, her face clouding, "I call that cruel. There are really some very good people here--titles, if you like them-- money, if you care for that--one or two geniuses--a musician and a poet who are working for a future generation, because they can't get appreciated here--and the usual crowd of mediocrities. Oh, you really must come to our evenings; they'd amuse you immensely. We're quite dependent on ourselves for society. This is the dullest of dull holes, still we manage to get a bit spry not and then. Now, you--why, if you'd only show yourself to be looked at, you'd be doing the whole hotel a good turn."
The stranger shook her head. "Society never amuses me," she said. "It has nothing to offer that can rival the charms of books, art, and solitude. I possess all three."
Mrs Jefferson opened her eyes wide. "The first and the last," she said, "are comprehensible as travelling companions, but what about the middle one?"
"In my train I have a blind musician, whose equal I have never met, and a boy sculptor whose genius will one day astonish the world. For myself, I paint and I write, and I have a store of books that will outlast the longest limit of companionship. Can you tell me what better things the world will give?"
Mrs Ray Jefferson murmured something vaguely about amusement and distraction. She was growing more and more perplexed about this beautiful Mystery. Anyone who travelled about with a train of attendants must surely be a princess at the very least.
"Amusement!"--the stranger smiled. "Does society ever _really_ give us that? We have to smile when we are bored--to tell polite falsehoods every hour--to eat and drink when we would rather fast--to awake all sorts of evil passions in other people's minds if we are better-looking or better dressed, or more admired; and have them aroused in our own if we are _not_? Does a ball amuse? Does a dinner-party? Does even a comedy, after the first quarter of an hour? I can answer for myself in the negative, at all events."
"Gracious!" exclaimed Mrs Jefferson wonderingly. "You must be a strange person, and you look so young. Why, I should have thought you were just the age for society? Don't you care to be admired?"
"Not in the least. I have learnt the value of men's passions. A quiet life is more wholesome and infinitely more contenting than anything society can offer."
"For a time, perhaps; but it would become dull and monotonous, I should think."
"Never, if you have the mind to appreciate it. The companionship I value will always come to me. I do not need to seek it in the world."
"You are fortunate," said Mrs Jefferson, somewhat sarcastically. "Ordinary mortals have to take what they can get. Still, I suppose such things are only a matter of personal disposition. If one has the mood for enjoyment, one can find it anywhere; if not--well, a funeral or a comedy would be equally amusing."
"I suppose," said the stranger, quietly, "you have the mood."
"Well, I'm blessed with a pretty fair capacity for enjoying all that comes in my way," said the little American, frankly. "I like studying human nature, even though I'm not clever enough to describe it. It's like the critics, you know, who find it so powerful easy to cut up a book, yet couldn't write one themselves to save their lives. Phew-ew! how hot it is here! How do you contrive to look so cool?"
"I can stand a great deal of heat," answered the other, tranquilly. "I have Eastern blood in my veins, on my mother's side. Is that the hottest room?" she added, nodding in the direction of the third doorway.
"Yes. I suppose you won't go there? I never dare put my nose inside. It's enough to scorch the skin off you."
"I don't suppose it can be hotter than the rooms in the East," answered the stranger, as she rose and moved towards it. She stood for a moment looking in, then turned back and smiled at her late companion. "Oh, I can bear it," she said, and disappeared from sight.
The little American pouted and looked disturbed. "What a shame! I had ever so many more things to ask her," she said, "and to think, after all, I don't know her name, or even to what country she belongs, and I did so want the whole story pat for the _table d'hote_ dinner to-night... Ready to be shampooed?--oh, yes, Morrison; I'm just about `done through;' I'm glad you can take me first."