The only genuine happiness in life must consist in having bright, smart, attractive women like that always about.
The lights were visible now in the upper rooms of Father Forbes'
pastorate across the way.Theron paused for a second to consider whether he wanted to go over and call on the priest.
He decided that mentally he was too fagged and flat for such an undertaking.He needed another sort of companionship--some restful, soothing human contact, which should exact nothing from him in return, but just take charge of him, with soft, wise words and pleasant plays of fancy, and jokes and--and--something of the general effect created by Sister Soulsby's eyes.The thought expanded itself, and he saw that he had never realized before--nay, never dreamt before--what a mighty part the comradeship of talented, sweet-natured and beautiful women must play in the development of genius, the achievement of lofty aims, out in the great world of great men.
To know such women--ah, that would never fall to his hapless lot.
The priest's lamps blinked at him through the trees.
He remembered that priests were supposed to be even further removed from the possibilities of such contact than he was himself.His memory reverted to that horribly ugly old woman whom Father Forbes had spoken of as his housekeeper.
Life under the same roof with such a hag must be even worse than--worse than--The young minister did not finish the comparison, even in the privacy of his inner soul.He stood instead staring over at the pastorate, in a kind of stupor of arrested thought.
The figure of a woman passed in view at the nearest window--a tall figure with pale summer clothes of some sort, and a broad summer hat--a flitting effect of diaphanous shadow between him and the light which streamed from the casement.
Theron felt a little shiver run over him, as if the delicate coolness of the changing night-air had got into his blood.
The window was open, and his strained hearing thought it caught the sound of faint laughter.He continued to gaze at the place where the vision had appeared, the while a novel and strange perception unfolded itself upon his mind.