Where Angels Fear to Tread eBook

All through the day Miss Abbott had seemed to Philip like a goddess, and more than ever did she seem so now.  Many people look younger and more intimate during great emotion.  But some there are who look older, and remote, and he could not think that there was little difference in years, and none in composition, between her and the man whose head was laid upon her breast.  Her eyes were open, full of infinite pity and full of majesty, as if they discerned the boundaries of sorrow, and saw unimaginable tracts beyond.  Such eyes he had seen in great pictures but never in a mortal.  Her hands were folded round the sufferer, stroking him lightly, for even a goddess can do no more than that.  And it seemed fitting, too, that she should bend her head and touch his forehead with her lips.

Philip looked away, as he sometimes looked away from the great pictures where visible forms suddenly become inadequate for the things they have shown to us.  He was happy; he was assured that there was greatness in the world.  There came to him an earnest desire to be good through the example of this good woman.  He would try henceforward to be worthy of the things she had revealed.  Quietly, without hysterical prayers or banging of drums, he underwent conversion.  He was saved.

“That milk,” said she, “need not be wasted.  Take it, Signor Carella, and persuade Mr. Herriton to drink.”

Gino obeyed her, and carried the child’s milk to Philip.  And Philip obeyed also and drank.

“Is there any left?”

“A little,” answered Gino.

“Then finish it.”  For she was determined to use such remnants as lie about the world.

“Will you not have some?”

“I do not care for milk; finish it all.”

“Philip, have you had enough milk?”

“Yes, thank you, Gino; finish it all.”

He drank the milk, and then, either by accident or in some spasm of pain, broke the jug to pieces.  Perfetta exclaimed in bewilderment.  “It does not matter,” he told her.  “It does not matter.  It will never be wanted any more.”

Chapter 10

“He will have to marry her,” said Philip.  “I heard from him this morning, just as we left Milan.  He finds he has gone too far to back out.  It would be expensive.  I don’t know how much he minds—­not as much as we suppose, I think.  At all events there’s not a word of blame in the letter.  I don’t believe he even feels angry.  I never was so completely forgiven.  Ever since you stopped him killing me, it has been a vision of perfect friendship.  He nursed me, he lied for me at the inquest, and at the funeral, though he was crying, you would have thought it was my son who had died.  Certainly I was the only person he had to be kind to; he was so distressed not to make Harriet’s acquaintance, and that he scarcely saw anything of you.  In his letter he says so again.”