John stood there and looked at her, and the old curiosity
took possession of him to understand this feminine
enigma. Many a man before him has been the victim
of a like desire, and lived to regret that he did
not leave it ungratified. It is not well to try
to lift the curtain of the unseen, it is not well
to call to heaven to show its glory, or to hell to
give us touch and knowledge of its yawning fires.
Knowledge comes soon enough; many of us will say that
knowledge has come too soon and left us desolate.
There is no bitterness like the bitterness of wisdom:
so cried the great Koheleth, and so hath cried many
a son of man following blindly on his path. Let
us be thankful for the dark places of the earth—places
where we may find rest and shadow, and the heavy sweetness
of the night. Seek not after mysteries, O son
of man, be content with the practical and the proved
and the broad light of day; peep not, mutter not the
words of awakening. Understand her who would be
understood and is comprehensible to those that run,
and for the others let them be, lest your fate should
be as the fate of Eve, and as the fate of Lucifer,
Star of the morning. For here and there beats
a human heart from which it is not wise to draw the
veil—a heart in which many things are dim
as half-remembered dreams in the brain of the sleeper.
Draw not the veil, whisper not the word of life in
the silence where all things sleep, lest in that kindling
breath of love and pain pale shapes arise, take form,
and fright you!
A minute or so might have passed when suddenly, and
with a little start, Jess opened her great eyes, wherein
the shadow of darkness lay, and gazed at him.
“Oh!” she said with a little tremor, “is
it you or is it my dream?”
“Don’t be afraid,” he answered cheerfully,
“it is I—in the flesh.”
She covered her face with her hand for a moment, then
withdrew it, and he noticed that her eyes had changed
curiously in that moment. They were still large
and beautiful as they always were, but there was a
change. Just now they had seemed as though her
soul were looking through them. Doubtless it
was because the pupils had been enlarged by sleep.
“Your dream! What dream?” he asked,
laughing.
“Never mind,” she answered in a quiet
way that excited his curiosity more than ever.
“It was about this Kloof—and you—but
’dreams are foolishness.’”
CHAPTER VI
THE STORM BREAKS
“Do you know, you are a very odd person, Miss
Jess,” John said presently, with a little laugh.
“I don’t think you can have a happy mind.”
She looked up. “A happy mind?” she
said. “Who can have a happy mind?
Nobody who feels. Supposing,” she went on
after a pause—“supposing one puts
oneself and one’s own little interests and joys
and sorrows quite away, how is it possible to be happy,
when one feels the breath of human misery beating
on one’s face, and sees the tide of sorrow and
suffering creeping up to one’s feet? You
may be on a rock yourself and out of the path of it,
till the spring floods or the hurricane wave come to
sweep you away, or you may be afloat upon it:
whichever it is, it is quite impossible, if you have
any heart, to be indifferent.”
