during august miss mason took pippa down to a little seaside place in devonshire. she chose it because its name—hope—appealed to her.
pippa adored it. she loved the quaint cottages, and the beach with the tarred nets spread out to dry, and the kindly fishermen who took her out in their boats, and who talked to her in a dialect she could hardly understand. but she understood their kindness, and they understood her smiles, so they got on very well together.
barnabas came down for a fortnight, and pippa met him at the station, a thin slip of a child, her face bronzed with the sun and sea air, and her eyes holding the hint of mystery he had seen in the eyes of kostolitz.
they bathed together, they caught prawns in seaweedy pools in the rocks, they sat in the shadow of the cliffs and watched the sea-gulls and the white-sailed boats on the blue water.
and during these days barnabas found in pippa something that he had not found before—not even during the june days when they had wandered through the lanes with pegasus. he found in her woman and companion. she ceased to be merely child. he saw the spirit of kostolitz in her mysterious eyes. she showed it to him in a hundred ways—in her clear joyous love of nature, in her fanciful imaginings and delicate thoughts, in her quick insight into everything that was beautiful. and with it all she was a child, too, with a child-like simple faith and trust that was to be her heritage throughout her life. and because there was this trait also in barnabas they found in each other the most perfect companionship.
miss mason watched them together, helped them prawn, and was radiantly happy. she cared not at all for the occasional smiles her quaint figure and costume provoked from other visitors to the place. and because pippa was enjoying herself enormously she remained at hope throughout september as well.
the duchessa di corleone too had left london during august. she wandered from place to place trying to find forgetfulness and not succeeding.
in september she returned to town. she never went near the studios now, but michael came often to see her, and used to make music for her. in it she found some consolation. and michael loved to come to her house, though the sight of her always gave him pain.
one day after he had been playing to her, and they were having tea together, he suddenly looked up at a picture of st. michael that hung in her drawing-room.
“queer,” he said, with a little twisted smile, “that my people should have chosen to name me after the warrior angel.” and he glanced from the strength of the pictured figure at his own shrunken limbs. his voice was so bitter that sara could find no reply.
“just a moment’s carelessness on the part of a nursemaid,” went on michael. “she dropped me when i was a baby. you see the result. it makes it difficult to believe in an over-ruling providence, doesn’t it? my guardian angel must have been peculiarly inattentive at the moment.”
“i think,” said sara slowly, “that there are times in the life of every one when it is very difficult to have faith. yet, if one loses it one loses all happiness.”
“i lost both long ago,” said michael. “it’s an irony of fate to be born with an acute sense of the beautiful, and to see one’s own repulsiveness.”
sara looked up quickly.
“but you are not repulsive,” she said.
“bah!” said michael. “look at me! women are only kind to me out of pity.”
sara looked straight at him. “there you are quite wrong,” she said decisively. “i don’t feel the smallest pity for you in the sense you mean. your face is quite beautiful, and your music——” she stopped.
“but my body,” he said.
“yes,” said sara calmly, “i grant you that it is extremely trying for you to be lame, and you must often wish to be strong and big. but you need not think it makes the smallest difference in our affection for you.” she again looked steadily at him as she spoke.
michael looked away from her. “but no woman could love me—they would shrink from me,” he said. and his face flushed hotly.
“not at all,” said sara. “there again you are quite wrong. i grant that there is a certain type of woman who is entirely attracted by sinews and muscles in a man. but most assuredly there are others.”
there was a silence. then michael spoke again. his voice was very low.
“you—you could never care?” he said.
sara’s eyes filled with quick tears. “not in the way you mean,” she said gently; “but not because of the morbid reason you have suggested. i—i love some one else.”
“paul?” he asked.
sara bowed her head.
michael was silent. “but if you did not,” he asked suddenly, “would you have thought it horrible of me to tell you that i love you—not quietly and calmly, but—but as a man loves a woman?”
“i should have been honoured to hear it from you,” said sara.
michael looked across at her with a strange smile.
“thank you,” he said. “i shall not tell you how—though you know it. nor shall i ever tell any other woman what i have told you. you will still let me come and see you?”
“you must come,” said sara quickly. “i should miss you dreadfully if you didn’t. during these last weeks your visits have been my greatest pleasure. when i hear the front door bell ring i listen. and when i hear the pad of your crutch on the stairs i am happy, and i say to myself, ‘it is michael.’”
it was the first time she had used his name. for a few moments michael did not trust himself to speak. when he did his voice was light.
“i shall hate my crutch no longer,” he said, “since its sound has given you happiness. do you know you have quite suddenly brought back faith to me. i thought it was dead. now i will play for you again.”
