One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
Her trembling hands crossed their fingers. Nataly slipped
to her knees.
The two women mutely praying, pulled Victor into the
devotional hush. It acted on him like the silent spell of service
in a Church. He forgot his estimate of the minutes, he
formed a prayer, he refused to hear the Cupid swinging, he
droned a sound of sentences to deaden his ears. Ideas of eternity
rolled in semblance of enormous clouds. Death was a
black bird among them. The piano rang to Nataly’s young
voice and his. The gold and white of the chairs welcomed a
youth suddenly enrolled among the wealthy by an enamoured
old lady on his arm. Cupid tick-ticked.—Poor soul! poor
woman! How little we mean to do harm when we do an
injury! An incomprehensible world indeed at the bottom and
at the top. We get on fairly at the centre. Yet it is there that
we do the mischief making such a riddle of the bottom and
the top. What is to be said! Prayer quiets one. Victor peered
at Nataly fervently on her knees and Mrs. Burman bowed
over her knotted fingers. The earnestness of both enforced
an effort at a phrased prayer in him. Plungeing through a
wave of the scent of Marechale, that was a tremendous
memory to haul him backward and forward, he beheld his
prayer dancing across the furniture; a diminutive thin black
figure, elvish, irreverent, appallingly unlike his proper emotion;
and he brought his hands just to touch, and got to the
edge of his chair, with split knees. At once the figure vanished.
By merely looking at Nataly, he passed into her prayer.
A look at Mrs. Burman made it personal, his own. He heard
the cluck of a horrible sob coming from him. After a repetition
of his short form of prayer deeply stressed, he thanked
himself with the word ‘sincere,’ and a queer side-thought on
our human susceptibility to the influence of posture. We are
such creatures.
Nataly resumed her seat. Mrs. Burman had raised her head.
She said: ‘We are at peace.’ She presently said, with effort: ‘It
cannot last with me. I die in nature’s way. I would bear forgiveness
with me, that I may have it above. I give it here, to
you, to all. My soul is cleansed, I trust. Much was to say. My
strength will not. Unto God, you both!’
The Rev. Groseman Buttermore was moving on slippered
step to the back of the sofa. Nataly dropped before the
unseeing, scarce breathing, lady for an instant. Victor mur-
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