Between Friends

“That is a cant phrase.”

“No; there’s truth under the cant. Under all the sleek, smooth, canty phrases of ecclesiastic proverb, precept, axiom, and lore, there is truth worth the sifting out.”

“You are welcome to think so, Guilder.”

“You also could come to no other conclusion if you took the trouble to investigate.”

Drene smiled:

“Morals are no more than folk-ways—merely mental condition consequent upon custom. Spiritual beliefs are radically dependant upon folkways and the resultant physical and mental condition of the human brain which creates everything that has been and that is to be.”

“Physiology has proven that no idea, no thought, ever originated within the concrete and physical brain.”

“I’ve read of those experiments.”

“Then you can’t ignore a conclusion.”

“I haven’t reached a conclusion. Meanwhile, I have my own beliefs.”

“That’s all that’s necessary,” said Guilder, gravely, “—to entertain some belief, temporary or final.” He smiled slightly down at Drene’s drawn, gray visage.

“You and I have been friends of many years, Drene, but we have never before talked this way. I did not feel at liberty to assume any intimacy with you, even when I wanted to, even when—when you were in trouble—” He hesitated.

“Go on,” grunted the other. “I’m out of trouble now.”

“I just—it’s a whimsical notion—no, it’s a belief;—I just wanted to tell you one or two things concerning my own beliefs—”

“Temporary?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter; they are beliefs. And this is one: all physical and mental ills are created only by our own minds—”

“Christian Science?” sneered Drene.

“Call it what you like,” said Guilder serenely. “And call this what you like: All who believe worthily will find that particular belief true in every detail after death.”

“What do you call that?” demanded Drene, amused.

“God knows. It seems to be my interpretation of the Goal. I seem to be journeying toward it without more obstacles and more embarrassments to encounter than confront the wayfarer who professes any other creed.”

After a while Drene sat up on his couch:

“How did all this conversation start?” he asked uneasily.

“It was about the Virgin for that chapel we are going to do..... That’s part of my belief: those who pray for her intercession will find her after death, interceding—” he smiled, “—if any intercession be necessary between us and Him who made us.”

“And those unlisted millions who importune Mohammed and Buddha?”

“They shall find Mohammed and Buddha, who importune them worthily.”

“And—Christ?”

“He bears that name also—He!”

“Oh! And so, spiritually as well as artistically, you believe in the Virgin?”

“You also can make a better Virgin if you believe in her otherwise than esthetically.”

Drene gazed at him incredulously, then, with a shrug:

“When do you want this thing started?”

“Now.”

“I can’t take it on now.”

“I want a sketch pretty soon—the composition. You can have a model of the chapel to—morrow. We went on with it as a speculation. Now we’ve clinched the thing. When shall I send it up from the office?”

“I’ll look it over, but—”

“And,” interrupted Guilder, “you had better get that Miss White for the Virgin—before she goes off somewhere out of reach.”

Drene looked up somberly:

“I haven’t kept in touch with her. I don’t know what her engagements may be.”

“One of her engagements just now seems to be to go about with Graylock,” said Guilder.

Drene flushed, but said nothing.

“If he marries her,” added Guilder, “as it’s generally understood he is trying to, the best sculptor’s model in town is out of the question. Better secure her now.”

“He wants to marry her?” repeated Drene, in a curiously still voice.

“He’s mad about her. He’s abject. It’s no secret among his friends. Men like that—and of that age—sometimes arrive at such a terminal—men with Graylock’s record sometimes get theirs. She has given him a run, believe me, and he’s brought up with a crash against a stone wall. He is lying there all doubled up at her feet like a rabbit with a broken back. There was nothing left for him to do but lie there. He’s lying there still, with one of her little feet on his bull neck. All the town knows it.”

“He wants to marry her,” repeated Drene, as though to himself.

“She may not take him at that. They’re queer—some women. I suppose she’d jump at it if she were not straight. But there’s another thing—” Guilder looked curiously at Drene. “Some people think she’s rather crazy about you.”

Drene gazed into space.

“But that wouldn’t hurt her,” added Guilder, in his calm, pleasant voice. “She’s a straight little thing—white and straight. She could come to no harm through a man like you.”

Drene continued to stare at space.

“So,” continued the other, confident, “when she recovers from a natural and childlike infatuation for you she’ll marry somebody… Possibly even such a man as Graylock might make her happy. You can’t ever tell about such men at the eleventh hour.”

Drene turned his eyes on him. There was no trace of color in his face.