The Choir Invisible

"I have not thought of it lately."

"You will think of it soon! And that reminds me: why did you go away as you

did the last time you were here--when I wanted to talk with you about the

book?"

Her eyes questioned him imperiously.

"I cannot tell you: that is one of the things you'd better not wish to

understand.

She continued to look at him, and when she spoke, her voice was full of

relief:

"It was the first time you ever did anything that I could not understand: I

could not read your face that day."

"Can you read it now?" he asked, smiling at her sorrowfully.

"Perfectly!"

"What do you read?"

"Everything that I have always liked you for most. Memories are a great deal

to me. Ah, if you had ever done anything to spoil yours!"

Do you think that if I loved a woman she would know it by looking at my

face?"

"You would tell her: that is your nature."

"Would I? Should I?"

"Why not?"

There was silence.

"Let me talk to you about the book," he cried suddenly. He closed his eyes

and passed one hand several times slowly across his forehead; then facing

her but with his arm resting on the back of the seat and his eyes shaded by

his hand he began: "You were right: it is a book I have needed. At first it appeared centuries

old to me and far away: the greatest gorgeous picture I had ever seen of

human life anywhere. I could never tell you of the regret with which it

filled me not to have lived in those days--of the longing to have been at

Camelot to have seen the King and to have served him; to have been friends

with the best of the Knights; to have taken their vows; to have gone out

with them to right what was wrong, to wrong nothing that was right."

The words were wrung from him with slow terrible effort, as though he were

forcing himself to draw nearer and nearer some spot of supreme mental

struggle. She listened, stilled, as she had never been by any words of his.

At the same time she felt stifled--felt that she should have to cry

out--that he could be so deeply moved and so self-controlled.

More slowly, with more composure, he went on. He was still turned toward

her, his hand shading the upper part of his face: "It was not until--not until--afterwards--that I got something more out of

it than all that--got what I suppose you meant. . . . suppose you meant that

the whole story was not far away from me but present here--its right and

wrong--its temptation; that there was no vow a man could take then that a

man must not take now; that every man still has his Camelot and his King,

still has to prove his courage and his strength to all men . . . and that

after he has proved these, he has--as his last, highest act of service in

the world. . . to lay them all down, give them all up, for the sake of--of

his spirit. You meant that I too, in my life, am to go in quest of the

Grail: is it all that?"