But there was time for them to exchange a look so ardent, so rich with promise, that her head swam. She was always quick to decide, quick to know. Yes, she was going to fall in love. Everything was all right, and India was glorious.
Upstairs in his own room, the porter paid off, and the door locked, David fell upon his knees in wordless worship. There was no sin in loving Olivia and God would understand. He who had created them male and female, husband and wife. Yet such happiness must not absorb his heart and his mind. At first it would be hard, but he would learn to control even love, for Christ’s sake. The dream had been terrifying in its sweet power, but the reality was more sweet and strong. Olivia was lovelier than he had remembered her. He sent up his wordless plea for strength, he forced his mind to dwell upon Christ, and then this occurred to him, which he had never thought of before: Christ, that member of the triple godhead, the only One of Three who had ever once been man, and so to whom he most naturally made his prayer, had died, had returned again to heaven, but never had He known the love of woman. His prayer wavered, lost its wings, and fell to earth again. No, he could not ask for help to love Olivia less. He must love God more until the greater love would rule his being. This was his task — not less love, but more.
He tried to tell her something like this in the evening of that day. She wanted to walk, she was eager to see the streets, and so they left the hotel and he led their way to the shores of Back Bay. The sun had already set but there was a bar of red across the sea horizon, and the grey tide was thundering in upon the shore. The green heights of Malabar Hill were still clear, though fading into the quick twilight. The great city clock struck the hour of seven and people were leaving the sands. Parsee priests in long white robes stood gazing toward the last light of the sun, not heeding the people about them, and Englishmen and women walked homeward along the shore, while the white children played, reluctant to let the day go.
“If I seem aloof sometimes,” David told Olivia while they stood hand in hand upon the shore, their faces toward the sunset, “it isn’t that my love fails. It is simply that there are tasks of consecration which demand my whole attention and my heart.”
“I shan’t mind,” Olivia said with composure.
Across the rolling seas the evening star shone out suddenly, golden, soft, and clear.
A week later they were married. The little Poona church was filled with whispering, staring Indian Christians sitting as usual on the floor, but packed so closely together that the path to the altar was narrow indeed. Olivia walked up the aisle and if she saw the faces at her feet, or the faces at the windows, she gave no sign. Her mother walked beside her, and David waited at the altar, Darya standing beside him, and Mr. Fordham stood in his robe of service.
Olivia was very pale, she moved with dignity, and David, mindful of the Indians, did not look at her after one swift glance as she entered. She, also warned, held her head bent slightly beneath her short veil. Mrs. Fordham played the little organ softly until she heard Olivia’s step upon the chancel and then she let the reedy music die away and Mr. Fordham’s solemn nasal voice began the sacred words. Mrs. Dessard wept a little, her handkerchief to her lips.
“Who giveth this woman—” Mr. Fordham was intoning.
“I do,” Mrs. Dessard sobbed.
Well, it was Olivia’s business. The Fordhams were common people and it did not matter what they did, but David MacArd and her own daughter certainly did not have to be missionaries. Old Mr. MacArd was right. Olivia had told her angrily of that scene, but when she got back to New York she would write him a letter and tell him he was right. India was a horrid country. When she squeezed her sponge in the bath this morning a centipede ran out, and she had nearly fainted, although luckily the dangerous insect had dropped from her right shoulder to the floor without stinging her and had disappeared down the drain. She mulled rebellion in her heart until suddenly the little organ was playing again joyfully and David and Olivia moved together to walk down the aisle and she had to walk behind them. A week from now, maybe only a couple of days from now, she would be on a ship and going back to a Christian country.
“Poor Mamma,” Olivia said suddenly. They had been married four days.
“Why?” David inquired, not caring.
“All this,” Olivia said, her hand sweeping the panorama of the hills around Poona. “I do really wish she could have seen it. Now she will never believe that India isn’t what she thinks it is.”
“Much of it is,” David observed.
“Yes, but there’s this,” Olivia insisted. She was happy, utterly, wholly happy, she was in love, she had been so afraid that she could not be, but now she was in love with this strange man, her husband. When she remembered the slender boy who had once thrown himself at her feet and whom she had swiftly rejected because he had been so childish, so fond, so silly, she could not believe that he had become this calm, quietly arrogant man who told her plainly when he wanted to be alone, who withdrew morning and evening for his private prayers, who was absolute in his determination to be his own master and whom therefore she could worship. She subdued herself to him, delighting in subjection. She obeyed him, astonished that she enjoyed obedience. She had been alone so long, and so long had she been wilful and her mother helpless before her that it was exciting to understand that while David did love her with beautiful passion, she was not to be his whole life. She was his beloved, that she knew, but love was not everything to this man. What was beyond she did not know and her imagination stirred. She liked even the beard, for that boy long ago had had a profile marred perhaps by the delicate chin. The delicacy in eyelid and nostril still remained, but his mouth was firm and the chin was hidden.
“Oh, I love you,” she cried, suddenly ardent.
They were sitting on a veranda, from whence the mountains rolled away into the horizon, falling so steeply from the house that the tops of the trees brushed the railing.
She dropped to her knees before him, and he saw unexpected worship in her eyes. This was Olivia, astonishing him with her love, a woman who might easily never have loved him, but who by some grace of God did now love him utterly. He knew that she loved altogether or not at all, that was his Olivia, and if he trembled sometimes before her ardor, he was reassured. Had she not given herself completely, he might have found it impossible to refrain from pursuit, and in that pursuit he might have put even God aside. But now she was securely his, there need be no pursuit, and he was free. He loved her with passion but not sinfully because she did not consume him. The center of his heart was calm, and there God dwelled and not Olivia. He felt that all was right, that the balance was maintained.
“Thank God, you do love me,” he said gazing down into the dark worshipping eyes.
“And why thank God?” she demanded.
“Because otherwise I might have destroyed myself. I might have lost my soul.”
She did not understand what he meant, but she listened. It did not occur to her that she had a rival, or that her place had already been set. She was second and not first, she was his heart but not his soul, but she did not know the difference.
“Take me in your arms,” she whispered.
He took her in his arms, safe in the soft Indian night. It was dark, the swift twilight was gone, and the dense black fine of the mountains could scarcely be seen against the sky, except that at the horizon the stars stopped. Happiness flowed between the man and the woman, and for her it was enough. It was everything. But for him it was human, and though sweet, it was contentment, not more. For him the divine miracle was not here upon the earth, not even in his arms. He held her close, but his eyes searched the sky, beyond the stars. He was committed to God, he knew it now, and he felt secure.