第39章

"Boy--I gave up something, which was more than life itself to me, for the sake of another, and I can't get over it.I know I did right, and yet--I can't get over it."The doctor leaned forward and took the clenched hands between his.

"Can you tell me about it, Jeanette?"

"I can tell no one, Deryck; not even you.""If ever you find you must tell some one, Jane, will you promise to come to me?""Gladly."

"Good! Now, my dear girl, here is a prescription for you.Go abroad.

And, mind, I do not mean by that, just to Paris and back, or Switzerland this summer, and the Riviera in the autumn.Go to America and see a few big things.See Niagara.And all your life afterwards, when trivialities are trying you, you will love to let your mind go back to the vast green mass of water sweeping over the falls; to the thunderous roar, and the upward rush of spray; to the huge perpetual onwardness of it all.You will like to remember, when you are bothering about pouring water in and out of teacups, 'Niagara is flowing still.' Stay in a hotel so near the falls that you can hear their great voice night and day, thundering out themes of power and progress.Spend hours walking round and viewing it from every point.Go to the Cave of the Winds, across the frail bridges, where the guide will turn and shout to you: 'Are your rings on tight?' Learn, in passing, the true meaning of the Rock of Ages.

Receive Niagara into your life and soul as a possession, and thank God for it.""Then go in for other big things in America.Try spirituality and humanity; love and life.Seek out Mrs.Ballington Booth, the great 'Little Mother' of all American prisoners.I know her well, I am proud to say, and can give you a letter of introduction.Ask her to take you with her to Sing-Sing, or to Columbus State Prison, and to let you hear her address an audience of two thousand convicts, holding out to them the gospel of hope and love,--her own inspired and inspiring belief in fresh possibilities even for the most despairing.""Go to New York City and see how, when a man wants a big building and has only a small plot of ground, he makes the most of that ground by running his building up into the sky.Learn to do likewise.--And then, when the great-souled, large-hearted, rapid-minded people of America have waked you to enthusiasm with their bigness, go off to Japan and see a little people nobly doing their best to become great.--Then to Palestine, and spend months in tracing the footsteps of the greatest human life ever lived.Take Egypt on your way home, just to remind yourself that there are still, in this very modern world of ours, a few passably ancient things,--a well-preserved wooden man, for instance, with eyes of opaque white quartz, a piece of rock crystal in the centre for a pupil.These glittering eyes looked out upon the world from beneath their eyelids of bronze, in the time of Abraham.You will find it in a the museum at Cairo.Ride a donkey in the Mooskee if you want real sport; and if you feel a little slack, climb the Great Pyramid.Ask for an Arab named Schehati, and tell him you want to do it one minute quicker than any lady has ever done it before.""Then come home, my dear girl, ring me up and ask for an appointment; or chance it, and let Stoddart slip you into my consulting-room between patients, and report how the prescription has worked.I never gave a better; and you need not offer me a guinea! I attend old friends gratis."Jane laughed, and gripped his hand."Oh, boy," she said, "I believe you are right.My whole ideas of life have been focussed on myself and my own individual pains and losses.I will do as you say; and God bless you for saying it.--Here comes Flower.Flower," she said, as the doctor's wife trailed in, wearing a soft tea-gown, and turning on the electric lights as she passed, "will this boy of ours ever grow old? Here he is, seriously advising that a stout, middle-aged woman should climb the Great Pyramid as a cure for depression, and do it in record time!""Darling," said the doctor's wife, seating herself on the arm of his chair, "whom have you been seeing who is stout, or depressed, or middle-aged? If you mean Mrs.Parker Bangs, she is not middle-aged, because she is an American, and no American is ever middle-aged.And she is only depressed because, even after painting her lovely niece's portrait, Garth Dalmain has failed to propose to her.And it is no good advising her to climb the Great Pyramid, though she is doing Egypt this winter, because I heard her say yesterday that she should never think of going up the pyramids until the children of Israel, or whoever the natives are who live around those parts, have the sense to put an elevator right up the centre."Jane and the doctor laughed, and Flower, settling herself more comfortably, for the doctor's arm had stolen around her, said:

"Jane, I heard you playing THE ROSARY just now, such a favourite of mine, and it is months since I heard it.Do sing it, dear."Jane met the doctor's eyes and smiled reassuringly; then turned without any hesitation and did as Flower asked.The prescription had already done her good.