Guides and flocks of sightseers were slowly parading from memory to memory.
In the crypt where the Huguenots lived and found shelter, worshipped and wove their clothes, she stayed to meditate, guide-book in hand.
And so, too, at the spot where Thomas a Becket was killed.
Cowperwood, who saw things in the large, could scarcely endure this minutae.
He was but little interested in the affairs of bygone men and women, being so intensely engaged with the living present.
And after a time he slipped outside, preferring the wide sweep of gardens, with their flower-lined walks and views of the cathedral.
Its arches and towers and stained-glass windows, this whole carefully executed shrine, still held glamor, but all because of the hands and brains, aspirations and dreams of selfish and self-preserving creatures like himself.
And so many of these, as he now mused, walking about, had warred over possession of this church.
And now they were within its walls, graced and made respectable, the noble dead!
Was any man noble?
Had there ever been such a thing as an indubitably noble soul?
He was scarcely prepared to believe it.
Men killed to live—all of them—and wallowed in lust in order to reproduce themselves.
In fact, wars, vanities, pretenses, cruelties, greeds, lusts, murder, spelled their true history, with only the weak running to a mythical saviour or god for aid.
And the strong using this belief in a god to further the conquest of the weak. And by such temples or shrines as this. He looked, meditated, and was somehow touched with the futility of so much that was still so beautiful.
But occasional glimpses of Berenice, poised attentively over a cross or religious inscription, were sufficient to restore him. There was about her at such moments a seemingly non-material as well as mentally contemplative grace which brushed aside the tang of that pagan modernity which at other times gave her the force and glare of a red flower in a gray rock.
Perhaps, as he now reasoned with himself, her reaction to these faded memories and forms, joined, as it was, with her delight in luxury, was not unakin to his own personal delight in paintings and his pleasure in power.
Because of this he was moved to respect, and all the more so when, the pilgrimage over, they were finally preparing to leave for dinner, she exclaimed:
“We’re coming back here this evening after dinner!
There will be a new moon.”
“Indeed!” said Cowperwood, amusedly.
Mrs. Carter yawned and announced that she would not return.
She was going to her room after dinner.
“Very well, Mother,” said Berenice, “but Frank must come back for the good of his soul!”
“There you are! I have a soul!” said Cowperwood, indulgently.
So later, after a simple meal at the inn, Berenice led him down the darkening street.
As they entered the carved black gate that led into the close, the moon, a new white feather in a roof of blue-black steel, seemed but an ornament of the topmost pinnacle of the long silhouette of the cathedral.
At first, engaged by the temperamental whim of Berenice, Cowperwood stared dutifully. But presently, it was the blend of her own response that swayed him.
Oh, to be young, to be so thrilled, to be so deeply moved by color, form, the mystery and meaninglessness of human activity!
But Berenice was not thinking only of the faded memories and jumble of hopes and fears that had produced all this, but also of the mystery and immensity of voiceless time and space.
Ah, to have understanding, knowledge!
To think earnestly and seekingly for some reason or excuse for life!
Was her own life merely to be one of clever, calculating, and ruthless determination to fulfil herself socially, or as an individual?
What benefit could that be, to her or to anyone?
What beauty would that create or inspire?
Now . . . here . . . in this place . . . perfumed with memories and moonlight . . . something was at her elbow and in her heart . . . something that whispered of quiet and peace . . . solitude . . . fulfilment . . . a desire to create something utterly beautiful, so that her life would be complete and significant.
But . . . this was wild dreaming . . . the moon had bewitched her.
Why should she want anything?
She had all that women desired.
“Let’s go back, Frank,” she said, at last, something within herself failing her, some sense of beauty gone forever.
“Let’s go back to the inn.”
Chapter 34
While Cowperwood and Berenice were touring the cathedral towns, Aileen and Tollifer were visiting the Paris cafes, smart shops, and popular resorts.
Having made sure that Aileen was coming, Tollifer had preceded her by twenty-four hours, and used that time to arrange a program which should prove amusing and so detain her in Paris.
For he knew that this French world was not a novelty to her. She had been there, and in most of the European resorts, at numerous times in the past, when Cowperwood was most anxious to see her happy.
Even now these were precious memories, and occasionally flashed only too vividly before her.
Nonetheless, she was finding Tollifer a most diverting person.
On the evening of her arrival he called at the Ritz, where she had installed herself with her maid, half-wondering why she had come.
It was true that she had intended to go to Paris, but she had treasured the idea that Cowperwood would go with her.
However, his affairs in London, shouted about by the press and glibly enough presented to her by himself, convinced her that his time was very much occupied.