She did not answer Artois' remark, and he continued, always for the
children's sake, and for the sake of what he seemed to divine secretly
at work in them:
"This Pool is a place apart, I think. The Saint has given his
benediction to it."
He was speaking at random to keep Hermione there. And yet his words
seemed chosen by some one for him to say.
"Surely good must come to the island over that waterway."
"You think so?"
Her stress upon the pronoun made him reply:
"Hermione, you do not think me the typical Frenchman of this century,
who furiously denies over a glass of absinthe the existence of the
Creator of the world?"
"No. But I scarcely thought you believed in the efficacy of a plaster
Saint."
"Not of the plaster--no. But don't you think it possible that truth,
emanating from certain regions and affecting the souls of men, might
move them unconsciously to embody it in symbol? What if this Pool were
blessed, and men, feeling that it was blessed, put San Francesco here
with his visible benediction?"
He said to himself that he was playing with his imagination, as
sometimes he played with words, half-sensuously and half-
aesthetically; yet he felt to-night as if within him there was
something that might believe far more than he had ever suspected it
would be possible for him to believe.
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