The guests of Hercules

								

"It's different when you're there," Peter said.
"I don't think it would be for me. I'm almost sure I'm not like that--if
I can be sure of anything about myself. Perhaps I can't! But you
described the place as if it were a sort of paradise--and all the
Riviera. You said you would go back in the spring with your father. You
didn't seem to think it wicked and dangerous for yourself."
"Monte Carlo isn't any more wicked than other places, and it's dangerous
only for born gamblers," Peter argued. "I'm not one. Neither is my
father, except in Wall Street. He plays a little for fun, that's all.
And my cousin Jim Schuyler never goes near the Casino except for a
concert or the opera. But you--all alone there--you who know no more
of life than a baby! It doesn't bear thinking of."
"Don't think of it," said Mary, rather dryly. "I have no idea of going
to Monte Carlo."
"Thank goodness! Well, I only wanted to be sure. I couldn't help
worrying. Because, if anything had drawn you there, it would have been
my fault. You would hardly have heard of Monte Carlo if it hadn't been
for my stories. A cloistered saint like you!"
"Is that the way you think of me in these days?" The novice blushed and
smiled, showing her friendly dimples. "I wish I felt a saint."
"You are one. And yet"--Peter gazed at her with sudden keenness--"I
don't believe you were made to be a saint. It's the years here that
have moulded you into what you are. But, there's something different
underneath."
"Nothing very bad, I hope?" Mary looked actually frightened, as if she
did not know herself, and feared an unfavourable opinion, which might be
true.
"No, indeed. But different--quite a different You from what any of us,
even yourself, have ever seen. It will come out. Life will bring it
out."
"You talk," said Mary, "as if you were older than I."
"So I am, in every way except years, and they count least. Oh, Mary, how
I do wish I were going with you!"
"So do I. And yet perhaps it will be good for me to begin alone."
"You won't be alone."
"No. Of course, there will be Lady MacMillan taking me to London. And
afterward there'll be my aunt and cousin. But I've never seen them since
I was too tiny to remember them at all, except that my cousin Elinor had
a lovely big doll she wouldn't let me touch. It's the same as being
alone, going to them. I shall have to get acquainted with them and the
world at the same time."
"Are you terrified?"
"A little. Oh, a good deal! I think now, at the last moment, I'd take
everything back, and stay, if I could."
"No, you wouldn't, if you had the choice, and you saw the gates closing
on you--forever. You'd run out."
"I don't know. Perhaps. But how I shall miss them all! Reverend Mother,
and the sisters, and you, and the garden, and looking out over the lake
far away to the mountains."
"But there'll be other mountains."
"Yes, other mountains."
"Think of the mountains of Italy."