not they, nor yet Miss Quincey, that accounted for his display of
feeling. He was angry because he wanted to come to a certain
understanding with the Classical Mistress; to come to it at once; and the
system kept him waiting. It was robbing him of Rhoda, and Rhoda of her
youth. Meanwhile Rhoda was superbly happy at St. Sidwell's, playing at
being Pallas Athene; as for checking her midway in her brilliant career,
that was not to be thought of for an instant.

The flower of womanhood--it was the flower of life. He had never seen a
woman so invincibly and superlatively alive. Cautley deified life; and in
his creed, which was simplicity itself, life and health were one; health
the sole source of strength, intelligence and beauty, of all divine and
perfect possibilities. At least that was how he began. But three years'
practice in London had somewhat strained the faith of the young devotee.
He soon found himself in the painful position of a priest who no longer
believes in his deity; overheard himself asking whether health was not an
unattainable ideal; then declaring that life itself was all a matter of
compromise; finally coming to the conclusion that the soul of things was
Neurosis.

Beyond that he refused to commit himself to any theory of the universe.
He even made himself unpleasant. A clerical patient would approach him
with conciliatory breadth, and say: "I envy you, Cautley; I envy your
marvellous experience. Your opportunities are greater than mine. And
sometimes, do you know, I think you see deeper into the work of the
Maker." And Cautley would shrug his shoulders and smile in the good man's
face, and say, "The Maker! I can only tell you I'm tired of mending the
work of the Maker." Yet the more he doubted the harder he worked; though
his world spun round and round, shrieking like a clock running down, and
he had persuaded himself that all he could do was to wind up the crazy
wheels for another year or so. Which all meant that Cautley was working a
little too hard and running down himself. He had begun to specialize in
gynecology and it increased his scepticism.

Then suddenly, one evening, when he least looked for it, least wanted it,
he saw his divinity incarnate. Rhoda had appealed to him as the supreme
expression of Nature's will to live. That was the instantaneous and
visible effect of her. Rhoda was the red flower on the tree of life.

At St. Sidwell's, that great forcing-house, they might grow some
veget