Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/160

 celestial is dreadfully sad. As if everything was left behind.'

'Everything is left behind—in the celestial,' said Mademoiselle Ludérac.

Jill stood and thought. She had never in her life thought so deeply. 'Everything of earth, you mean. Not everything we care for, surely.'

'Perhaps everything we think we care for,' Mademoiselle Ludérac suggested, glancing up at her, and Jill felt the dreadful sadness flowing in upon her.

'But then—how can we feel it celestial?' she questioned, a tremor in her voice. 'We care for the celestial.'

Mademoiselle Ludérac's eyes were now upon her and they dwelt as Jill had not felt them dwell before. Something else came to her, as she met their gaze. Had she found it for herself? Or had Mademoiselle Ludérac shown it to her?

'That is the secret,' said Mademoiselle Ludérac. 'You have said it.'

'The secret?'

'It is what we care for most. That is all we know. But is it not enough to know?—We cannot think it. We cannot see it. It is ineffable. Yet we possess it.'

Jill gazed at her, groping in a mystery never before apprehended, yet feeling, in the darkness, a hand laid upon hers. 'I seem to understand things I don't really understand, when I am with you,' she smiled faintly. 'Is it living with great music that makes you seem to know so much more than other people?'