It was
Father Roland's world. And Father Roland had invited him to enter it.
That was the curious part of the situation, as it was impressed upon him
as he sat with his face flattened against the window. The Little
Missioner had invited him, and the night was daring him. For a single
moment the incongruity of it all made him forget himself, and he
laughed--a chuckling, half-broken, and out-of-tune sort of laugh. It was
the first time in a year that he had forgotten himself anywhere near to
a point resembling laughter, and in the sudden and inexplicable
spontaneity of it he was startled. He turned quickly, as though some one
at his side had laughed and he was about to demand an explanation. He
looked across the aisle and his eyes met squarely the eyes of a woman.
He saw nothing but the eyes at first. They were big, dark, questing
eyes--eyes that had in them a hunting look, as though they hoped to find
in his face the answer to a great question. Never in his life had he
seen eyes that were so haunted by a great unrest, or that held in their
lustrous depths the smouldering glow of a deeper grief. Then the face
added itself to the eyes. It was not a young face. The woman was past
forty. But this age did not impress itself over a strange and appealing
beauty in her countenance which was like the beauty of a flower whose
petals are falling.
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