gathered in the house--the _opus Dei_ and the salvation of souls; this
or that legal document did not seriously affect such high matters.

The novice-master told him presently that the community had signed the
oath, as all others were doing, and that there was no need for anxiety:
they were in the hands of their Religious Superiors.

"I was not anxious," said Chris abruptly, and Dom James hastened to snub
him, and to tell him that he ought to have been, but that novices always
thought they knew everything, and were the chief troubles that Religious
houses had to put up with.

Chris courteously begged pardon, and went to his lessons wondering what
in the world all the pother was about.

But such moods of detachment were not continuous they visited him for
weeks at a time, when his soul was full of consolation, and he was
amazed that any other life seemed possible to anyone. He seemed to
himself to have reached the very heart and secret of existence--surely
it was plain enough; God and eternity were the only things worth
considering; a life passed in an ecstasy, if such were possible, was
surely more consonant with reality than one of ordinary activities.
Activities were, after all, but concessions to human weakness and desire
for variety; contemplation was the simple and natural attitude of a soul
that knew herself and God.

But he was a man as well as a novice, and when these moods ebbed from
his soul they left him strangely bitter and dry: the clouds would
gather; the wind of discontent would begin to shrill about the angles of
his spirit, and presently the storm of desolation would be up.