PART ONE

THE GOOD OLD WORLD




CHAPTER I

SHEILA'S LEGACY


Just before his death, Marcus Arundel, artist and father of Sheila,
bore witness to his faith in God and man. He had been lying apparently
unconscious, his slow, difficult breath drawn at longer and longer
intervals. Sheila was huddled on the floor beside his bed, her hand
pressing his urgently in the pitiful attempt, common to human love, to
hold back the resolute soul from the next step in its adventure. The
nurse, who came in by the day, had left a paper of instructions on the
table. Here a candle burned under a yellow shade, throwing a circle of
warm, unsteady light on the head of the girl, on the two hands, on the
rumpled coverlet, on the dying face. This circle of light seemed to
collect these things, to choose them, as though for the expression of
some meaning. It felt for them as an artist feels for his composition
and gave to them a symbolic value. The two hands were in the center of
the glow--the long, pale, slack one, the small, desperate, clinging