How could any shadow stand in the presence of the Hermes?  The divine calm within this chamber had a power which was akin to the power of nature in the twilight of a windless evening, or of a beautiful soul at ease in its own simplicity.  It purified.  Dion could not imagine any man being able to look at the Hermes and feel the attraction of sin.  Rosamund was right, he thought.  Surely men have to go and fetch their sins.  Their goodness is given to them.  The mother holds it, and is aware of it, when her baby is put into her arms for the first time.

For a long while these two watched Hermes and the child in the silence of Elis, bound together by an almost perfect sympathy.  And they understood as never before the beauty of calm—­calm of the nerves, calm of the body, calm of the mind, the heart and the soul; peace physical, intellectual and moral.  In looking at the Hermes they saw, or seemed to themselves to see, the goal, what struggling humanity is meant for—­the perfect poise, all faculties under effortless control, and so peace.

“We must be meant for that,” Dion said to himself.  “Shall we reach that goal, and take a child with us?”

Then he looked down at Rosamund, saw her pale yellow hair, the back of her neck, in which, somehow, purity was manifested, and thought: 

“I might perhaps get there through her, but only through her.”

She turned round, looked at him and smiled.

“Isn’t he divine?  And the child’s attitude!”

Dion moved and sat down beside her.

“If this is Paganism,” she continued, “it’s the same thing as Christianity.  It’s what God means.  Men try to separate things that are all one.  I feel that when I look at Hermes.  Oh, how beautiful he is!  And his beauty is as much moral as physical.  You know the Antinous mouth?”

“Of course.”

“Look at his mouth.  Could any one, comparing the two, honestly say that purity doesn’t shine like a light in darkness?  Aren’t those lips stamped with the Divine seal?”

“Yes, they are.”

“Dion, I’m so thankful I have a husband who’s kept the power to see that even physical beauty must have moral beauty behind it to be perfect.  Many men can’t see that, I think.”

“Is it their fault?”

“Yes.”

After another long silence she said: 

“Spirit really is everything.  Hermes tells me that almost as plainly as the New Testament.  Lots of people we know in London would laugh at me for saying so, the people who talk of ‘being Greek’ and who never can be Greek.  And he stood between Doric columns.  I’m trying to learn something here.”

“What?”

“How to bring him up if he ever comes.”

Dion felt for her hand.