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diff --git a/old/133-0.txt b/old/133-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dbb757f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/133-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12063 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 133 *** + + + + +THE DAMNATION OF THERON WARE + + +by Harold Frederic + + + + +PART I + + + +CHAPTER I + + +No such throng had ever before been seen in the building during all its +eight years of existence. People were wedged together most uncomfortably +upon the seats; they stood packed in the aisles and overflowed the +galleries; at the back, in the shadows underneath these galleries, they +formed broad, dense masses about the doors, through which it would be +hopeless to attempt a passage. + +The light, given out from numerous tin-lined circles of flaring gas-jets +arranged on the ceiling, fell full upon a thousand uplifted faces--some +framed in bonnets or juvenile curls, others bearded or crowned with +shining baldness--but all alike under the spell of a dominant emotion +which held features in abstracted suspense and focussed every eye upon a +common objective point. + +The excitement of expectancy reigned upon each row of countenances, was +visible in every attitude--nay, seemed a part of the close, overheated +atmosphere itself. + +An observer, looking over these compact lines of faces and noting the +uniform concentration of eagerness they exhibited, might have guessed +that they were watching for either the jury's verdict in some peculiarly +absorbing criminal trial, or the announcement of the lucky numbers in +a great lottery. These two expressions seemed to alternate, and even to +mingle vaguely, upon the upturned lineaments of the waiting throng--the +hope of some unnamed stroke of fortune and the dread of some adverse +decree. + +But a glance forward at the object of this universal gaze would have +sufficed to shatter both hypotheses. Here was neither a court of justice +nor a tombola. It was instead the closing session of the annual Nedahma +Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Bishop was about +to read out the list of ministerial appointments for the coming year. +This list was evidently written in a hand strange to him, and the slow, +near-sighted old gentleman, having at last sufficiently rubbed the +glasses of his spectacles, and then adjusted them over his nose +with annoying deliberation, was now silently rehearsing his task to +himself--the while the clergymen round about ground their teeth and +restlessly shuffled their feet in impatience. + +Upon a closer inspection of the assemblage, there were a great many +of these clergymen. A dozen or more dignified, and for the most part +elderly, brethren sat grouped about the Bishop in the pulpit. As many +others, not quite so staid in mien, and indeed with here and there +almost a suggestion of frivolity in their postures, were seated on the +steps leading down from this platform. A score of their fellows sat +facing the audience, on chairs tightly wedged into the space railed off +round the pulpit; and then came five or six rows of pews, stretching +across the whole breadth of the church, and almost solidly filled with +preachers of the Word. + +There were very old men among these--bent and decrepit veterans who +had known Lorenzo Dow, and had been ordained by elders who remembered +Francis Asbury and even Whitefield. They sat now in front places, +leaning forward with trembling and misshapen hands behind their hairy +ears, waiting to hear their names read out on the superannuated list, it +might be for the last time. + +The sight of these venerable Fathers in Israel was good to the eyes, +conjuring up, as it did, pictures of a time when a plain and homely +people had been served by a fervent and devoted clergy--by preachers +who lacked in learning and polish, no doubt, but who gave their lives +without dream of earthly reward to poverty and to the danger and wearing +toil of itinerant missions through the rude frontier settlements. These +pictures had for their primitive accessories log-huts, rough household +implements, coarse clothes, and patched old saddles which told of weary +years of journeying; but to even the least sympathetic vision there +shone upon them the glorified light of the Cross and Crown. Reverend +survivors of the heroic times, their very presence there--sitting +meekly at the altar-rail to hear again the published record of their +uselessness and of their dependence upon church charity--was in the +nature of a benediction. + +The large majority of those surrounding these patriarchs were +middle-aged men, generally of a robust type, with burly shoulders, and +bushing beards framing shaven upper lips, and who looked for the most +part like honest and prosperous farmers attired in their Sunday clothes. +As exceptions to this rule, there were scattered stray specimens of +a more urban class, worthies with neatly trimmed whiskers, white +neckcloths, and even indications of hair-oil--all eloquent of citified +charges; and now and again the eye singled out a striking and scholarly +face, at once strong and simple, and instinctively referred it to the +faculty of one of the several theological seminaries belonging to the +Conference. + +The effect of these faces as a whole was toward goodness, candor, +and imperturbable self-complacency rather than learning or mental +astuteness; and curiously enough it wore its pleasantest aspect on +the countenances of the older men. The impress of zeal and moral worth +seemed to diminish by regular gradations as one passed to younger faces; +and among the very beginners, who had been ordained only within the past +day or two, this decline was peculiarly marked. It was almost a relief +to note the relative smallness of their number, so plainly was it to be +seen that they were not the men their forbears had been. + +And if those aged, worn-out preachers facing the pulpit had gazed +instead backward over the congregation, it may be that here too their +old eyes would have detected a difference--what at least they would have +deemed a decline. + +But nothing was further from the minds of the members of the First M. E. +Church of Tecumseh than the suggestion that they were not an improvement +on those who had gone before them. They were undoubtedly the smartest +and most important congregation within the limits of the Nedahma +Conference, and this new church edifice of theirs represented alike +a scale of outlay and a standard of progressive taste in devotional +architecture unique in the Methodism of that whole section of the State. +They had a right to be proud of themselves, too. They belonged to the +substantial order of the community, with perhaps not so many very rich +men as the Presbyterians had, but on the other hand with far fewer +extremely poor folk than the Baptists were encumbered with. The pews +in the first four rows of their church rented for one hundred dollars +apiece--quite up to the Presbyterian highwater mark--and they now had +almost abolished free pews altogether. The oyster suppers given by their +Ladies' Aid Society in the basement of the church during the winter +had established rank among the fashionable events in Tecumseh's social +calendar. + +A comprehensive and satisfied perception of these advantages was +uppermost in the minds of this local audience, as they waited for the +Bishop to begin his reading. They had entertained this Bishop and his +Presiding Elders, and the rank and file of common preachers, in a style +which could not have been remotely approached by any other congregation +in the Conference. Where else, one would like to know, could the +Bishop have been domiciled in a Methodist house where he might have a +sitting-room all to himself, with his bedroom leading out of it? Every +clergyman present had been provided for in a private residence--even +down to the Licensed Exhorters, who were not really ministers at all +when you came to think of it, and who might well thank their stars +that the Conference had assembled among such open-handed people. There +existed a dim feeling that these Licensed Exhorters--an uncouth crew, +with country store-keepers and lumbermen and even a horse-doctor among +their number--had taken rather too much for granted, and were not +exhibiting quite the proper degree of gratitude over their reception. + +But a more important issue hung now imminent in the balance--was +Tecumseh to be fairly and honorably rewarded for her hospitality by +being given the pastor of her choice? + +All were agreed--at least among those who paid pew-rents--upon the great +importance of a change in the pulpit of the First M. E. Church. A change +in persons must of course take place, for their present pastor had +exhausted the three-year maximum of the itinerant system, but there was +needed much more than that. For a handsome and expensive church building +like this, and with such a modern and go-ahead congregation, it was +simply a vital necessity to secure an attractive and fashionable +preacher. They had held their own against the Presbyterians these past +few years only by the most strenuous efforts, and under the depressing +disadvantage of a minister who preached dreary out-of-date sermons, and +who lacked even the most rudimentary sense of social distinctions. The +Presbyterians had captured the new cashier of the Adams County Bank, who +had always gone to the Methodist Church in the town he came from, but +now was lost solely because of this tiresome old fossil of theirs; and +there were numerous other instances of the same sort, scarcely less +grievous. That this state of things must be altered was clear. + +The unusually large local attendance upon the sessions of the Conference +had given some of the more guileless of visiting brethren a high notion +of Tecumseh's piety; and perhaps even the most sophisticated stranger +never quite realized how strictly it was to be explained by the anxiety +to pick out a suitable champion for the fierce Presbyterian competition. +Big gatherings assembled evening after evening to hear the sermons of +those selected to preach, and the church had been almost impossibly +crowded at each of the three Sunday services. Opinions had naturally +differed a good deal during the earlier stages of this scrutiny, but +after last night's sermon there could be but one feeling. The man for +Tecumseh was the Reverend Theron Ware. + +The choice was an admirable one, from points of view much more exalted +than those of the local congregation. + +You could see Mr. Ware sitting there at the end of the row inside the +altar-rail--the tall, slender young man with the broad white brow, +thoughtful eyes, and features moulded into that regularity of strength +which used to characterize the American Senatorial type in those +far-away days of clean-shaven faces and moderate incomes before the War. +The bright-faced, comely, and vivacious young woman in the second side +pew was his wife--and Tecumseh noted with approbation that she knew +how to dress. There were really no two better or worthier people in the +building than this young couple, who sat waiting along with the rest to +hear their fate. But unhappily they had come to know of the effort being +made to bring them to Tecumseh; and their simple pride in the triumph of +the husband's fine sermon had become swallowed up in a terribly anxious +conflict of hope and fear. Neither of them could maintain a satisfactory +show of composure as the decisive moment approached. The vision of +translation from poverty and obscurity to such a splendid post as +this--truly it was too dazzling for tranquil nerves. + +The tedious Bishop had at last begun to call his roll of names, and the +good people of Tecumseh mentally ticked them off, one by one, as the +list expanded. They felt that it was like this Bishop--an unimportant +and commonplace figure in Methodism, not to be mentioned in the same +breath with Simpson and Janes and Kingsley--that he should begin with +the backwoods counties, and thrust all these remote and pitifully rustic +stations ahead of their own metropolitan charge. To these they listened +but listlessly--indifferent alike to the joy and to the dismay which he +was scattering among the divines before him. + +The announcements were being doled out with stumbling hesitation. After +each one a little half-rustling movement through the crowded rows of +clergymen passed mute judgment upon the cruel blow this brother had +received, the reward justly given to this other, the favoritism by which +a third had profited. The Presiding Elders, whose work all this was, +stared with gloomy and impersonal abstraction down upon the rows of +blackcoated humanity spread before them. The ministers returned this +fixed and perfunctory gaze with pale, set faces, only feebly masking the +emotions which each new name stirred somewhere among them. The Bishop +droned on laboriously, mispronouncing words and repeating himself as if +he were reading a catalogue of unfamiliar seeds. + +“First church of Tecumseh--Brother Abram G. Tisdale!” + +There was no doubt about it! These were actually the words that had been +uttered. After all this outlay, all this lavish hospitality, all this +sacrifice of time and patience in sitting through those sermons, to draw +from the grab-bag nothing better than--a Tisdale! + +A hum of outraged astonishment--half groan, half wrathful snort bounded +along from pew to pew throughout the body of the church. An echo of it +reached the Bishop, and so confused him that he haltingly repeated the +obnoxious line. Every local eye turned as by intuition to where the +calamitous Tisdale sat, and fastened malignantly upon him. + +Could anything be worse? This Brother Tisdale was past fifty--a +spindling, rickety, gaunt old man, with a long horse-like head and +vacantly solemn face, who kept one or the other of his hands continually +fumbling his bony jaw. He had been withdrawn from routine service for a +number of years, doing a little insurance canvassing on his own account, +and also travelling for the Book Concern. Now that he wished to return +to parochial work, the richest prize in the whole list, Tecumseh, was +given to him--to him who had never been asked to preach at a Conference, +and whose archaic nasal singing of “Greenland's Icy Mountains” had made +even the Licensed Exhorters grin! It was too intolerably dreadful to +think of! + +An embittered whisper to the effect that Tisdale was the Bishop's cousin +ran round from pew to pew. This did not happen to be true, but indignant +Tecumseh gave it entire credit. The throngs about the doors dwindled as +by magic, and the aisles cleared. Local interest was dead; and even some +of the pewholders rose and made their way out. One of these murmured +audibly to his neighbors as he departed that HIS pew could be had now +for sixty dollars. + +So it happened that when, a little later on, the appointment of Theron +Ware to Octavius was read out, none of the people of Tecumseh either +noted or cared. They had been deeply interested in him so long as +it seemed likely that he was to come to them--before their clearly +expressed desire for him had been so monstrously ignored. But now what +became of him was no earthly concern of theirs. + +After the Doxology had been sung and the Conference formally declared +ended, the Wares would fain have escaped from the flood of handshakings +and boisterous farewells which spread over the front part of the church. +But the clergymen were unusually insistent upon demonstrations of +cordiality among themselves--the more, perhaps, because it was evident +that the friendliness of their local hosts had suddenly evaporated--and, +of all men in the world, the present incumbent of the Octavius pulpit +now bore down upon them with noisy effusiveness, and defied evasion. + +“Brother Ware--we have never been interduced--but let me clasp your +hand! And--Sister Ware, I presume--yours too!” + +He was a portly man, who held his head back so that his face seemed all +jowl and mouth and sandy chin-whisker. He smiled broadly upon them with +half-closed eyes, and shook hands again. + +“I said to 'em,” he went on with loud pretence of heartiness, “the +minute I heerd your name called out for our dear Octavius, 'I must go +over an' interduce myself.' It will be a heavy cross to part with those +dear people, Brother Ware, but if anything could wean me to the notion, +so to speak, it would be the knowledge that you are to take up my labors +in their midst. Perhaps--ah--perhaps they ARE jest a trifle close in +money matters, but they come out strong on revivals. They'll need a good +deal o' stirrin' up about parsonage expenses, but, oh! such seasons +of grace as we've experienced there together!” He shook his head, and +closed his eyes altogether, as if transported by his memories. + +Brother Ware smiled faintly in decorous response, and bowed in silence; +but his wife resented the unctuous beaming of content on the other's +wide countenance, and could not restrain her tongue. + +“You seem to bear up tolerably well under this heavy cross, as you call +it,” she said sharply. + +“The will o' the Lord, Sister Ware--the will o' the Lord!” he responded, +disposed for the instant to put on his pompous manner with her, and then +deciding to smile again as he moved off. The circumstance that he was to +get an additional three hundred dollars yearly in his new place was not +mentioned between them. + +By a mutual impulse the young couple, when they had at last gained the +cool open air, crossed the street to the side where over-hanging trees +shaded the infrequent lamps, and they might be comparatively alone. The +wife had taken her husband's arm, and pressed closely upon it as they +walked. For a time no word passed, but finally he said, in a grave +voice,-- + +“It is hard upon you, poor girl.” + +Then she stopped short, buried her face against his shoulder, and fell +to sobbing. + +He strove with gentle, whispered remonstrance to win her from this mood, +and after a few moments she lifted her head and they resumed their walk, +she wiping her eyes as they went. + +“I couldn't keep it in a minute longer!” she said, catching her breath +between phrases. “Oh, WHY do they behave so badly to us, Theron?” + +He smiled down momentarily upon her as they moved along, and patted her +hand. + +“Somebody must have the poor places, Alice,” he said consolingly. “I am +a young man yet, remember. We must take our turn, and be patient. For +'we know that all things work together for good.'” + +“And your sermon was so head-and-shoulders above all the others!” she +went on breathlessly. “Everybody said so! And Mrs. Parshall heard it so +DIRECT that you were to be sent here, and I know she told everybody how +much I was lotting on it--I wish we could go right off tonight without +going to her house--I shall be ashamed to look her in the face--and +of course she knows we're poked off to that miserable Octavius.--Why, +Theron, they tell me it's a worse place even than we've got now!” + +“Oh, not at all,” he put in reassuringly. “It has grown to be a large +town--oh, quite twice the size of Tyre. It's a great Irish place, I've +heard. Our own church seems to be a good deal run down there. We must +build it up again; and the salary is better--a little.” + +But he too was depressed, and they walked on toward their temporary +lodging in a silence full of mutual grief. It was not until they had +come within sight of this goal that he prefaced by a little sigh of +resignation these further words,-- + +“Come--let us make the best of it, my girl! After all, we are in the +hands of the Lord.” + +“Oh, don't, Theron!” she said hastily. “Don't talk to me about the Lord +tonight; I can't bear it!” + + + +CHAPTER II + + +“Theron! Come out here! This is the funniest thing we have heard yet!” + +Mrs. Ware stood on the platform of her new kitchen stoop. The bright +flood of May-morning sunshine completely enveloped her girlish form, +clad in a simple, fresh-starched calico gown, and shone in golden +patches upon her light-brown hair. She had a smile on her face, as she +looked down at the milk boy standing on the bottom step--a smile of a +doubtful sort, stormily mirthful. + +“Come out a minute, Theron!” she called again; and in obedience to the +summons the tall lank figure of her husband appeared in the open doorway +behind her. A long loose, open dressing-gown dangled to his knees, +and his sallow, clean-shaven, thoughtful face wore a morning undress +expression of youthful good-nature. He leaned against the door-sill, +crossed his large carpet slippers, and looked up into the sky, drawing a +long satisfied breath. + +“What a beautiful morning!” he exclaimed. “The elms over there are full +of robins. We must get up earlier these mornings, and take some walks.” + +His wife indicated the boy with the milk-pail on his arm, by a wave of +her hand. + +“Guess what he tells me!” she said. “It wasn't a mistake at all, our +getting no milk yesterday or the Sunday before. It seems that that's the +custom here, at least so far as the parsonage is concerned.” + +“What's the matter, boy?” asked the young minister, drawling his words +a little, and putting a sense of placid irony into them. “Don't the cows +give milk on Sunday, then?” + +The boy was not going to be chaffed. “Oh, I'll bring you milk fast +enough on Sundays, if you give me the word,” he said with nonchalance. +“Only it won't last long.” + +“How do you mean--'won't last long'?”, asked Mrs. Ware, briskly. + +The boy liked her--both for herself, and for the doughnuts fried with +her own hands, which she gave him on his morning round. He dropped his +half-defiant tone. + +“The thing of it's this,” he explained. “Every new minister starts in +saying we can deliver to this house on Sundays, an' then gives us notice +to stop before the month's out. It's the trustees that does it.” + +The Rev. Theron Ware uncrossed his feet and moved out on to the stoop +beside his wife. “What's that you say?” he interjected. “Don't THEY take +milk on Sundays?” + +“Nope!” answered the boy. + +The young couple looked each other in the face for a puzzled moment, +then broke into a laugh. + +“Well, we'll try it, anyway,” said the preacher. “You can go on bringing +it Sundays till--till--” + +“Till you cave in an' tell me to stop,” put in the boy. “All right!” and +he was off on the instant, the dipper jangling loud incredulity in his +pail as he went. + +The Wares exchanged another glance as he disappeared round the corner +of the house, and another mutual laugh seemed imminent. Then the wife's +face clouded over, and she thrust her under-lip a trifle forward out of +its place in the straight and gently firm profile. + +“It's just what Wendell Phillips said,” she declared. “'The Puritan's +idea of hell is a place where everybody has to mind his own business.'” + +The young minister stroked his chin thoughtfully, and let his gaze +wander over the backyard in silence. The garden parts had not been +spaded up, but lay, a useless stretch of muddy earth, broken only by +last year's cabbage-stumps and the general litter of dead roots and +vegetation. The door of the tenantless chicken-coop hung wide open. +Before it was a great heap of ashes and cinders, soaked into grimy +hardness by the recent spring rains, and nearer still an ancient +chopping-block, round which were scattered old weather-beaten +hardwood knots which had defied the axe, parts of broken barrels and +packing-boxes, and a nameless debris of tin cans, clam-shells, and +general rubbish. It was pleasanter to lift the eyes, and look across the +neighbors' fences to the green, waving tops of the elms on the street +beyond. How lofty and beautiful they were in the morning sunlight, and +with what matchless charm came the song of the robins, freshly installed +in their haunts among the new pale-green leaves! Above them, in the +fresh, scented air, glowed the great blue dome, radiant with light and +the purification of spring. + +Theron lifted his thin, long-fingered hand, and passed it in a slow arch +of movement to comprehend this glorious upper picture. + +“What matter anyone's ideas of hell,” he said, in soft, grave tones, +“when we have that to look at, and listen to, and fill our lungs with? +It seems to me that we never FEEL quite so sure of God's goodness at +other times as we do in these wonderful new mornings of spring.” + +The wife followed his gesture, and her eyes rested for a brief moment, +with pleased interest, upon the trees and the sky. Then they reverted, +with a harsher scrutiny, to the immediate foreground. + +“Those Van Sizers ought to be downright ashamed of themselves,” she +said, “to leave everything in such a muss as this. You MUST see about +getting a man to clean up the yard, Theron. It's no use your thinking of +doing it yourself. In the first place, it wouldn't look quite the thing, +and, second, you'd never get at it in all your born days. Or if a man +would cost too much, we might get a boy. I daresay Harvey would come +around, after he'd finished with his milk-route in the forenoon. We +could give him his dinner, you know, and I'd bake him some cookies. He's +got the greatest sweet-tooth you ever heard of. And then perhaps if we +gave him a quarter, or say half a dollar, he'd be quite satisfied. I'll +speak to him in the morning. We can save a dollar or so that way.” + +“I suppose every little does help,” commented Mr. Ware, with a doleful +lack of conviction. Then his face brightened. “I tell you what let's +do!” he exclaimed. “Get on your street dress, and we'll take a long +walk, way out into the country. You've never seen the basin, where they +float the log-rafts in, or the big sawmills. The hills beyond give +you almost mountain effects, they are so steep; and they say there's a +sulphur spring among the slate on the hill-side, somewhere, with trees +all about it; and we could take some sandwiches with us--” + +“You forget,” put in Mrs. Ware,--“those trustees are coming at eleven.” + +“So they are!” assented the young minister, with something like a sigh. +He cast another reluctant, lingering glance at the sunlit elm boughs, +and, turning, went indoors. + +He loitered for an aimless minute in the kitchen, where his wife, her +sleeves rolled to the elbow, now resumed the interrupted washing of the +breakfast dishes--perhaps with vague visions of that ever-receding +time to come when they might have a hired girl to do such work. Then +he wandered off into the room beyond, which served them alike as +living-room and study, and let his eye run along the two rows of books +that constituted his library. He saw nothing which he wanted to read. +Finally he did take down “Paley's Evidences,” and seated himself in +the big armchair--that costly and oversized anomaly among his humble +house-hold gods; but the book lay unopened on his knee, and his eyelids +half closed themselves in sign of revery. + +This was his third charge--this Octavius which they both knew they were +going to dislike so much. + +The first had been in the pleasant dairy and hop country many miles to +the south, on another watershed and among a different kind of people. +Perhaps, in truth, the grinding labor, the poverty of ideas, the +systematic selfishness of later rural experience, had not been lacking +there; but they played no part in the memories which now he passed in +tender review. He recalled instead the warm sunshine on the fertile +expanse of fields; the sleek, well-fed herds of “milkers” coming +lowing down the road under the maples; the prosperous and hospitable +farmhouses, with their orchards in blossom and their spacious red barns; +the bountiful boiled dinners which cheery housewives served up with +their own skilled hands. Of course, he admitted to himself, it would +not be the same if he were to go back there again. He was conscious of +having moved along--was it, after all, an advance?--to a point where it +was unpleasant to sit at table with the unfragrant hired man, and still +worse to encounter the bucolic confusion between the functions of +knives and forks. But in those happy days--young, zealous, himself +farm-bred--these trifles had been invisible to him, and life there +among those kindly husbandmen had seemed, by contrast with the gaunt +surroundings and gloomy rule of the theological seminary, luxuriously +abundant and free. + +It was there too that the crowning blessedness of his youth--nay, should +he not say of all his days?--had come to him. There he had first seen +Alice Hastings,--the bright-eyed, frank-faced, serenely self-reliant +girl, who now, less than four years thereafter, could be heard washing +the dishes out in the parsonage kitchen. + +How wonderful she had seemed to him then! How beautiful and +all-beneficent the miracle still appeared! Though herself the daughter +of a farmer, her presence on a visit within the borders of his remote +country charge had seemed to make everything, there a hundred times +more countrified than it had ever been before. She was fresh from the +refinements of a town seminary: she read books; it was known that +she could play upon the piano. Her clothes, her manners, her way of +speaking, the readiness of her thoughts and sprightly tongue--not +least, perhaps, the imposing current understanding as to her father's +wealth--placed her on a glorified pinnacle far away from the girls of +the neighborhood. These honest and good-hearted creatures indeed +called ceaseless attention to her superiority by their deference and +open-mouthed admiration, and treated it as the most natural thing in the +world that their young minister should be visibly “taken” with her. + +Theron Ware, in truth, left this first pastorate of his the following +spring, in a transfiguring halo of romance. His new appointment was +to Tyre--a somewhat distant village of traditional local pride and +substance--and he was to be married only a day or so before entering +upon his pastoral duties there. The good people among whom he had begun +his ministry took kindly credit to themselves that he had met his bride +while she was “visiting round” their countryside. In part by jocose +inquiries addressed to the expectant groom, in part by the confidences +of the postmaster at the corners concerning the bulk and frequency of +the correspondence passing between Theron and the now remote Alice--they +had followed the progress of the courtship through the autumn and +winter with friendly zest. When he returned from the Conference, to say +good-bye and confess the happiness that awaited him, they gave him a +“donation”--quite as if he were a married pastor with a home of his +own, instead of a shy young bachelor, who received his guests and their +contributions in the house where he boarded. + +He went away with tears of mingled regret and proud joy in his eyes, +thinking a good deal upon their predictions of a distinguished career +before him, feeling infinitely strengthened and upborne by the hearty +fervor of their God-speed, and taking with him nearly two wagon-loads of +vegetables, apples, canned preserves, assorted furniture, glass dishes, +cheeses, pieced bedquilts, honey, feathers, and kitchen utensils. + +Of the three years' term in Tyre, it was pleasantest to dwell upon the +beginning. + +The young couple--after being married out at Alice's home in an +adjoining county, under the depressing conditions of a hopelessly +bedridden mother, and a father and brothers whose perceptions were +obviously closed to the advantages of a matrimonial connection with +Methodism--came straight to the house which their new congregation +rented as a parsonage. The impulse of reaction from the rather grim +cheerlessness of their wedding lent fresh gayety to their lighthearted, +whimsical start at housekeeping. They had never laughed so much in all +their lives as they did now in these first months--over their weird +ignorance of domestic details; with its mishaps, mistakes, and +entertaining discoveries; over the comical super-abundances and +shortcomings of their “donation” outfit; over the thousand and one +quaint experiences of their novel relation to each other, to the +congregation, and to the world of Tyre at large. + +Theron, indeed, might be said never to have laughed before. Up to that +time no friendly student of his character, cataloguing his admirable +qualities, would have thought of including among them a sense of humor, +much less a bent toward levity. Neither his early strenuous battle to +get away from the farm and achieve such education as should serve +to open to him the gates of professional life, nor the later wave of +religious enthusiasm which caught him up as he stood on the border-land +of manhood, and swept him off into a veritable new world of views and +aspirations, had been a likely school of merriment. People had prized +him for his innocent candor and guileless mind, for his good heart, his +pious zeal, his modesty about gifts notably above the average, but it +had occurred to none to suspect in him a latent funny side. + +But who could be solemn where Alice was?--Alice in a quandary over the +complications of her cooking stove; Alice boiling her potatoes all day, +and her eggs for half an hour; Alice ordering twenty pounds of steak and +half a pound of sugar, and striving to extract a breakfast beverage from +the unground coffee-bean? Clearly not so tenderly fond and sympathetic a +husband as Theron. He began by laughing because she laughed, and grew by +swift stages to comprehend, then frankly to share, her amusement. From +this it seemed only a step to the development of a humor of his own, +doubling, as it were, their sportive resources. He found himself +discovering a new droll aspect in men and things; his phraseology took +on a dryly playful form, fittingly to present conceits which danced up, +unabashed, quite into the presence of lofty and majestic truths. He +got from this nothing but satisfaction; it obviously involved increased +claims to popularity among his parishioners, and consequently magnified +powers of usefulness, and it made life so much more a joy and a thing to +be thankful for. Often, in the midst of the exchange of merry quip +and whimsical suggestion, bright blossoms on that tree of strength and +knowledge which he felt expanding now with a mighty outward pushing +in all directions, he would lapse into deep gravity, and ponder with a +swelling heart the vast unspeakable marvel of his blessedness, in being +thus enriched and humanized by daily communion with the most worshipful +of womankind. + +This happy and good young couple took the affections of Tyre by storm. +The Methodist Church there had at no time held its head very high among +the denominations, and for some years back had been in a deplorably +sinking state, owing first to the secession of the Free Methodists and +then to the incumbency of a pastor who scandalized the community by +marrying a black man to a white woman. But the Wares changed all this. +Within a month the report of Theron's charm and force in the pulpit was +crowding the church building to its utmost capacity--and that, too, +with some of Tyre's best people. Equally winning was the atmosphere of +jollity and juvenile high spirits which pervaded the parsonage under +these new conditions, and which Theron and Alice seemed to diffuse +wherever they went. + +Thus swimmingly their first year sped, amid universal acclaim. Mrs. Ware +had a recognized social place, quite outside the restricted limits of +Methodism, and shone in it with an unflagging brilliancy altogether +beyond the traditions of Tyre. Delightful as she was in other people's +houses, she was still more naively fascinating in her own quaint and +somewhat harum-scarum domicile; and the drab, two-storied, tin-roofed +little parsonage might well have rattled its clapboards to see if it +was not in dreamland--so gay was the company, so light were the hearts, +which it sheltered in these new days. As for Theron, the period was one +of incredible fructification and output. He scarcely recognized for his +own the mind which now was reaching out on all sides with the arms of +an octopus, exploring unsuspected mines of thought, bringing in rich +treasures of deduction, assimilating, building, propounding as if by +some force quite independent of him. He could not look without blinking +timidity at the radiance of the path stretched out before him, leading +upward to dazzling heights of greatness. + +At the end of this first year the Wares suddenly discovered that they +were eight hundred dollars in debt. + +The second year was spent in arriving, by slow stages and with a cruel +wealth of pathetic detail, at a realization of what being eight hundred +dollars in debt meant. + +It was not in their elastic and buoyant natures to grasp the full +significance of the thing at once, or easily. Their position in the +social structure, too, was all against clear-sightedness in material +matters. A general, for example, uniformed and in the saddle, advancing +through the streets with his staff in the proud wake of his division's +massed walls of bayonets, cannot be imagined as quailing at the glance +thrown at him by his tailor on the sidewalk. Similarly, a man invested +with sacerdotal authority, who baptizes, marries, and buries, who +delivers judgments from the pulpit which may not be questioned in his +hearing, and who receives from all his fellow-men a special deference of +manner and speech, is in the nature of things prone to see the grocer's +book and the butcher's bill through the little end of the telescope. + +The Wares at the outset had thought it right to trade as exclusively as +possible with members of their own church society. This loyalty became +a principal element of martyrdom. Theron had his creditors seated in +serried rows before him, Sunday after Sunday. Alice had her critics +consolidated among those whom it was her chief duty to visit and profess +friendship for. These situations now began, by regular gradations, to +unfold their terrors. At the first intimation of discontent, the Wares +made what seemed to them a sweeping reduction in expenditure. When +they heard that Brother Potter had spoken of them as “poor pay,” they +dismissed their hired girl. A little later, Theron brought himself +to drop a laboriously casual suggestion as to a possible increase of +salary, and saw with sinking spirits the faces of the stewards freeze +with dumb disapprobation. Then Alice paid a visit to her parents, only +to find her brothers doggedly hostile to the notion of her being helped, +and her father so much under their influence that the paltry sum he +dared offer barely covered the expenses of her journey. With another +turn of the screw, they sold the piano she had brought with her from +home, and cut themselves down to the bare necessities of life, neither +receiving company nor going out. They never laughed now, and even smiles +grew rare. + +By this time Theron's sermons, preached under that stony glare of +people to whom he owed money, had degenerated to a pitiful level of +commonplace. As a consequence, the attendance became once more +confined to the insufficient membership of the church, and the trustees +complained of grievously diminished receipts. When the Wares, grown +desperate, ventured upon the experiment of trading outside the bounds of +the congregation, the trustees complained again, this time peremptorily. + +Thus the second year dragged itself miserably to an end. Nor was +relief possible, because the Presiding Elder knew something of the +circumstances, and felt it his duty to send Theron back for a third +year, to pay his debts, and drain the cup of disciplinary medicine to +its dregs. + +The worst has been told. Beginning in utter blackness, this third year, +in the second month, brought a change as welcome as it was unlooked for. +An elderly and important citizen of Tyre, by name Abram Beekman, whom +Theron knew slightly, and had on occasions seen sitting in one of +the back pews near the door, called one morning at the parsonage, and +electrified its inhabitants by expressing a desire to wipe off all their +old scores for them, and give them a fresh start in life. As he put the +suggestion, they could find no excuse for rejecting it. He had watched +them, and heard a good deal about them, and took a fatherly sort of +interest in them. He did not deprecate their regarding the aid he +proffered them in the nature of a loan, but they were to make themselves +perfectly easy about it, and never return it at all unless they could +spare it sometime with entire convenience, and felt that they wanted to +do so. As this amazing windfall finally took shape, it enabled the Wares +to live respectably through the year, and to leave Tyre with something +over one hundred dollars in hand. + +It enabled them, too, to revive in a chastened form their old dream of +ultimate success and distinction for Theron. He had demonstrated clearly +enough to himself, during that brief season of unrestrained effulgence, +that he had within him the making of a great pulpit orator. He set +to work now, with resolute purpose, to puzzle out and master all the +principles which underlie this art, and all the tricks that adorn its +superstructure. He studied it, fastened his thoughts upon it, talked +daily with Alice about it. In the pulpit, addressing those people who +had so darkened his life and crushed the first happiness out of his +home, he withheld himself from any oratorical display which could afford +them gratification. He put aside, as well; the thought of attracting +once more the non-Methodists of Tyre, whose early enthusiasm had +spread such pitfalls for his unwary feet. He practised effects now +by piecemeal, with an alert ear, and calculation in every tone. An +ambition, at once embittered and tearfully solicitous, possessed him. + +He reflected now, this morning, with a certain incredulous interest, +upon that unworthy epoch in his life history, which seemed so far behind +him, and yet had come to a close only a few weeks ago. The opportunity +had been given him, there at the Tecumseh Conference, to reveal his +quality. He had risen to its full limit of possibilities, and preached +a great sermon in a manner which he at least knew was unapproachable. He +had made his most powerful bid for the prize place, had trebly deserved +success--and had been banished instead to Octavius! + +The curious thing was that he did not resent his failure. Alice had +taken it hard, but he himself was conscious of a sense of spiritual +gain. The influence of the Conference, with its songs and seasons of +prayer and high pressure of emotional excitement, was still strong upon +him. It seemed years and years since the religious side of him had been +so stirred into motion. He felt, as he lay back in the chair, and folded +his hands over the book on his knee, that he had indeed come forth +from the fire purified and strengthened. The ministry to souls diseased +beckoned him with a new and urgent significance. He smiled to remember +that Mr. Beekman, speaking in his shrewd and pointed way, had asked him +whether, looking it all over, he didn't think it would be better for +him to study law, with a view to sliding out of the ministry when a good +chance offered. It amazed him now to recall that he had taken this +hint seriously, and even gone to the length of finding out what books +law-students began upon. + +Thank God! all that was past and gone now. The Call sounded, resonant +and imperative, in his ears, and there was no impulse of his heart, no +fibre of his being, which did not stir in devout response. He closed his +eyes, to be the more wholly alone with the Spirit, that moved him. + +The jangling of a bell in the hallway broke sharply upon his +meditations, and on the instant his wife thrust in her head from the +kitchen. + +“You'll have to go to the door, Theron!” she warned him, in a loud, +swift whisper. “I'm not fit to be seen. It is the trustees.” + +“All right,” he said, and rose slowly from sprawling recumbency to his +feet. “I'll go.” + +“And don't forget,” she added strenuously; “I believe in Levi Gorringe! +I've seen him go past here with his rod and fish-basket twice in eight +days, and that's a good sign. He's got a soft side somewhere. And just +keep a stiff upper lip about the gas, and don't you let them jew you +down a solitary cent on that sidewalk.” + +“All right,” said Theron, again, and moved reluctantly toward the hall +door. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +When the three trustees had been shown in by the Rev. Mr. Ware, and had +taken seats, an awkward little pause ensued. The young minister looked +doubtingly from one face to another, the while they glanced with +inquiring interest about the room, noting the pictures and appraising +the furniture in their minds. + +The obvious leader of the party, Loren Pierce, a rich quarryman, was an +old man of medium size and mean attire, with a square, beardless face as +hard and impassive in expression as one of his blocks of limestone. The +irregular, thin-lipped mouth, slightly sunken, and shut with vice-like +firmness, the short snub nose, and the little eyes squinting from +half-closed lids beneath slightly marked brows, seemed scarcely to +attain to the dignity of features, but evaded attention instead, as if +feeling that they were only there at all from plain necessity, and ought +not to be taken into account. Mr. Pierce's face did not know how to +smile--what was the use of smiles?--but its whole surface radiated +secretiveness. Portrayed on canvas by a master brush, with a ruff or a +red robe for masquerade, generations of imaginative amateurs would +have seen in it vast reaching plots, the skeletons of a dozen dynastic +cupboards, the guarded mysteries of half a century's international +diplomacy. The amateurs would have been wrong again. There was nothing +behind Mr. Pierce's juiceless countenance more weighty than a general +determination to exact seven per cent for his money, and some specific +notions about capturing certain brickyards which were interfering with +his quarry-sales. But Octavius watched him shamble along its sidewalks +quite as the Vienna of dead and forgotten yesterday might have watched +Metternich. + +Erastus Winch was of a breezier sort--a florid, stout, and sandy man, +who spent most of his life driving over evil country roads in a buggy, +securing orders for dairy furniture and certain allied lines of farm +utensils. This practice had given him a loud voice and a deceptively +hearty manner, to which the other avocation of cheese-buyer, which he +pursued at the Board of Trade meetings every Monday afternoon, had added +a considerable command of persuasive yet non-committal language. To +look at him, still more to hear him, one would have sworn he was a good +fellow, a trifle rough and noisy, perhaps, but all right at bottom. +But the County Clerk of Dearborn County could have told you of +agriculturists who knew Erastus from long and unhappy experience, and +who held him to be even a tighter man than Loren Pierce in the matter of +a mortgage. + +The third trustee, Levi Gorringe, set one wondering at the very first +glance what on earth he was doing in that company. Those who had known +him longest had the least notion; but it may be added that no one knew +him well. He was a lawyer, and had lived in Octavius for upwards of ten +years; that is to say, since early manhood. He had an office on the main +street, just under the principal photograph gallery. Doubtless he was +sometimes in this office; but his fellow-townsmen saw him more often +in the street doorway, with the stairs behind him, and the flaring +show-cases of the photographer on either side, standing with his hands +in his pockets and an unlighted cigar in his mouth, looking at nothing +in particular. About every other day he went off after breakfast into +the country roundabout, sometimes with a rod, sometimes with a gun, but +always alone. He was a bachelor, and slept in a room at the back of +his office, cooking some of his meals himself, getting others at a +restaurant close by. Though he had little visible practice, he was +understood to be well-to-do and even more, and people tacitly inferred +that he “shaved notes.” The Methodists of Octavius looked upon him as +a queer fish, and through nearly a dozen years had never quite outgrown +their hebdomadal tendency to surprise at seeing him enter their church. +He had never, it is true, professed religion, but they had elected him +as a trustee now for a number of terms, all the same--partly because he +was their only lawyer, partly because he, like both his colleagues, held +a mortgage on the church edifice and lot. In person, Mr. Gorringe was a +slender man, with a skin of a clear, uniform citron tint, black waving +hair, and dark gray eyes, and a thin, high-featured face. He wore +a mustache and pointed chin-tuft; and, though he was of New England +parentage and had never been further south than Ocean Grove, he +presented a general effect of old Mississippian traditions and tastes +startlingly at variance with the standards of Dearborn County Methodism. +Nothing could convince some of the elder sisters that he was not a +drinking man. + +The three visitors had completed their survey of the room now; and Loren +Pierce emitted a dry, harsh little cough, as a signal that business +was about to begin. At this sound, Winch drew up his feet, and Gorringe +untied a parcel of account-books and papers that he held on his knee. +Theron felt that his countenance must be exhibiting to the assembled +brethren an unfortunate sense of helplessness in their hands. He tried +to look more resolute, and forced his lips into a smile. + +“Brother Gorringe allus acts as Seckertary,” said Erastus Winch, beaming +broadly upon the minister, as if the mere mention of the fact promoted +jollity. “That's it, Brother Gorringe,--take your seat at Brother Ware's +desk. Mind the Dominie's pen don't play tricks on you, an' start off +writin' out sermons instid of figgers.” The humorist turned to Theron +as the lawyer walked over to the desk at the window. “I allus have to +caution him about that,” he remarked with great joviality. “An' do YOU +look out afterwards, Brother Ware, or else you'll catch that pen o' +yours scribblin' lawyer's lingo in place o' the Word.” + +Theron felt bound to exhibit a grin in acknowledgment of this +pleasantry. The lawyer's change of position had involved some shifting +of the others' chairs, and the young minister found himself directly +confronted by Brother Pierce's hard and colorless old visage. Its little +eyes were watching him, as through a mask, and under their influence +the smile of politeness fled from his lips. The lawyer on his right, the +cheese-buyer to the left, seemed to recede into distance as he for the +moment returned the gaze of the quarryman. He waited now for him to +speak, as if the others were of no importance. + +“We are a plain sort o' folks up in these parts,” said Brother Pierce, +after a slight further pause. His voice was as dry and rasping as his +cough, and its intonations were those of authority. “We walk here,” he +went on, eying the minister with a sour regard, “in a meek an' humble +spirit, in the straight an' narrow way which leadeth unto life. We ain't +gone traipsin' after strange gods, like some people that call themselves +Methodists in other places. We stick by the Discipline an' the ways of +our fathers in Israel. No new-fangled notions can go down here. Your +wife'd better take them flowers out of her bunnit afore next Sunday.” + +Silence possessed the room for a few moments, the while Theron, +pale-faced and with brows knit, studied the pattern of the ingrain +carpet. Then he lifted his head, and nodded it in assent. “Yes,” + he said; “we will do nothing by which our 'brother stumbleth, or is +offended, or is made weak.'” + +Brother Pierce's parchment face showed no sign of surprise or pleasure +at this easy submission. “Another thing: We don't want no book-learnin' +or dictionary words in our pulpit,” he went on coldly. “Some folks may +stomach 'em; we won't. Them two sermons o' yours, p'r'aps they'd do down +in some city place; but they're like your wife's bunnit here, they're +too flowery to suit us. What we want to hear is the plain, old-fashioned +Word of God, without any palaver or 'hems and ha's. They tell me +there's some parts where hell's treated as played-out--where our +ministers don't like to talk much about it because people don't want to +hear about it. Such preachers ought to be put out. They ain't Methodists +at all. What we want here, sir, is straight-out, flat-footed hell--the +burnin' lake o' fire an' brim-stone. Pour it into 'em, hot an' strong. +We can't have too much of it. Work in them awful deathbeds of Voltaire +an' Tom Paine, with the Devil right there in the room, reachin' for +'em, an' they yellin' for fright; that's what fills the anxious seat an' +brings in souls hand over fist.” + +Theron's tongue dallied for an instant with the temptation to comment +upon these old-wife fables, which were so dear to the rural religious +heart when he and I were boys. But it seemed wiser to only nod again, +and let his mentor go on. + +“We ain't had no trouble with the Free Methodists here,” continued +Brother Pierce, “jest because we kept to the old paths, an' seek for +salvation in the good old way. Everybody can shout 'Amen!' as loud +and as long as the Spirit moves him, with us. Some one was sayin' you +thought we ought to have a choir and an organ. No, sirree! No such +tom-foolery for us! You'll only stir up feelin' agin yourself by hintin' +at such things. And then, too, our folks don't take no stock in all that +pack o' nonsense about science, such as tellin' the age of the earth by +crackin' up stones. I've b'en in the quarry line all my life, an' I know +it's all humbug! Why, they say some folks are goin' round now preachin' +that our grandfathers were all monkeys. That comes from departin' +from the ways of our forefathers, an puttin' in organs an' choirs, an' +deckin' our women-folks out with gewgaws, an' apin' the fashions of the +worldly. I shouldn't wonder if them kind did have some monkey blood in +'em. You'll find we're a different sort here.” + +The young minister preserved silence for a little, until it became +apparent that the old trustee had had his say out. Even then he raised +his head slowly, and at last made answer in a hesitating and irresolute +way. + +“You have been very frank,” he said. “I am obliged to you. A clergyman +coming to a new charge cannot be better served than by having +laid before him a clear statement of the views and--and spiritual +tendencies--of his new flock, quite at the outset. I feel it to be +of especial value in this case, because I am young in years and in my +ministry, and am conscious of a great weakness of the flesh. I can +see how daily contact with a people so attached to the old, simple, +primitive Methodism of Wesley and Asbury may be a source of much +strength to me. I may take it,” he added upon second thought, with an +inquiring glance at Mr. Winch, “that Brother Pierce's description of our +charge, and its tastes and needs, meets with your approval?” + +Erastus Winch nodded his head and smiled expansively. “Whatever Brother +Pierce says, goes!” he declared. The lawyer, sitting behind at the desk +by the window, said nothing. + +“The place is jest overrun with Irish,” Brother Pierce began again. +“They've got two Catholic churches here now to our one, and they do jest +as they blamed please at the Charter elections. It'd be a good idee to +pitch into Catholics in general whenever you can. You could make a hit +that way. I say the State ought to make 'em pay taxes on their church +property. They've no right to be exempted, because they ain't Christians +at all. They're idolaters, that's what they are! I know 'em! I've had +'em in my quarries for years, an' they ain't got no idee of decency or +fair dealin'. Every time the price of stone went up, every man of 'em +would jine to screw more wages out o' me. Why, they used to keep account +o' the amount o' business I done, an' figger up my profits, an' have +the face to come an' talk to me about 'em, as if that had anything to do +with wages. It's my belief their priests put 'em up to it. People +don't begin to reelize--that church of idolatry 'll be the ruin o' this +country, if it ain't checked in time. Jest you go at 'em hammer 'n' +tongs! I've got Eyetalians in the quarries now. They're sensible +fellows: they know when they're well off--a dollar a day, an' they're +satisfied, an' everything goes smooth.” + +“But they're Catholics, the same as the Irish,” suddenly interjected the +lawyer, from his place by the window. Theron pricked up his ears at the +sound of his voice. There was an anti-Pierce note in it, so to speak, +which it did him good to hear. The consciousness of sympathy began on +the instant to inspire him with courage. + +“I know some people SAY they are,” Brother Pierce guardedly retorted +“but I've summered an' wintered both kinds, an' I hold to it they're +different. I grant ye, the Eyetalians ARE some given to jabbin' knives +into each other, but they never git up strikes, an' they don't grumble +about wages. Why, look at the way they live--jest some weeds an' yarbs +dug up on the roadside, an' stewed in a kettle with a piece o' fat the +size o' your finger, an' a loaf o' bread, an' they're happy as a king. +There's some sense in THAT; but the Irish, they've got to have meat an' +potatoes an' butter jest as if--as if--” + +“As if they'd b'en used to 'em at home,” put in Mr. Winch, to help his +colleague out. + +The lawyer ostentatiously drew up his chair to the desk, and began +turning over the leaves of his biggest book. “It's getting on toward +noon, gentlemen,” he said, in an impatient voice. + +The business meeting which followed was for a considerable time confined +to hearing extracts from the books and papers read in a swift and formal +fashion by Mr. Gorringe. If this was intended to inform the new pastor +of the exact financial situation in Octavius, it lamentably failed of +its purpose. Theron had little knowledge of figures; and though he +tried hard to listen, and to assume an air of comprehension, he did not +understand much of what he heard. In a general way he gathered that the +church property was put down at $12,000, on which there was a debt of +$4,800. The annual expenses were $2,250, of which the principal items +were $800 for his salary, $170 for the rent of the parsonage, and $319 +for interest on the debt. It seemed that last year the receipts had +fallen just under $2,000, and they now confronted the necessity of +making good this deficit during the coming year, as well as increasing +the regular revenues. Without much discussion, it was agreed that they +should endeavor to secure the services of a celebrated “debt-raiser,” + early in the autumn, and utilize him in the closing days of a revival. + +Theron knew this “debt-raiser,” and had seen him at work--a burly, +bustling, vulgar man who took possession of the pulpit as if it were an +auctioneer's block, and pursued the task of exciting liberality in the +bosoms of the congregation by alternating prayer, anecdote, song, +and cheap buffoonery in a manner truly sickening. Would it not be +preferable, he feebly suggested, to raise the money by a festival, or +fair, or some other form of entertainment which the ladies could manage? + +Brother Pierce shook his head with contemptuous emphasis. “Our +women-folks ain't that kind,” he said. “They did try to hold a sociable +once, but nobody came, and we didn't raise more 'n three or four +dollars. It ain't their line. They lack the worldly arts. As the +Discipline commands, they avoid the evil of putting on gold and costly +apparel, and taking such diversions as cannot be used in the name of the +Lord Jesus.” + +“Well--of course--if you prefer the 'debt-raiser'--” Theron began, and +took the itemized account from Gorringe's knee as an excuse for not +finishing the hateful sentence. + +He looked down the foolscap sheet, line by line, with no special sense +of what it signified, until his eye caught upon this little section of +the report, bracketed by itself in the Secretary's neat hand: + + INTEREST CHARGE. + + First mortgage (1873) .. $1,000 ... (E. Winch) @7.. $ 70 + Second mortgage (1776).. 1,700 ... (L. Gorringe) @6.. 102 + Third mortgage (1878)... 2,100 ... (L. Pierce) @7.. 147 + ------- ----- + $4,800 $319 + +It was no news to him that the three mortgages on the church property +were held by the three trustees. But as he looked once more, another +feature of the thing struck him as curious. + +“I notice that the rates of interest vary,” he remarked without +thinking, and then wished the words unsaid, for the two trustees in view +moved uneasily on their seats. + +“Oh, that's nothing,” exclaimed Erastus Winch, with a boisterous display +of jollity. “It's only Brother Gorringe's pleasant little way of making +a contribution to our funds. You will notice that, at the date of all +these mortgages, the State rate of interest was seven per cent. Since +then it's b'en lowered to six. Well, when that happened, you see, +Brother Gorringe, not being a professin' member, and so not bound by our +rules, he could just as well as not let his interest down a cent. But +Brother Pierce an' me, we talked it over, an' we made up our minds +we were tied hand an' foot by our contract. You know how strong the +Discipline lays it down that we must be bound to the letter of our +agreements. That bein' so, we seen it in the light of duty not to change +what we'd set our hands to. That's how it is, Brother Ware.” + +“I understand,” said Theron, with an effort at polite calmness of tone. +“And--is there anything else?” + +“There's this,” broke in Brother Pierce: “we're commanded to be +law-abiding people, an' seven per cent WAS the law an' would be now if +them ragamuffins in the Legislation--” + +“Surely we needn't go further into that,” interrupted the minister, +conscious of a growing stiffness in his moral spine. “Have we any other +business before us?” + +Brother Pierce's little eyes snapped, and the wrinkles in his forehead +deepened angrily. “Business?” he demanded. “Yes, plenty of it. We've +got to reduce expenses. We're nigh onto $300 behind-hand this minute. +Besides your house-rent, you get $800 free an' clear--that is $15.38 +every week, an' only you an' your wife to keep out of it. Why, when +I was your age, young man, and after that too, I was glad to get $4 a +week.” + +“I don't think my salary is under discussion, Mr. Pierce--” + +“BROTHER Pierce!” suggested Winch, in a half-shuckling undertone. + +“Brother Pierce, then!” echoed Theron, impatiently. “The Quarterly +Conference and the Estimating Committee deal with that. The trustees +have no more to do with it than the man in the moon.” + +“Come, come, Brother Ware,” put in Erastus Winch, “we mustn't have no +hard feelin's. Brotherly love is what we're all lookin' after. Brother +Pierce's meanin' wasn't agin your drawin' your full salary, every cent +of it, only--only there are certain little things connected with the +parsonage here that we feel you ought to bear. F'r instance, there's the +new sidewalk we had to lay in front of the house here only a month ago. +Of course, if the treasury was flush we wouldn't say a word about it. +An' then there's the gas bill here. Seein' as you get your rent for +nothin', it don't seem much to ask that you should see to lightin' the +place yourself.” + +“No, I don't think that either is a proper charge upon me,” interposed +Theron. “I decline to pay them.” + +“We can have the gas shut off,” remarked Brother Pierce, coldly. + +“As soon as you like,” responded the minister, sitting erect and tapping +the carpet nervously with his foot. “Only you must understand that I will +take the whole matter to the Quarterly Conference in July. I already see +a good many other interesting questions about the financial management +of this church which might be appropriately discussed there.” + +“Oh, come, Brother Ware!” broke in Trustee Winch, with a somewhat +agitated assumption of good-feeling. “Surely these are matters we ought +to settle amongst ourselves. We never yet asked outsiders to meddle with +our business here. It's our motto, Brother Ware. I say, if you've got a +motto, stand by it.” + +“Well, my motto,” said Theron, “is to be behaved decently to by those +with whom I have to deal; and I also propose to stand by it.” + +Brother Pierce rose gingerly to his feet, with the hesitation of an old +man not sure about his knees. When he had straightened himself, he put +on his hat, and eyed the minister sternly from beneath its brim. + +“The Lord gives us crosses grievous to our natur',” he said, “an' we're +told to bear 'em cheerfully as long as they're on our backs; but there +ain't nothin' said agin our unloadin' 'em in the ditch the minute we git +the chance. I guess you won't last here more 'n a twelvemonth.” + +He pulled his soft and discolored old hat down over his brows with a +significantly hostile nod, and, turning, stumped toward the hall-door +without offering to shake hands. + +The other trustees had risen likewise, in tacit recognition that the +meeting was over. Winch clasped the minister's hand in his own broad, +hard palm, and squeezed it in an exuberant grip. “Don't mind his little +ways, Brother Ware,” he urged in a loud, unctuous whisper, with a +grinning backward nod: “he's a trifle skittish sometimes when you don't +give him free rein; but he's all wool an' a yard wide when it comes to +right-down hard-pan religion. My love to Sister Ware;” and he followed +the senior trustee into the hall. + +Mr. Gorringe had been tying up his books and papers. He came now with +the bulky parcel under his arm, and his hat and stick in the other hand. +He could give little but his thumb to Theron to shake. His face wore +a grave expression, and not a line relaxed as, catching the minister's +look, he slowly covered his left eye in a deliberate wink. + + + +“Well?--and how did it go off?” asked Alice, from where she knelt by the +oven door, a few minutes later. + +For answer, Theron threw himself wearily into the big old farm +rocking-chair on the other side of the stove, and shook his head with a +lengthened sigh. + +“If it wasn't for that man Gorringe of yours,” he said dejectedly, “I +think I should feel like going off--and learning a trade.” + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +On the following Sunday, young Mrs. Ware sat alone in the preacher's pew +through the morning service, and everybody noted that the roses had +been taken from her bonnet. In the evening she was absent, and after +the doxology and benediction several people, under the pretence of +solicitude for her health, tried to pump her husband as to the reason. +He answered their inquiries civilly enough, but with brevity: she +had stayed at home because she did not feel like coming out--this and +nothing more. + +The congregation dispersed under a gossip-laden cloud of consciousness +that there must be something queer about Sister Ware. There was a +tolerably general agreement, however, that the two sermons of the day +had been excellent. Not even Loren Pierce's railing commentary on the +pastor's introduction of an outlandish word like “epitome”--clearly +forbidden by the Discipline's injunction to plain language understood of +the people--availed to sap the satisfaction of the majority. + +Theron himself comprehended that he had pleased the bulk of his +auditors; the knowledge left him curiously hot and cold. On the one +hand, there was joy in the apparent prospect that the congregation would +back him up in a stand against the trustees, if worst came to worst. +But, on the other hand, the bonnet episode entered his soul. It had +been a source of bitter humiliation to him to see his wife sitting there +beneath the pulpit, shorn by despotic order of the adornments natural +to her pretty head. But he had even greater pain in contemplating the +effect it had produced on Alice herself. She had said not a word on the +subject, but her every glance and gesture seemed to him eloquent of deep +feeling about it. He made sure that she blamed him for having defended +his own gas and sidewalk rights with successful vigor, but permitted +the sacrifice of her poor little inoffensive roses without a protest. In +this view of the matter, indeed, he blamed himself. Was it too late to +make the error good? He ventured a hint on this Sunday evening, when he +returned to the parsonage and found her reading an old weekly newspaper +by the light of the kitchen lamp, to the effect that he fancied there +would be no great danger in putting those roses back into her bonnet. +Without lifting her eyes from the paper, she answered that she had +no earthly desire to wear roses in her bonnet, and went on with her +reading. + +At breakfast the next morning Theron found himself in command of an +unusual fund of humorous good spirits, and was at pains to make the +most of it, passing whimsical comments on subjects which the opening +day suggested, recalling quaint and comical memories of the past, and +striving his best to force Alice into a laugh. Formerly her merry temper +had always ignited at the merest spark of gayety. Now she gave his jokes +only a dutiful half-smile, and uttered scarcely a word in response to +his running fire of talk. When the meal was finished, she went silently +to work to clear away the dishes. + +Theron turned over in his mind the project of offering to help her, as +he had done so often in those dear old days when they laughingly began +life together. Something decided this project in the negative for him, +and after lingering moments he put on his hat and went out for a walk. + +Not even the most doleful and trying hour of his bitter experience in +Tyre had depressed him like this. Looking back upon these past troubles, +he persuaded himself that he had borne them all with a light and +cheerful heart, simply because Alice had been one with him in every +thought and emotion. How perfect, how ideally complete, their sympathy +had always been! With what absolute unity of mind and soul they had +trod that difficult path together! And now--henceforth--was it to be +different? The mere suggestion of such a thing chilled his veins. He +said aloud to himself as he walked that life would be an intolerable +curse if Alice were to cease sharing it with him in every conceivable +phase. + +He had made his way out of town, and tramped along the country hill-road +for a considerable distance, before a merciful light began to lessen the +shadows in the picture of gloom with which his mind tortured itself. +All at once he stopped short, lifted his head, and looked about him. The +broad valley lay warm and tranquil in the May sunshine at his feet. In +the thicket up the side-hill above him a gray squirrel was chattering +shrilly, and the birds sang in a tireless choral confusion. Theron +smiled, and drew a long breath. The gay clamor of the woodland +songsters, the placid radiance of the landscape, were suddenly taken in +and made a part of his new mood. He listened, smiled once more, and then +started in a leisurely way back toward Octavius. + +How could he have been so ridiculous as to fancy that Alice--his +Alice--had been changed into someone else? He marvelled now at his own +perverse folly. She was overworked--tired out--that was all. The task of +moving in, of setting the new household to rights, had been too much for +her. She must have a rest. They must get in a hired girl. + +Once this decision about a servant fixed itself in the young minister's +mind, it drove out the last vestage of discomfort. He strode along now +in great content, revolving idly a dozen different plans for gilding and +beautifying this new life of leisure into which his sanguine thoughts +projected Alice. One of these particularly pleased him, and waxed in +definiteness as he turned it over and over. He would get another piano +for her, in place of that which had been sacrificed in Tyre. That +beneficient modern invention, the instalment plan, made this quite +feasible--so easy, in fact, that it almost seemed as if he should find +his wife playing on the new instrument when he got home. He would stop +in at the music store and see about it that very day. + +Of course, now that these important resolutions had been taken, it would +be a good thing if he could do something to bring in some extra money. +This was by no means a new notion. He had mused over the possibility in +a formless way ever since that memorable discovery of indebtedness in +Tyre, and had long ago recognized the hopelessness of endeavor in every +channel save that of literature. Latterly his fancy had been stimulated +by reading an account of the profits which Canon Farrar had derived from +his “Life of Christ.” If such a book could command such a bewildering +multitude of readers, Theron felt there ought to be a chance for him. +So clear did constant rumination render this assumption that the young +pastor in time had come to regard this prospective book of his as a +substantial asset, which could be realized without trouble whenever he +got around to it. + +He had not, it is true, gone to the length of seriously considering what +should be the subject of his book. That had not seemed to him to matter +much, so long as it was scriptural. Familiarity with the process of +extracting a fixed amount of spiritual and intellectual meat from any +casual text, week after week, had given him an idea that any one of +many subjects would do, when the time came for him to make a choice. +He realized now that the time for a selection had arrived, and almost +simultaneously found himself with a ready-made decision in his mind. The +book should be about Abraham! + +Theron Ware was extremely interested in the mechanism of his own brain, +and followed its workings with a lively curiosity. Nothing could be more +remarkable, he thought, than to thus discover that, on the instant of +his formulating a desire to know what he should write upon, lo, and +behold! there his mind, quite on its own initiative, had the answer +waiting for him! When he had gone a little further, and the powerful +range of possibilities in the son's revolt against the idolatry of his +father, the image-maker, in the exodus from the unholy city of Ur, and +in the influence of the new nomadic life upon the little deistic family +group, had begun to unfold itself before him, he felt that the hand of +Providence was plainly discernible in the matter. The book was to be +blessed from its very inception. + +Walking homeward briskly now, with his eyes on the sidewalk and his mind +all aglow with crowding suggestions for the new work, and impatience to +be at it, he came abruptly upon a group of men and boys who occupied the +whole path, and were moving forward so noiselessly that he had not heard +them coming. He almost ran into the leader of this little procession, +and began a stammering apology, the final words of which were left +unspoken, so solemnly heedless of him and his talk were all the faces he +saw. + +In the centre of the group were four working-men, bearing between them +an extemporized litter of two poles and a blanket hastily secured across +them with spikes. Most of what this litter held was covered by another +blanket, rounded in coarse folds over a shapeless bulk. From beneath +its farther end protruded a big broom-like black beard, thrown upward at +such an angle as to hide everything beyond to those in front. The tall +young minister, stepping aside and standing tip-toe, could see sloping +downward behind this hedge of beard a pinched and chalk-like face, with +wide-open, staring eyes. Its lips, of a dull lilac hue, were moving +ceaselessly, and made a dry, clicking sound. + +Theron instinctively joined himself to those who followed the litter--a +motley dozen of street idlers, chiefly boys. One of these in whispers +explained to him that the man was one of Jerry Madden's workmen in the +wagon-shops, who had been deployed to trim an elm-tree in front of his +employer's house, and, being unused to such work, had fallen from the +top and broken all his bones. They would have cared for him at Madden's +house, but he had insisted upon being taken home. His name was MacEvoy, +and he was Joey MacEvoy's father, and likewise Jim's and Hughey's and +Martin's. After a pause the lad, a bright-eyed, freckled, barefooted wee +Irishman, volunteered the further information that his big brother had +run to bring “Father Forbess,” on the chance that he might be in time to +administer “extry munction.” + +The way of the silent little procession led through back streets--where +women hanging up clothes in the yards hurried to the gates, their aprons +full of clothes-pins, to stare open-mouthed at the passers-by--and came +to a halt at last in an irregular and muddy lane, before one of a half +dozen shanties reared among the ash-heaps and debris of the town's most +bedraggled outskirts. + +A stout, middle-aged, red-armed woman, already warned by some messenger +of calamity, stood waiting on the roadside bank. There were whimpering +children clinging to her skirts, and a surrounding cluster of women of +the neighborhood, some of the more elderly of whom, shrivelled little +crones in tidy caps, and with their aprons to their eyes, were beginning +in a low-murmured minor the wail which presently should rise into the +keen of death. Mrs. MacEvoy herself made no moan, and her broad ruddy +face was stern in expression rather than sorrowful. When the litter +stopped beside her, she laid a hand for an instant on her husband's wet +brow, and looked--one could have sworn impassively--into his staring +eyes. Then, still without a word, she waved the bearers toward the door, +and led the way herself. + +Theron, somewhat wonderingly, found himself, a minute later, inside a +dark and ill-smelling room, the air of which was humid with the steam +from a boiler of clothes on the stove, and not in other ways improved by +the presence of a jostling score of women, all straining their gaze upon +the open door of the only other apartment--the bed-chamber. Through +this they could see the workmen laying MacEvoy on the bed, and standing +awkwardly about thereafter, getting in the way of the wife and old +Maggie Quirk as they strove to remove the garments from his crushed +limbs. As the neighbors watched what could be seen of these proceedings, +they whispered among themselves eulogies of the injured man's industry +and good temper, his habit of bringing his money home to his wife, and +the way he kept his Father Mathew pledge and attended to his religious +duties. They admitted freely that, by the light of his example, their +own husbands and sons left much to be desired, and from this wandered +easily off into domestic digressions of their own. But all the while +their eyes were bent upon the bedroom door; and Theron made out, after +he had grown accustomed to the gloom and the smell, that many of them +were telling their beads even while they kept the muttered conversation +alive. None of them paid any attention to him, or seemed to regard his +presence there as unusual. + +Presently he saw enter through the sunlit street doorway a person of +a different class. The bright light shone for a passing instant upon a +fashionable, flowered hat, and upon some remarkably brilliant shade of +red hair beneath it. In another moment there had edged along through the +throng, to almost within touch of him, a tall young woman, the owner of +this hat and wonderful hair. She was clad in light and pleasing spring +attire, and carried a parasol with a long oxidized silver handle of a +quaint pattern. She looked at him, and he saw that her face was of a +lengthened oval, with a luminous rose-tinted skin, full red lips, and +big brown, frank eyes with heavy auburn lashes. She made a grave little +inclination of her head toward him, and he bowed in response. Since her +arrival, he noted, the chattering of the others had entirely ceased. + +“I followed the others in, in the hope that I might be of some +assistance,” he ventured to explain to her in a low murmur, feeling that +at last here was some one to whom an explanation of his presence in this +Romish house was due. “I hope they won't feel that I have intruded.” + +She nodded her head as if she quite understood. “They'll take the will +for the deed,” she whispered back. “Father Forbes will be here in a +minute. Do you know is it too late?” + +Even as she spoke, the outer doorway was darkened by the commanding bulk +of a newcomer's figure. The flash of a silk hat, and the deferential way +in which the assembled neighbors fell back to clear a passage, made his +identity clear. Theron felt his blood tingle in an unaccustomed way +as this priest of a strange church advanced across the room--a +broad-shouldered, portly man of more than middle height, with a shapely, +strong-lined face of almost waxen pallor, and a firm, commanding tread. +He carried in his hands, besides his hat, a small leather-bound case. To +this and to him the women courtesied and bowed their heads as he passed. + +“Come with me,” whispered the tall girl with the parasol to Theron; and +he found himself pushing along in her wake until they intercepted the +priest just outside the bedroom door. She touched Father Forbes on the +arm. + +“Just to tell you that I am here,” she said. The priest nodded with +a grave face, and passed into the other room. In a minute or two the +workmen, Mrs. MacEvoy, and her helper came out, and the door was shut +behind them. + +“He is making his confession,” explained the young lady. “Stay here for +a minute.” + +She moved over to where the woman of the house stood, glum-faced and +tearless, and whispered something to her. A confused movement among the +crowd followed, and out of it presently resulted a small table, covered +with a white cloth, and bearing on it two unlighted candles, a basin of +water, and a spoon, which was brought forward and placed in readiness +before the closed door. Some of those nearest this cleared space were +kneeling now, and murmuring a low buzz of prayer to the click of beads +on their rosaries. + +The door opened, and Theron saw the priest standing in the doorway with +an uplifted hand. He wore now a surplice, with a purple band over his +shoulders, and on his pale face there shone a tranquil and tender light. + +One of the workmen fetched from the stove a brand, lighted the two +candles, and bore the table with its contents into the bedroom. The +young woman plucked Theron's sleeve, and he dumbly followed her into +the chamber of death, making one of the group of a dozen, headed by Mrs. +MacEvoy and her children, which filled the little room, and overflowed +now outward to the street door. He found himself bowing with the others +to receive the sprinkled holy water from the priest's white fingers; +kneeling with the others for the prayers; following in impressed silence +with the others the strange ceremonial by which the priest traced +crosses of holy oil with his thumb upon the eyes, ears, nostrils, lips, +hands, and feet of the dying man, wiping off the oil with a piece +of cotton-batting each time after he had repeated the invocation to +forgiveness for that particular sense. But most of all he was moved by +the rich, novel sound of the Latin as the priest rolled it forth in the +ASPERGES ME, DOMINE, and MISEREATUR VESTRI OMNIPOTENS DEUS, with its +soft Continental vowels and liquid R's. It seemed to him that he had +never really heard Latin before. Then the astonishing young woman with +the red hair declaimed the CONFITEOR, vigorously and with a resonant +distinctness of enunciation. It was a different Latin, harsher and more +sonorous; and while it still dominated the murmured undertone of the +other's prayers, the last moment came. + +Theron had stood face to face with death at many other bedsides; no +other final scene had stirred him like this. It must have been +the girl's Latin chant, with its clanging reiteration of the great +names--BEATUM MICHAELEM ARCHANGELUM, BEATUM JOANNEM BAPTISTAM, SANCTOS +APOSTOLOS PETRUM ET PAULUM--invoked with such proud confidence in this +squalid little shanty, which so strangely affected him. + +He came out with the others at last--the candles and the folded hands +over the crucifix left behind--and walked as one in a dream. Even by +the time that he had gained the outer doorway, and stood blinking at +the bright light and filling his lungs with honest air once more, it had +begun to seem incredible to him that he had seen and done all this. + + + +CHAPTER V + + +While Mr. Ware stood thus on the doorstep, through a minute of +formless musing, the priest and the girl came out, and, somewhat to his +confusion, made him one of their party. He felt himself flushing under +the idea that they would think he had waited for them--was thrusting +himself upon them. The notion prompted him to bow frigidly in response +to Father Forbes' pleasant “I am glad to meet you, sir,” and his +outstretched hand. + +“I dropped in by the--the merest accident,” Theron said. “I met them +bringing the poor man home, and--and quite without thinking, I obeyed +the impulse to follow them in, and didn't realize--” + +He stopped short, annoyed by the reflection that this was his second +apology. The girl smiled placidly at him, the while she put up her +parasol. + +“It did me good to see you there,” she said, quite as if she had known +him all her life. “And so it did the rest of us.” + +Father Forbes permitted himself a soft little chuckle, approving rather +than mirthful, and patted her on the shoulder with the air of being +fifty years her senior instead of fifteen. To the minister's relief, he +changed the subject as the three started together toward the road. + +“Then, again, no doctor was sent for!” he exclaimed, as if resuming a +familiar subject with the girl. Then he turned to Theron. “I dare-say +you have no such trouble; but with our poorer people it is very +vexing. They will not call in a physician, but hurry off first for the +clergyman. I don't know that it is altogether to avoid doctor's bills, +but it amounts to that in effect. Of course in this case it made no +difference; but I have had to make it a rule not to go out at night +unless they bring me a physician's card with his assurance that it is a +genuine affair. Why, only last winter, I was routed up after midnight, +and brought off in the mud and pelting rain up one of the new streets +on the hillside there, simply because a factory girl who was laced too +tight had fainted at a dance. I slipped and fell into a puddle in the +darkness, ruined a new overcoat, and got drenched to the skin; and when +I arrived the girl had recovered and was dancing away again, thirteen +to the dozen. It was then that I made the rule. I hope, Mr. Ware, that +Octavius is producing a pleasant impression upon you so far?” + +“I scarcely know yet,” answered Theron. The genial talk of the priest, +with its whimsical anecdote, had in truth passed over his head. His +mind still had room for nothing but that novel death-bed scene, with +the winged captain of the angelic host, the Baptist, the glorified +Fisherman and the Preacher, all being summoned down in the pomp of +liturgical Latin to help MacEvoy to die. “If you don't mind my saying +so,” he added hesitatingly, “what I have just seen in there DID make a +very powerful impression upon me.” + +“It is a very ancient ceremony,” said the priest; “probably Persian, +like the baptismal form, although, for that matter, we can never dig +deep enough for the roots of these things. They all turn up Turanian if +we probe far enough. Our ways separate here, I'm afraid. I am delighted +to have made your acquaintance, Mr. Ware. Pray look in upon me, if you +can as well as not. We are near neighbors, you know.” + +Father Forbes had shaken hands, and moved off up another street some +distance, before the voice of the girl recalled Theron to himself. + +“Of course you knew HIM by name,” she was saying, “and he knew you +by sight, and had talked of you; but MY poor inferior sex has to be +introduced. I am Celia Madden. My father has the wagon-shops, and I--I +play the organ at the church.” + +“I--I am delighted to make your acquaintance,” said Theron, conscious +as he spoke that he had slavishly echoed the formula of the priest. He +could think of nothing better to add than, “Unfortunately, we have no +organ in our church.” + +The girl laughed, as they resumed their walk down the street. “I'm +afraid I couldn't undertake two,” she said, and laughed again. Then she +spoke more seriously. “That ceremony must have interested you a good +deal, never having seen it before. I saw that it was all new to you, and +so I made bold to take you under my wing, so to speak.” + +“You were very kind,” said the young minister. “It was really a great +experience for me. May--may I ask, is it a part of your functions, in +the church, I mean, to attend these last rites?” + +“Mercy, no!” replied the girl, spinning the parasol on her shoulder and +smiling at the thought. “No; it was only because MacEvoy was one of our +workmen, and really came by his death through father sending him up to +trim a tree. Ann MacEvoy will never forgive us that, the longest day she +lives. Did you notice her? She wouldn't speak to me. After you came out, +I tried to tell her that we would look out for her and the children; but +all she would say to me was: 'An' fwat would a wheelwright, an' him the +father of a family, be doin' up a tree?'” + +They had come now upon the main street of the village, with its +flagstone sidewalk overhung by a lofty canopy of elm-boughs. Here, for +the space of a block, was concentrated such fashionable elegance of +mansions and ornamental lawns as Octavius had to offer; and it was +presented with the irregularity so characteristic of our restless +civilization. Two or three of the houses survived untouched from the +earlier days--prim, decorous structures, each with its gabled centre +and lower wings, each with its row of fluted columns supporting the +classical roof of a piazza across its whole front, each vying with the +others in the whiteness of those wooden walls enveloping its bright +green blinds. One had to look over picket fences to see these houses, +and in doing so caught the notion that they thus railed themselves +off in pride at being able to remember before the railroad came to the +village, or the wagon-works were thought of. + +Before the neighboring properties the fences had been swept away, so +that one might stroll from the sidewalk straight across the well-trimmed +sward to any one of a dozen elaborately modern doorways. Some of the +residences, thus frankly proffering friendship to the passer-by, were of +wood painted in drabs and dusky reds, with bulging windows which marked +the native yearning for the mediaeval, and shingles that strove to be +accounted tiles. Others--a prouder, less pretentious sort--were of brick +or stone, with terra-cotta mouldings set into the walls, and with real +slates covering the riot of turrets and peaks and dormer peepholes +overhead. + +Celia Madden stopped in front of the largest and most important-looking +of these new edifices, and said, holding out her hand: “Here I am, once +more. Good-morning, Mr. Ware.” + +Theron hoped that his manner did not betray the flash of surprise he +felt in discovering that his new acquaintance lived in the biggest house +in Octavius. He remembered now that some one had pointed it out as the +abode of the owner of the wagon factories; but it had not occurred to +him before to associate this girl with that village magnate. It was +stupid of him, of course, because she had herself mentioned her father. +He looked at her again with an awkward smile, as he formally shook +the gloved hand she gave him, and lifted his soft hat. The strong noon +sunlight, forcing its way down between the elms, and beating upon her +parasol of lace-edged, creamy silk, made a halo about her hair and face +at once brilliant and tender. He had not seen before how beautiful she +was. She nodded in recognition of his salute, and moved up the lawn +walk, spinning the sunshade on her shoulder. + +Though the parsonage was only three blocks away, the young minister had +time to think about a good many things before he reached home. + +First of all, he had to revise in part the arrangement of his notions +about the Irish. Save for an occasional isolated and taciturn figure +among the nomadic portion of the hired help in the farm country, Theron +had scarcely ever spoken to a person of this curiously alien race +before. He remembered now that there had been some dozen or more Irish +families in Tyre, quartered in the outskirts among the brickyards, +but he had never come in contact with any of them, or given to their +existence even a passing thought. So far as personal acquaintance went, +the Irish had been to him only a name. + +But what a sinister and repellent name! His views on this general +subject were merely those common to his communion and his environment. +He took it for granted, for example, that in the large cities most of +the poverty and all the drunkenness, crime, and political corruption +were due to the perverse qualities of this foreign people--qualities +accentuated and emphasized in every evil direction by the baleful +influence of a false and idolatrous religion. It is hardly too much to +say that he had never encountered a dissenting opinion on this point. +His boyhood had been spent in those bitter days when social, political, +and blood prejudices were fused at white heat in the public crucible +together. When he went to the Church Seminary, it was a matter of course +that every member of the faculty was a Republican, and that every one of +his classmates had come from a Republican household. When, later on, he +entered the ministry, the rule was still incredulous of exceptions. One +might as well have looked in the Nedahma Conference for a divergence +of opinion on the Trinity as for a difference in political conviction. +Indeed, even among the laity, Theron could not feel sure that he had +ever known a Democrat; that is, at all closely. He understood very +little about politics, it is true. If he had been driven into a corner, +and forced to attempt an explanation of this tremendous partisan unity +in which he had a share, he would probably have first mentioned +the War--the last shots of which were fired while he was still in +petticoats. Certainly his second reason, however, would have been that +the Irish were on the other side. + +He had never before had occasion to formulate, even in his own thoughts, +this tacit race and religious aversion in which he had been bred. It +rose now suddenly in front of him, as he sauntered from patch to patch +of sunlight under the elms, like some huge, shadowy, and symbolic +monument. He looked at it with wondering curiosity, as at something +he had heard of all his life, but never seen before--an abhorrent +spectacle, truly! The foundations upon which its dark bulk reared itself +were ignorance, squalor, brutality and vice. Pigs wallowed in the mire +before its base, and burrowing into this base were a myriad of narrow +doors, each bearing the hateful sign of a saloon, and giving forth +from its recesses of night the sounds of screams and curses. Above were +sculptured rows of lowering, ape-like faces from Nast's and Keppler's +cartoons, and out of these sprang into the vague upper gloom--on the one +side, lamp-posts from which negroes hung by the neck, and on the other +gibbets for dynamiters and Molly Maguires, and between the two glowed a +spectral picture of some black-robed tonsured men, with leering satanic +masks, making a bonfire of the Bible in the public schools. + +Theron stared this phantasm hard in the face, and recognized it for a +very tolerable embodiment of what he had heretofore supposed he thought +about the Irish. For an instant, the sight of it made him shiver, as if +the sunny May had of a sudden lapsed back into bleak December. Then he +smiled, and the bad vision went off into space. He saw instead Father +Forbes, in the white and purple vestments, standing by poor MacEvoy's +bedside, with his pale, chiselled, luminous, uplifted face, and he +heard only the proud, confident clanging of the girl's recital,--BEATUM +MICHAELEM ARCHANGELUM, BEATUM JOANNEM BAPTISTAM, PETRUM ET +PAULUM--EM!--AM!--UM!--like strokes on a great resonant alarm-bell, +attuned for the hearing of heaven. He caught himself on the very verge +of feeling that heaven must have heard. + +Then he smiled again, and laid the matter aside, with a parting +admission that it had been undoubtedly picturesque and impressive, and +that it had been a valuable experience to him to see it. At least the +Irish, with all their faults, must have a poetic strain, or they would +not have clung so tenaciously to those curious and ancient forms. He +recalled having heard somewhere, or read, it might be, that they were +a people much given to songs and music. And the young lady, that very +handsome and friendly Miss Madden, had told him that she was a musician! +He had a new pleasure in turning this over in his mind. Of all the +closed doors which his choice of a career had left along his pathway, no +other had for him such a magical fascination as that on which was graven +the lute of Orpheus. He knew not even the alphabet of music, and his +conceptions of its possibilities ran but little beyond the best of the +hymn-singing he had heard at Conferences, yet none the less the longing +for it raised on occasion such mutiny in his soul that more than once he +had specifically prayed against it as a temptation. + +Dangerous though some of its tendencies might be, there was no +gainsaying the fact that a love for music was in the main an uplifting +influence--an attribute of cultivation. The world was the sweeter and +more gentle for it. And this brought him to musing upon the odd chance +that the two people of Octavius who had given him the first notion of +polish and intellectual culture in the town should be Irish. The Romish +priest must have been vastly surprised at his intrusion, yet had been +at the greatest pains to act as if it were quite the usual thing to have +Methodist ministers assist at Extreme Unction. And the young woman--how +gracefully, with what delicacy, had she comprehended his position and +robbed it of all its possible embarrassments! It occurred to him that +they must have passed, there in front of her home, the very tree from +which the luckless wheelwright had fallen some hours before; and the +fact that she had forborne to point it out to him took form in his mind +as an added proof of her refinement of nature. + +The midday dinner was a little more than ready when Theron reached home, +and let himself in by the front door. On Mondays, owing to the moisture +and “clutter” of the weekly washing in the kitchen, the table was laid +in the sitting-room, and as he entered from the hall the partner of +his joys bustled in by the other door, bearing the steaming platter of +corned beef, dumplings, cabbages, and carrots, with arms bared to the +elbows, and a red face. It gave him great comfort, however, to note that +there were no signs of the morning's displeasure remaining on this face; +and he immediately remembered again those interrupted projects of his +about the piano and the hired girl. + +“Well! I'd just about begun to reckon that I was a widow,” said Alice, +putting down her fragrant burden. There was such an obvious suggestion +of propitiation in her tone that Theron went around and kissed her. He +thought of saying something about keeping out of the way because it was +“Blue Monday,” but held it back lest it should sound like a reproach. + +“Well, what kind of a washerwoman does THIS one turn out to be?” he +asked, after they were seated, and he had invoked a blessing and was +cutting vigorously into the meat. + +“Oh, so-so,” replied Alice; “she seems to be particular, but she's +mortal slow. If I hadn't stood right over her, we shouldn't have had the +clothes out till goodness knows when. And of course she's Irish!” + +“Well, what of THAT?” asked the minister, with a fine unconcern. + +Alice looked up from her plate, with knife and fork suspended in air. +“Why, you know we were talking only the other day of what a pity it was +that none of our own people went out washing,” she said. “That Welsh +woman we heard of couldn't come, after all; and they say, too, that she +presumes dreadfully upon the acquaintance, being a church member, you +know. So we simply had to fall back on the Irish. And even if they do +go and tell their priest everything they see and hear, why, there's one +comfort, they can tell about US and welcome. Of course I see to it she +doesn't snoop around in here.” + +Theron smiled. “That's all nonsense about their telling such things to +their priests,” he said with easy confidence. + +“Why, you told me so yourself,” replied Alice, briskly. “And I've always +understood so, too; they're bound to tell EVERYTHING in confession. +That's what gives the Catholic Church such a tremendous hold. You've +spoken of it often.” + +“It must have been by way of a figure of speech,” remarked Theron, +not with entire directness. “Women are great hands to separate one's +observations from their context, and so give them meanings quite +unintended. They are also great hands,” he added genially, “or at least +one of them is, at making the most delicious dumplings in the world. I +believe these are the best even you ever made.” + +Alice was not unmindful of the compliment, but her thoughts were on +other things. “I shouldn't like that woman's priest, for example,” she +said, “to know that we had no piano.” + +“But if he comes and stands outside our house every night and +listens--as of course he will,” said Theron, with mock gravity, “it is +only a question of time when he must reach that conclusion for himself. +Our only chance, however, is that there are some sixteen hundred other +houses for him to watch, so that he may not get around to us for quite a +spell. Why, seriously, Alice, what on earth do you suppose Father Forbes +knows or cares about our poor little affairs, or those of any other +Protestant household in this whole village? He has his work to do, just +as I have mine--only his is ten times as exacting in everything except +sermons--and you may be sure he is only too glad when it is over each +day, without bothering about things that are none of his business.” + +“All the same I'm afraid of them,” said Alice, as if argument were +exhausted. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +On the following morning young Mr. Ware anticipated events by inscribing +in his diary for the day, immediately after breakfast, these remarks: +“Arranged about piano. Began work upon book.” + +The date indeed deserved to be distinguished from its fellows. Theron +was so conscious of its importance that he not only prophesied in the +little morocco-bound diary which Alice had given him for Christmas, but +returned after he had got out upon the front steps of the parsonage to +have his hat brushed afresh by her. + +“Wonders will never cease,” she said jocosely. “With you getting +particular about your clothes, there isn't anything in this wide world +that can't happen now!” + +“One doesn't go out to bring home a piano every day,” he made answer. +“Besides, I want to make such an impression upon the man that he will +deal gently with that first cash payment down. Do you know,” he added, +watching her turn the felt brim under the wisp-broom's strokes, “I'm +thinking some of getting me a regular silk stove-pipe hat.” + +“Why don't you, then?” she rejoined, but without any ring of glad +acquiescence in her tone. He fancied that her face lengthened a little, +and he instantly ascribed it to recollections of the way in which the +roses had been bullied out of her own headgear. + +“You are quite sure, now, pet,” he made haste to change the subject, +“that the hired girl can wait just as well as not until fall?” + +“Oh, MY, yes!” Alice replied, putting the hat on his head, and smoothing +back his hair behind his ears. “She'd only be in the way now. You see, +with hot weather coming on, there won't be much cooking. We'll take all +our meals out here, and that saves so much work that really what remains +is hardly more than taking care of a bird-cage. And, besides, not having +her will almost half pay for the piano.” + +“But when cold weather comes, you're sure you'll consent?” he urged. + +“Like a shot!” she assured him, and, after a happy little caress, he +started out again on his momentous mission. + +“Thurston's” was a place concerning which opinions differed in Octavius. +That it typified progress, and helped more than any other feature of the +village to bring it up to date, no one indeed disputed. One might move +about a great deal, in truth, and hear no other view expressed. But then +again one might stumble into conversation with one small storekeeper +after another, and learn that they united in resenting the existence of +“Thurston's,” as rival farmers might join to curse a protracted drought. +Each had his special flaming grievance. The little dry-goods dealers +asked mournfully how they could be expected to compete with an +establishment which could buy bankrupt stocks at a hundred different +points, and make a profit if only one-third of the articles were sold +for more than they would cost from the jobber? The little boot and +shoe dealers, clothiers, hatters, and furriers, the small merchants in +carpets, crockery, and furniture, the venders of hardware and household +utensils, of leathern goods and picture-frames, of wall-paper, musical +instruments, and even toys--all had the same pathetically unanswerable +question to propound. But mostly they put it to themselves, because the +others were at “Thurston's.” + +The Rev. Theron Ware had entertained rather strong views on this +subject, and that only a week or two ago. One of his first acquaintances +in Octavius had been the owner of the principal book-store in the +place--a gentle and bald old man who produced the complete impression of +a bibliophile upon what the slightest investigation showed to be only a +meagre acquaintance with publishers' circulars. But at least he had the +air of loving his business, and the young minister had enjoyed a long +talk with, or rather, at him. Out of this talk had come the information +that the store was losing money. Not even the stationery department now +showed a profit worth mentioning. When Octavius had contained only five +thousand inhabitants, it boasted four book-stores, two of them good +ones. Now, with a population more than doubled, only these latter two +survived, and they must soon go to the wall. The reason? It was in a +nutshell. A book which sold at retail for one dollar and a half cost the +bookseller ninety cents. If it was at all a popular book, “Thurston's” + advertised it at eighty-nine cents--and in any case at a profit of only +two or three cents. Of course it was done to widen the establishment's +patronage--to bring people into the store. Equally of course, it was +destroying the book business and debauching the reading tastes of the +community. Without the profits from the light and ephemeral popular +literature of the season, the book-store proper could not keep up its +stock of more solid works, and indeed could not long keep open at all. +On the other hand, “Thurston's” dealt with nothing save the demand of +the moment, and offered only the books which were the talk of the week. +Thus, in plain words, the book trade was going to the dogs, and it was +the same with pretty nearly every other trade. + +Theron was indignant at this, and on his return home told Alice that +he desired her to make no purchases whatever at “Thurston's.” He +even resolved to preach a sermon on the subject of the modern idea of +admiring the great for crushing the small, and sketched out some notes +for it which he thought solved the problem of flaying the local abuse +without mentioning it by name. They had lain on his desk now for ten +days or more, and on only the previous Friday he had speculated upon +using them that coming Sunday. + +On this bright and cheerful Tuesday morning he walked with a blithe step +unhesitatingly down the main street to “Thurston's,” and entered without +any show of repugnance the door next to the window wherein, flanked +by dangling banjos and key-bugles built in pyramids, was displayed the +sign, “Pianos on the Instalment Plan.” + +He was recognized by some responsible persons, and treated with +distinguished deference. They were charmed with the intelligence that he +desired a piano, and fascinated by his wish to pay for it only a little +at a time. They had special terms for clergymen, and made him feel as +if these were being extended to him on a silver charger by kneeling +admirers. + +It was so easy to buy things here that he was a trifle disturbed to find +his flowing course interrupted by his own entire ignorance as to what +kind of piano he wanted. He looked at all they had in stock, and heard +them played upon. They differed greatly in price, and, so he fancied, +almost as much in tone. It discouraged him to note, however, that +several of those he thought the finest in tone were among the very +cheapest in the lot. Pondering this, and staring in hopeless puzzlement +from one to another of the big black shiny monsters, he suddenly thought +of something. + +“I would rather not decide for myself,” he said, “I know so little about +it. If you don't mind, I will have a friend of mine, a skilled musician, +step in and make a selection. I have so much confidence in--in her +judgment.” He added hurriedly, “It will involve only a day or two's +delay.” + +The next moment he was sorry he had spoken. What would they think when +they saw the organist of the Catholic church come to pick out a piano +for the Methodist parsonage? And how could he decorously prefer the +request to her to undertake this task? He might not meet her again for +ages, and to his provincial notions writing would have seemed out of the +question. And would it not be disagreeable to have her know that he was +buying a piano by part payments? Poor Alice's dread of the washerwoman's +gossip occurred to him, at this, and he smiled in spite of himself. Then +all at once the difficulty vanished. Of course it would come all right +somehow. Everything did. + +He was on firmer ground, buying the materials for the new book, over +on the stationery side. His original intention had been to bestow this +patronage upon the old bookseller, but these suavely smart people in +“Thurston's” had had the effect of putting him on his honor when +they asked, “Would there be anything else?” and he had followed them +unresistingly. + +He indulged to the full his whim that everything entering into the +construction of “Abraham” should be spick-and-span. He watched with his +own eyes a whole ream of broad glazed white paper being sliced down by +the cutter into single sheets, and thrilled with a novel ecstasy as he +laid his hand upon the spotless bulk, so wooingly did it invite him to +begin. He tried a score of pens before the right one came to hand. +When a box of these had been laid aside, with ink and pen-holders and a +little bronze inkstand, he made a sign that the outfit was complete. +Or no--there must be some blotting-paper. He had always used those +blotting-pads given away by insurance companies--his congregations never +failed to contain one or more agents, who had these to bestow by the +armful--but the book deserved a virgin blotter. + +Theron stood by while all these things were being tied up together in a +parcel. The suggestion that they should be sent almost hurt him. Oh, +no, he would carry them home himself. So strongly did they appeal to his +sanguine imagination that he could not forbear hinting to the man who +had shown him the pianos and was now accompanying him to the door that +this package under his arm represented potentially the price of the +piano he was going to have. He did it in a roundabout way, with one of +his droll, hesitating smiles. The man did not understand at all, and +Theron had not the temerity to repeat the remark. He strode home with +the precious bundle as fast as he could. + +“I thought it best, after all, not to commit myself to a selection,” he +explained about the piano at dinner-time. “In such a matter as this, +the opinion of an expert is everything. I am going to have one of the +principal musicians of the town go and try them all, and tell me which +we ought to have.” + +“And while he's about it,” said Alice, “you might ask him to make a +little list of some of the new music. I've got way behind the times, +being without a piano so long. Tell him not any VERY difficult pieces, +you know.” + +“Yes, I know,” put in Theron, almost hastily, and began talking of other +things. His conversation was of the most rambling and desultory sort, +because all the while the two lobes of his brain, as it were, kept up a +dispute as to whether Alice ought to have been told that this “principal +musician” was of her own sex. It would certainly have been better, at +the outset, he decided; but to mention it now would be to invest the +fact with undue importance. Yes, that was quite clear; only the clearer +it became, from one point of view, the shadier it waxed from the other. +The problem really disturbed the young minister's mind throughout +the meal, and his abstraction became so marked at last that his wife +commented upon it. + +“A penny for your thoughts!” she said, with cheerful briskness. This +ancient formula of the farm-land had always rather jarred on Theron. It +presented itself now to his mind as a peculiarly aggravating banality. + +“I am going to begin my book this afternoon,” he remarked impressively. +“There is a great deal to think about.” + +It turned out that there was even more to think about than he had +imagined. After hours of solitary musing at his desk, or of pacing up +and down before his open book-shelves, Theron found the first shadows of +a May-day twilight beginning to fall upon that beautiful pile of white +paper, still unstained by ink. He saw the book he wanted to write before +him, in his mental vision, much more distinctly than ever, but the idea +of beginning it impetuously, and hurling it off hot and glowing week by +week, had faded away like a dream. + +This long afternoon, spent face to face with a project born of his own +brain but yesterday, yet already so much bigger than himself, was really +a most fruitful time for the young clergyman. The lessons which cut +most deeply into our consciousness are those we learn from our children. +Theron, in this first day's contact with the offspring of his fancy, +found revealed to him an unsuspected and staggering truth. It was that +he was an extremely ignorant and rudely untrained young man, whose +pretensions to intellectual authority among any educated people would be +laughed at with deserved contempt. + +Strangely enough, after he had weathered the first shock, this discovery +did not dismay Theron Ware. The very completeness of the conviction it +carried with it, saturated his mind with a feeling as if the fact had +really been known to him all along. And there came, too, after a little, +an almost pleasurable sense of the importance of the revelation. He had +been merely drifting in fatuous and conceited blindness. Now all at once +his eyes were open; he knew what he had to do. Ignorance was a thing to +be remedied, and he would forthwith bend all his energies to cultivating +his mind till it should blossom like a garden. In this mood, Theron +mentally measured himself against the more conspicuous of his colleagues +in the Conference. They also were ignorant, clownishly ignorant: the +difference was that they were doomed by native incapacity to go on all +their lives without ever finding it out. It was obvious to him that his +case was better. There was bright promise in the very fact that he had +discovered his shortcomings. + +He had begun the afternoon by taking down from their places the various +works in his meagre library which bore more or less relation to the task +in hand. The threescore books which constituted his printed possessions +were almost wholly from the press of the Book Concern; the few +exceptions were volumes which, though published elsewhere, had come to +him through that giant circulating agency of the General Conference, +and wore the stamp of its approval. Perhaps it was the sight of these +half-filled shelves which started this day's great revolution in +Theron's opinions of himself. He had never thought much before about +owning books. He had been too poor to buy many, and the conditions of +canvassing about among one's parishioners which the thrifty Book Concern +imposes upon those who would have without buying, had always repelled +him. Now, suddenly, as he moved along the two shelves, he felt ashamed +at their beggarly showing. + +“The Land and the Book,” in three portly volumes, was the most +pretentious of the aids which he finally culled from his collection. +Beside it he laid out “Bible Lands,” “Rivers and Lakes of Scripture,” + “Bible Manners and Customs,” the “Genesis and Exodus” volume of Whedon's +Commentary, some old numbers of the “Methodist Quarterly Review,” and a +copy of “Josephus” which had belonged to his grandmother, and had +seen him through many a weary Sunday afternoon in boyhood. He glanced +casually through these, one by one, as he took them down, and began to +fear that they were not going to be of so much use as he had thought. +Then, seating himself, he read carefully through the thirteen chapters +of Genesis which chronicle the story of the founder of Israel. + +Of course he had known this story from his earliest years. In almost +every chapter he came now upon a phrase or an incident which had served +him as the basis for a sermon. He had preached about Hagar in the +wilderness, about Lot's wife, about the visit of the angels, about the +intended sacrifice of Isaac, about a dozen other things suggested by the +ancient narrative. Somehow this time it all seemed different to him. +The people he read about were altered to his vision. Heretofore a poetic +light had shone about them, where indeed they had not glowed in a halo +of sanctification. Now, by some chance, this light was gone, and he saw +them instead as untutored and unwashed barbarians, filled with animal +lusts and ferocities, struggling by violence and foul chicanery to +secure a foothold in a country which did not belong to them--all rude +tramps and robbers of the uncivilized plain. + +The apparent fact that Abram was a Chaldean struck him with peculiar +force. How was it, he wondered, that this had never occurred to him +before? Examining himself, he found that he had supposed vaguely that +there had been Jews from the beginning, or at least, say, from the +flood. But, no, Abram was introduced simply as a citizen of the Chaldean +town of Ur, and there was no hint of any difference in race between him +and his neighbors. It was specially mentioned that his brother, Lot's +father, died in Ur, the city of his nativity. Evidently the family +belonged there, and were Chaldeans like the rest. + +I do not cite this as at all a striking discovery, but it did have a +curious effect upon Theron Ware. Up to that very afternoon, his notion +of the kind of book he wanted to write had been founded upon a popular +book called “Ruth the Moabitess,” written by a clergyman he knew very +well, the Rev. E. Ray Mifflin. This model performance troubled itself +not at all with difficult points, but went swimmingly along through +scented summer seas of pretty rhetoric, teaching nothing, it is true, +but pleasing a good deal and selling like hot cakes. Now, all at once +Theron felt that he hated that sort of book. HIS work should be of a +vastly different order. He might fairly assume, he thought, that if the +fact that Abram was a Chaldean was new to him, it would fall upon the +world in general as a novelty. Very well, then, there was his chance. +He would write a learned book, showing who the Chaldeans were, and how +their manners and beliefs differed from, and influenced-- + +It was at this psychological instant that the wave of self-condemnation +suddenly burst upon and submerged the young clergyman. It passed again, +leaving him staring fixedly at the pile of books he had taken down from +the shelves, and gasping a little, as if for breath. Then the humorous +side of the thing, perversely enough, appealed to him, and he grinned +feebly to himself at the joke of his having imagined that he could write +learnedly about the Chaldeans, or anything else. But, no, it shouldn't +remain a joke! His long mobile face grew serious under the new resolve. +He would learn what there was to be learned about the Chaldeans. He rose +and walked up and down the room, gathering fresh strength of purpose +as this inviting field of research spread out its vistas before him. +Perhaps--yes, he would incidentally explore the mysteries of the +Moabitic past as well, and thus put the Rev. E. Ray Mifflin to confusion +on his own subject. That would in itself be a useful thing, because +Mifflin wore kid gloves at the Conference, and affected an intolerable +superiority of dress and demeanor, and there would be general +satisfaction among the plainer and worthier brethren at seeing him taken +down a peg. + +Now for the first time there rose distinctly in Theron's mind that +casual allusion which Father Forbes had made to the Turanians. He +recalled, too, his momentary feeling of mortification at not knowing who +the Turanians were, at the time. Possibly, if he had probed this matter +more deeply, now as he walked and pondered in the little living-room, +he might have traced the whole of the afternoon's mental experiences to +that chance remark of the Romish priest. But this speculation did not +detain him. He mused instead upon the splendid library Father Forbes +must have. + +“Well, how does the book come on? Have you got to 'my Lady Keturah' +yet?'” + +It was Alice who spoke, opening the door from the kitchen, and putting +in her head with a pretence of great and solemn caution, but with a +correcting twinkle in her eyes. + +“I haven't got to anybody yet,” answered Theron, absently. “These big +things must be approached slowly.” + +“Come out to supper, then, while the beans are hot,” said Alice. + +The young minister sat through this other meal, again in deep +abstraction. His wife pursued her little pleasantry about Keturah, +the second wife, urging him with mock gravity to scold her roundly for +daring to usurp Sarah's place, but Theron scarcely heard her, and said +next to nothing. He ate sparingly, and fidgeted in his seat, waiting +with obvious impatience for the finish of the meal. At last he rose +abruptly. + +“I've got a call to make--something with reference to the book,” he +said. “I'll run out now, I think, before it gets dark.” + +He put on his hat, and strode out of the house as if his errand was of +the utmost urgency. Once upon the street, however, his pace slackened. +There was still a good deal of daylight outside, and he loitered +aimlessly about, walking with bowed head and hands clasped behind him, +until dusk fell. Then he squared his shoulders, and started straight as +the crow flies toward the residence of Father Forbes. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +The new Catholic church was the largest and most imposing public +building in Octavius. Even in its unfinished condition, with a bald +roofing of weather-beaten boards marking on the stunted tower the place +where a spire was to begin later on, it dwarfed every other edifice of +the sort in the town, just as it put them all to shame in the matter of +the throngs it drew, rain or shine, to its services. + +These facts had not heretofore been a source of satisfaction to the Rev. +Theron Ware. He had even alluded to the subject in terms which gave his +wife the impression that he actively deplored the strength and size of +the Catholic denomination in this new home of theirs, and was troubled +in his mind about Rome generally. But this evening he walked along +the extended side of the big structure, which occupied nearly half the +block, and then, turning the corner, passed in review its wide-doored, +looming front, without any hostile emotions whatever. In the gathering +dusk it seemed more massive than ever before, but he found himself only +passively considering the odd statement he had heard that all Catholic +Church property was deeded absolutely in the name of the Bishop of the +diocese. + +Only a narrow passage-way separated the church from the pastorate--a +fine new brick residence standing flush upon the street. Theron mounted +the steps, and looked about for a bell-pull. Search revealed instead a +little ivory button set in a ring of metal work. He picked at this for +a time with his finger-nail, before he made out the injunction, printed +across it, to push. Of course! how stupid of him! This was one of those +electric bells he had heard so much of, but which had not as yet made +their way to the class of homes he knew. For custodians of a mediaeval +superstition and fanaticism, the Catholic clergy seemed very much up to +date. This bell made him feel rather more a countryman than ever. + +The door was opened by a tall gaunt woman, who stood in black relief +against the radiance of the hall-way while Theron, choosing his words +with some diffidence, asked if the Rev. Mr. Forbes was in. + +“He is” came the hush-voiced answer. “He's at dinner, though.” + +It took the young minister a second or two to bring into association in +his mind this evening hour and this midday meal. Then he began to say +that he would call again--it was nothing special--but the woman suddenly +cut him short by throwing the door wide open. + +“It's Mr. Ware, is it not?” she asked, in a greatly altered tone. “Sure, +he'd not have you go away. Come inside--do, sir!--I'll tell him.” + +Theron, with a dumb show of reluctance, crossed the threshold. He noted +now that the woman, who had bustled down the hall on her errand, was +gray-haired and incredibly ugly, with a dark sour face, glowering black +eyes, and a twisted mouth. Then he saw that he was not alone in the +hall-way. Three men and two women, all poorly clad and obviously working +people, were seated in meek silence on a bench beyond the hat-rack. They +glanced up at him for an instant, then resumed their patient study of +the linoleum pattern on the floor at their feet. + +“And will you kindly step in, sir?” the elderly Gorgon had returned to +ask. She led Mr. Ware along the hall-way to a door near the end, and +opened it for him to pass before her. + +He entered a room in which for the moment he could see nothing but a +central glare of dazzling light beating down from a great shaded +lamp upon a circular patch of white table linen. Inside this ring of +illumination points of fire sparkled from silver and porcelain, and two +bars of burning crimson tracked across the cloth in reflection from tall +glasses filled with wine. The rest of the room was vague darkness; but +the gloom seemed saturated with novel aromatic odors, the appetizing +scent of which bore clear relation to what Theron's blinking eyes rested +upon. + +He was able now to discern two figures at the table, outside the glowing +circle of the lamp. They had both risen, and one came toward him with +cordial celerity, holding out a white plump hand in greeting. He took +this proffered hand rather limply, not wholly sure in the half-light +that this really was Father Forbes, and began once more that everlasting +apology to which he seemed doomed in the presence of the priest. It was +broken abruptly off by the other's protesting laughter. + +“My dear Mr. Ware, I beg of you,” the priest urged, chuckling with +hospitable mirth, “don't, don't apologize! I give you my word, nothing +in the world could have pleased us better than your joining us here +tonight. It was quite dramatic, your coming in as you did. We were +speaking of you at that very moment. Oh, I forgot--let me make you +acquainted with my friend--my very particular friend, Dr. Ledsmar. Let +me take your hat; pray draw up a chair. Maggie will have a place laid +for you in a minute.” + +“Oh, I assure you--I couldn't think of it--I've just eaten +my--my--dinner,” expostulated Theron. He murmured more inarticulate +remonstrances a moment later, when the grim old domestic appeared with +plates, serviette, and tableware for his use, but she went on spreading +them before him as if she heard nothing. Thus committed against a decent +show of resistance, the young minister did eat a little here and there +of what was set before him, and was human enough to regret frankly +that he could not eat more. It seemed to him very remarkable cookery, +transfiguring so simple a thing as a steak, for example, quite out of +recognition, and investing the humble potato with a charm he had never +dreamed of. He wondered from time to time if it would be polite to ask +how the potatoes were cooked, so that he might tell Alice. + +The conversation at the table was not continuous, or even enlivened. +After the lapses into silence became marked, Theron began to suspect +that his refusal to drink wine had annoyed them--the more so as he had +drenched a large section of table-cloth in his efforts to manipulate a +siphon instead. He was greatly relieved, therefore, when Father Forbes +explained in an incidental way that Dr. Ledsmar and he customarily ate +their meals almost without a word. + +“It's a philosophic fad of his,” the priest went on smilingly, “and I +have fallen in with it for the sake of a quiet life; so that when we do +have company--that is to say, once in a blue moon--we display no manners +to speak of.” + +“I had always supposed--that is, I've always heard--that it was more +healthful to talk at meals,” said Theron. “Of course--what I mean--I +took it for granted all physicians thought so.” + +Dr. Ledsmar laughed. “That depends so much upon the quality of the +meals!” he remarked, holding his glass up to the light. + +He seemed a man of middle age and an equable disposition. Theron, +stealing stray glances at him around the lampshade, saw most distinctly +of all a broad, impressive dome of skull, which, though obviously the +result of baldness, gave the effect of quite belonging to the face. +There were gold-rimmed spectacles, through which shone now and again the +vivid sparkle of sharp, alert eyes, and there was a nose of some sort +not easy to classify, at once long and thick. The rest was thin hair and +short round beard, mouse-colored where the light caught them, but losing +their outlines in the shadows of the background. Theron had not heard of +him among the physicians of Octavius. He wondered if he might not be a +doctor of something else than medicine, and decided upon venturing the +question. + +“Oh, yes, it is medicine,” replied Ledsmar. “I am a doctor three or four +times over, so far as parchments can make one. In some other respects, +though, I should think I am probably less of a doctor than anybody else +now living. I haven't practised--that is, regularly--for many years, and +I take no interest whatever in keeping abreast of what the profession +regards as its progress. I know nothing beyond what was being taught in +the sixties, and that I am glad to say I have mostly forgotten.” + +“Dear me!” said Theron. “I had always supposed that Science was the most +engrossing of pursuits--that once a man took it up he never left it.” + +“But that would imply a connection between Science and Medicine!” + commented the doctor. “My dear sir, they are not even on speaking +terms.” + +“Shall we go upstairs?” put in the priest, rising from his chair. “It +will be more comfortable to have our coffee there--unless indeed, Mr. +Ware, tobacco is unpleasant to you?” + +“Oh, my, no!” the young minister exclaimed, eager to free himself from +the suggestion of being a kill-joy. “I don't smoke myself; but I am very +fond of the odor, I assure you.” + +Father Forbes led the way out. It could be seen now that he wore a long +house-gown of black silk, skilfully moulded to his erect, shapely, and +rounded form. Though he carried this with the natural grace of a proud +and beautiful belle, there was no hint of the feminine in his bearing, +or in the contour of his pale, firm-set, handsome face. As he moved +through the hall-way, the five people whom Theron had seen waiting rose +from their bench, and two of the women began in humble murmurs, “If you +please, Father,” and “Good-evening to your Riverence;” but the priest +merely nodded and passed on up the staircase, followed by his guests. +The people sat down on their bench again. + +A few minutes later, reclining at his ease in a huge low chair, and +feeling himself unaccountably at home in the most luxuriously appointed +and delightful little room he had ever seen, the Rev. Theron Ware sipped +his unaccustomed coffee and embarked upon an explanation of his errand. +Somehow the very profusion of scholarly symbols about him--the great +dark rows of encased and crowded book-shelves rising to the ceiling, +the classical engravings upon the wall, the revolving book-case, the +reading-stand, the mass of littered magazines, reviews, and papers at +either end of the costly and elaborate writing-desk--seemed to make +it the easier for him to explain without reproach that he needed +information about Abram. He told them quite in detail the story of his +book. + +The two others sat watching him through a faint haze of scented smoke, +with polite encouragement on their faces. Father Forbes took the added +trouble to nod understandingly at the various points of the narrative, +and when it was finished gave one of his little approving chuckles. + +“This skirts very closely upon sorcery,” he said smilingly. “Do +you know, there is perhaps not another man in the country who knows +Assyriology so thoroughly as our friend here, Dr. Ledsmar.” + +“That's putting it too strong,” remarked the Doctor. “I only follow at +a distance--a year or two behind. But I daresay I can help you. You are +quite welcome to anything I have: my books cover the ground pretty well +up to last year. Delitzsch is very interesting; but Baudissin's 'Studien +zur Semitischen Religionsgeschichte' would come closer to what you need. +There are several other important Germans--Schrader, Bunsen, Duncker, +Hommel, and so on.” + +“Unluckily I--I don't read German readily,” Theron explained with +diffidence. + +“That's a pity,” said the doctor, “because they do the best work--not +only in this field, but in most others. And they do so much that the +mass defies translation. Well, the best thing outside of German of +course is Sayce. I daresay you know him, though.” + +The Rev. Mr. Ware shook his head mournfully. “I don't seem to know any +one,” he murmured. + +The others exchanged glances. + +“But if I may ask, Mr. Ware,” pursued the doctor, regarding their guest +with interest through his spectacles, “why do you specially hit upon +Abraham? He is full of difficulties--enough, just now, at any rate, to +warn off the bravest scholar. Why not take something easier?” + +Theron had recovered something of his confidence. “Oh, no,” he said, +“that is just what attracts me to Abraham. I like the complexities and +contradictions in his character. Take for instance all that strange +and picturesque episode of Hagar: see the splendid contrast between the +craft and commercial guile of his dealings in Egypt and with Abimelech, +and the simple, straightforward godliness of his later years. No, all +those difficulties only attract me. Do you happen to know--of course +you would know--do those German books, or the others, give anywhere any +additional details of the man himself and his sayings and doings--little +things which help, you know, to round out one's conception of the +individual?” + +Again the priest and the doctor stole a furtive glance across the young +minister's head. It was Father Forbes who replied. + +“I fear that you are taking our friend Abraham too literally, Mr. Ware,” + he said, in that gentle semblance of paternal tones which seemed to go +so well with his gown. “Modern research, you know, quite wipes him out +of existence as an individual. The word 'Abram' is merely an eponym--it +means 'exalted father.' Practically all the names in the Genesis +chronologies are what we call eponymous. Abram is not a person at all: +he is a tribe, a sept, a clan. In the same way, Shem is not intended for +a man; it is the name of a great division of the human race. Heber is +simply the throwing back into allegorical substance, so to speak, of the +Hebrews; Heth of the Hittites; Asshur of Assyria.” + +“But this is something very new, this theory, isn't it?” queried Theron. + +The priest smiled and shook his head. “Bless you, no! My dear sir, there +is nothing new. Epicurus and Lucretius outlined the whole Darwinian +theory more than two thousand years ago. As for this eponym thing, why +Saint Augustine called attention to it fifteen hundred years ago. In +his 'De Civitate Dei,' he expressly says of these genealogical names, +'GENTES NON HOMINES;' that is, 'peoples, not persons.' It was as obvious +to him--as much a commonplace of knowledge--as it was to Ezekiel eight +hundred years before him.” + +“It seems passing strange that we should not know it now, then,” + commented Theron; “I mean, that everybody shouldn't know it.” + +Father Forbes gave a little purring chuckle. “Ah, there we get upon +contentious ground,” he remarked. “Why should 'everybody' be supposed +to know anything at all? What business is it of 'everybody's' to know +things? The earth was just as round in the days when people supposed it +to be flat, as it is now. So the truth remains always the truth, even +though you give a charter to ten hundred thousand separate numskulls to +examine it by the light of their private judgment, and report that it is +as many different varieties of something else. But of course that whole +question of private judgment versus authority is No-Man's-Land for us. +We were speaking of eponyms.” + +“Yes,” said Theron; “it is very interesting.” + +“There is a curious phase of the subject which hasn't been worked out +much,” continued the priest. “Probably the Germans will get at that too, +sometime. They are doing the best Irish work in other fields, as it is. +I spoke of Heber and Heth, in Genesis, as meaning the Hebrews and the +Hittites. Now my own people, the Irish, have far more ancient legends +and traditions than any other nation west of Athens; and you find in +their myth of the Milesian invasion and conquest two principal leaders +called Heber and Ith, or Heth. That is supposed to be comparatively +modern--about the time of Solomon's Temple. But these independent Irish +myths go back to the fall of the Tower of Babel, and they have there an +ancestor, grandson of Japhet, named Fenius Farsa, and they ascribe +to him the invention of the alphabet. They took their ancient name of +Feine, the modern Fenian, from him. Oddly enough, that is the name which +the Romans knew the Phoenicians by, and to them also is ascribed the +invention of the alphabet. The Irish have a holy salmon of knowledge, +just like the Chaldean man-fish. The Druids' tree-worship is identical +with that of the Chaldeans--those pagan groves, you know, which the Jews +were always being punished for building. You see, there is nothing new. +Everything is built on the ruins of something else. Just as the material +earth is made up of countless billions of dead men's bones, so the +mental world is all alive with the ghosts of dead men's thoughts and +beliefs, the wraiths of dead races' faiths and imaginings.” + +Father Forbes paused, then added with a twinkle in his eye: “That +peroration is from an old sermon of mine, in the days when I used to +preach. I remember rather liking it, at the time.” + +“But you still preach?” asked the Rev. Mr. Ware, with lifted brows. + +“No! no more! I only talk now and again,” answered the priest, with what +seemed a suggestion of curtness. He made haste to take the conversation +back again. “The names of these dead-and-gone things are singularly +pertinacious, though. They survive indefinitely. Take the modern name +Marmaduke, for example. It strikes one as peculiarly modern, up-to-date, +doesn't it? Well, it is the oldest name on earth--thousands of years +older than Adam. It is the ancient Chaldean Meridug, or Merodach. He was +the young god who interceded continually between the angry, omnipotent +Ea, his father, and the humble and unhappy Damkina, or Earth, who was +his mother. This is interesting from another point of view, because +this Merodach or Marmaduke is, so far as we can see now, the original +prototype of our 'divine intermediary' idea. I daresay, though, that if +we could go back still other scores of centuries, we should find whole +receding series of types of this Christ-myth of ours.” + +Theron Ware sat upright at the fall of these words, and flung a +swift, startled look about the room--the instinctive glance of a man +unexpectedly confronted with peril, and casting desperately about for +means of defence and escape. For the instant his mind was aflame with +this vivid impression--that he was among sinister enemies, at the mercy +of criminals. He half rose under the impelling stress of this feeling, +with the sweat standing on his brow, and his jaw dropped in a scared and +bewildered stare. + +Then, quite as suddenly, the sense of shock was gone; and it was as if +nothing at all had happened. He drew a long breath, took another sip of +his coffee, and found himself all at once reflecting almost pleasurably +upon the charm of contact with really educated people. He leaned back in +the big chair again, and smiled to show these men of the world how much +at his ease he was. It required an effort, he discovered, but he made it +bravely, and hoped he was succeeding. + +“It hasn't been in my power to at all lay hold of what the world keeps +on learning nowadays about its babyhood,” he said. “All I have done is +to try to preserve an open mind, and to maintain my faith that the more +we know, the nearer we shall approach the Throne.” + +Dr. Ledsmar abruptly scuffled his feet on the floor, and took out his +watch. “I'm afraid--” he began. + +“No, no! There's plenty of time,” remarked the priest, with his soft +half-smile and purring tones. “You finish your cigar here with Mr. Ware, +and excuse me while I run down and get rid of the people in the hall.” + +Father Forbes tossed his cigar-end into the fender. Then he took from +the mantel a strange three-cornered black-velvet cap, with a dangling +silk tassel at the side, put it on his head, and went out. + +Theron, being left alone with the doctor, hardly knew what to do or say. +He took up a paper from the floor beside him, but realized that it would +be impolite to go farther, and laid it on his knee. Some trace of that +earlier momentary feeling that he was in hostile hands came back, and +worried him. He lifted himself upright in the chair, and then became +conscious that what really disturbed him was the fact that Dr. Ledsmar +had turned in his seat, crossed his legs, and was contemplating him with +a gravely concentrated scrutiny through his spectacles. + +This uncomfortable gaze kept itself up a long way beyond the point of +good manners; but the doctor seemed not to mind that at all. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +When Dr. Ledsmar finally spoke, it was in a kindlier tone than the +young minister had looked for. “I had half a notion of going to hear +you preach the other evening,” he said; “but at the last minute I backed +out. I daresay I shall pluck up the courage, sooner or later, and really +go. It must be fully twenty years since I last heard a sermon, and I had +supposed that that would suffice for the rest of my life. But they +tell me that you are worth while; and, for some reason or other, I find +myself curious on the subject.” + +Involved and dubious though the compliment might be, Theron felt himself +flushing with satisfaction. He nodded his acknowledgment, and changed +the topic. + +“I was surprised to hear Father Forbes say that he did not preach,” he +remarked. + +“Why should he?” asked the doctor, indifferently. “I suppose he hasn't +more than fifteen parishioners in a thousand who would understand him +if he did, and of these probably twelve would join in a complaint to his +Bishop about the heterodox tone of his sermon. There is no point in his +going to all that pains, merely to incur that risk. Nobody wants him to +preach, and he has reached an age where personal vanity no longer tempts +him to do so. What IS wanted of him is that he should be the paternal, +ceremonial, authoritative head and centre of his flock, adviser, +monitor, overseer, elder brother, friend, patron, seigneur--whatever you +like--everything except a bore. They draw the line at that. You see how +diametrically opposed this Catholic point of view is to the Protestant.” + +“The difference does seem extremely curious to me,” said Theron. “Now, +those people in the hall--” + +“Go on,” put in the doctor, as the other faltered hesitatingly. “I know +what you were going to say. It struck you as odd that he should let them +wait on the bench there, while he came up here to smoke.” + +Theron smiled faintly. “I WAS thinking that my--my parishioners wouldn't +have taken it so quietly. But of course--it is all so different!” + +“As chalk from cheese!” said Dr. Ledsmar, lighting a fresh cigar. “I +daresay every one you saw there had come either to take the pledge, or +see to it that one of the others took it. That is the chief industry +in the hall, so far as I have observed. Now discipline is an important +element in the machinery here. Coming to take the pledge implies that +you have been drunk and are now ashamed. Both states have their values, +but they are opposed. Sitting on that bench tends to develop penitence +to the prejudice of alcoholism. But at no stage would it ever occur to +the occupant of the bench that he was the best judge of how long he was +to sit there, or that his priest should interrupt his dinner or general +personal routine, in order to administer that pledge. Now, I daresay you +have no people at all coming to 'swear off.'” + +The Rev. Mr. Ware shook his head. “No; if a man with us got as bad as +all that, he wouldn't come near the church at all. He'd simply drop out, +and there would be an end to it.” + +“Quite so,” interjected the doctor. “That is the voluntary system. But +these fellows can't drop out. There's no bottom to the Catholic Church. +Everything that's in, stays in. If you don't mind my saying so--of +course I view you all impartially from the outside--but it seems logical +to me that a church should exist for those who need its help, and not +for those who by their own profession are so good already that it is +they who help the church. Now, you turn a man out of your church who +behaves badly: that must be on the theory that his remaining in would +injure the church, and that in turn involves the idea that it is the +excellent character of the parishioners which imparts virtue to the +church. The Catholics' conception, you see, is quite the converse. Such +virtue as they keep in stock is on tap, so to speak, here in the church +itself, and the parishioners come and get some for themselves according +to their need for it. Some come every day, some only once a year, some +perhaps never between their baptism and their funeral. But they all +have a right here, the professional burglar every whit as much as the +speckless saint. The only stipulation is that they oughtn't to come +under false pretences: the burglar is in honor bound not to pass himself +off to his priest as the saint. But that is merely a moral obligation, +established in the burglar's own interest. It does him no good to come +unless he feels that he is playing the rules of the game, and one of +these is confession. If he cheats there, he knows that he is cheating +nobody but himself, and might much better have stopped away altogether.” + +Theron nodded his head comprehendingly. He had a great many views about +the Romanish rite of confession which did not at all square with this +statement of the case, but this did not seem a specially fit time for +bringing them forth. There was indeed a sense of languid repletion in +his mind, as if it had been overfed and wanted to lie down for awhile. +He contented himself with nodding again, and murmuring reflectively, +“Yes, it is all strangely different.” + +His tone was an invitation to silence; and the doctor turned his +attention to the cigar, studying its ash for a minute with an air +of deep meditation, and then solemnly blowing out a slow series of +smoke-rings. Theron watched him with an indolent, placid eye, wondering +lazily if it was, after all, so very pleasant to smoke. + +There fell upon this silence--with a softness so delicate that it came +almost like a progression in the hush--the sound of sweet music. For a +little, strain and source were alike indefinite--an impalpable setting +to harmony of the mellowed light, the perfumed opalescence of the air, +the luxury and charm of the room. Then it rose as by a sweeping curve of +beauty, into a firm, calm, severe melody, delicious to the ear, but as +cold in the mind's vision as moonlit sculpture. It went on upward with +stately collectedness of power, till the atmosphere seemed all alive +with the trembling consciousness of the presence of lofty souls, sternly +pure and pitilessly great. + +Theron found himself moved as he had never been before. He almost +resented the discovery, when it was presented to him by the prosaic, +mechanical side of his brain, that he was listening to organ-music, and +that it came through the open window from the church close by. He would +fain have reclined in his chair and closed his eyes, and saturated +himself with the uttermost fulness of the sensation. Yet, in absurd +despite of himself, he rose and moved over to the window. + +Only a narrow alley separated the pastorate from the church; Mr. Ware +could have touched with a walking-stick the opposite wall. Indirectly +facing him was the arched and mullioned top of a great window. A dim +light from within shone through the more translucent portions of the +glass below, throwing out faint little bars of party-colored radiance +upon the blackness of the deep passage-way. He could vaguely trace by +these the outlines of some sort of picture on the window. There were +human figures in it, and--yes--up here in the centre, nearest him, was a +woman's head. There was a halo about it, engirdling rich, flowing waves +of reddish hair, the lights in which glowed like flame. The face itself +was barely distinguishable, but its half-suggested form raised a curious +sense of resemblance to some other face. He looked at it closely, +blankly, the noble music throbbing through his brain meanwhile. + +“It's that Madden girl!” he suddenly heard a voice say by his side. Dr. +Ledsmar had followed him to the window, and was close at his shoulder. + +Theron's thoughts were upon the puzzling shadowed lineaments on the +stained glass. He saw now in a flash the resemblance which had baffled +him. “It IS like her, of course,” he said. + +“Yes, unfortunately, it IS just like her,” replied the doctor, with a +hostile note in his voice. “Whenever I am dining here, she always goes +in and kicks up that racket. She knows I hate it.” + +“Oh, you mean that it is she who is playing,” remarked Theron. “I +thought you referred to--at least--I was thinking of--” + +His sentence died off in inconsequence. He had a feeling that he did not +want to talk with the doctor about the stained-glass likeness. The music +had sunk away now into fragmentary and unconnected passages, broken here +and there by abrupt stops. Dr. Ledsmar stretched an arm out past him and +shut the window. “Let's hear as little of the row as we can,” he said, +and the two went back to their chairs. + +“Pardon me for the question,” the Rev. Mr. Ware said, after a pause +which began to affect him as constrained, “but something you said about +dining--you don't live here, then? In the house, I mean?” + +The doctor laughed--a characteristically abrupt, dry little laugh, which +struck Theron at once as bearing a sort of black-sheep relationship +to the priest's habitual chuckle. “That must have been puzzling you no +end,” he said--“that notion that the pastorate kept a devil's advocate +on the premises. No, Mr. Ware, I don't live here. I inhabit a house +of my own--you may have seen it--an old-fashioned place up beyond the +race-course, with a sort of tower at the back, and a big garden. But I +dine here three or four times a week. It is an old arrangement of ours. +Vincent and I have been friends for many years now. We are quite alone +in the world, we two--much to our mutual satisfaction. You must come +up and see me some time; come up and have a look over the books we were +speaking of.” + +“I am much obliged,” said Theron, without enthusiasm. The thought of the +doctor by himself did not attract him greatly. + +The reservation in his tone seemed to interest the doctor. “I suppose +you are the first man I have asked in a dozen years,” he remarked, +frankly willing that the young minister should appreciate the favor +extended him. “It must be fully that since anybody but Vincent Forbes +has been under my roof; that is, of my own species, I mean.” + +“You live there quite alone,” commented Theron. + +“Quite--with my dogs and cats and lizards--and my Chinaman. I mustn't +forget him.” The doctor noted the inquiry in the other's lifted brows, +and smilingly explained. “He is my solitary servant. Possibly he +might not appeal to you much; but I can assure you he used to interest +Octavius a great deal when I first brought him here, ten years ago or +so. He afforded occupation for all the idle boys in the village for a +twelve-month at least. They used to lie in wait for him all day long, +with stones or horse-chestnuts or snowballs, according to the season. +The Irishmen from the wagon-works nearly killed him once or twice, but +he patiently lived it all down. The Chinaman has the patience to live +everything down--the Caucasian races included. He will see us all to +bed, will that gentleman with the pigtail!” + +The music over in the church had lifted itself again into form and +sequence, and defied the closed window. If anything, it was louder than +before, and the sonorous roar of the bass-pedals seemed to be shaking +the very walls. It was something with a big-lunged, exultant, triumphing +swing in it--something which ought to have been sung on the battlefield +at the close of day by the whole jubilant army of victors. It was +impossible to pretend not to be listening to it; but the doctor +submitted with an obvious scowl, and bit off the tip of his third cigar +with an annoyed air. + +“You don't seem to care much for music,” suggested Mr. Ware, when a lull +came. + +Dr. Ledsmar looked up, lighted match in hand. “Say musicians!” he +growled. “Has it ever occurred to you,” he went on, between puffs at the +flame, “that the only animals who make the noises we call music are of +the bird family--a debased offshoot of the reptilian creation--the +very lowest types of the vertebrata now in existence? I insist upon +the parallel among humans. I have in my time, sir, had considerable +opportunities for studying close at hand the various orders of mammalia +who devote themselves to what they describe as the arts. It may sound +a harsh judgement, but I am convinced that musicians stand on the very +bottom rung of the ladder in the sub-cellar of human intelligence, even +lower than painters and actors.” + +This seemed such unqualified nonsense to the Rev. Mr. Ware that he +offered no comment whatever upon it. He tried instead to divert his +thoughts to the stormy strains which rolled in through the vibrating +brickwork, and to picture to himself the large, capable figure of Miss +Madden seated in the half-light at the organ-board, swaying to and fro +in a splendid ecstasy of power as she evoked at will this superb and +ordered uproar. But the doctor broke insistently in upon his musings. + +“All art, so-called, is decay,” he said, raising his voice. “When a race +begins to brood on the beautiful--so-called--it is a sign of rot, of +getting ready to fall from the tree. Take the Jews--those marvellous old +fellows--who were never more than a handful, yet have imposed the rule +of their ideas and their gods upon us for fifteen hundred years. Why? +They were forbidden by their most fundamental law to make sculptures or +pictures. That was at a time when the Egyptians, when the Assyrians, and +other Semites, were running to artistic riot. Every great museum in +the world now has whole floors devoted to statues from the Nile, and +marvellous carvings from the palaces of Sargon and Assurbanipal. You +can get the artistic remains of the Jews during that whole period into +a child's wheelbarrow. They had the sense and strength to penalize art; +they alone survived. They saw the Egyptians go, the Assyrians go, the +Greeks go, the late Romans go, the Moors in Spain go--all the artistic +peoples perish. They remained triumphing over all. Now at last their +long-belated apogee is here; their decline is at hand. I am told that in +this present generation in Europe the Jews are producing a great lot of +young painters and sculptors and actors, just as for a century they have +been producing famous composers and musicians. That means the end of the +Jews!” + +“What! have you only got as far as that?” came the welcome interruption +of a cheery voice. Father Forbes had entered the room, and stood looking +down with a whimsical twinkle in his eye from one to the other of his +guests. + +“You must have been taken over the ground at a very slow pace, Mr. +Ware,” he continued, chuckling softly, “to have arrived merely at the +collapse of the New Jerusalem. I fancied I had given him time enough to +bring you straight up to the end of all of us, with that Chinaman of +his gently slapping our graves with his pigtail. That's where the doctor +always winds up, if he's allowed to run his course.” + +“It has all been very interesting, extremely so, I assure you,” faltered +Theron. It had become suddenly apparent to him that he desired nothing +so much as to make his escape--that he had indeed only been waiting for +the host's return to do so. + +He rose at this, and explained that he must be going. No special effort +being put forth to restrain him, he presently made his way out, Father +Forbes hospitably following him down to the door, and putting a very +gracious cordiality into his adieux. + +The night was warm and black. Theron stood still in it the moment the +pastorate door had closed; the sudden darkness was so thick that it +was as if he had closed his eyes. His dominant sensation was of a deep +relief and rest after some undue fatigue. It crossed his mind that +drunken men probably felt like that as they leaned against things on +their way home. He was affected himself, he saw, by the weariness and +half-nausea following a mental intoxication. The conceit pleased him, +and he smiled to himself as he turned and took the first homeward steps. +It must be growing late, he thought. Alice would be wondering as she +waited. + +There was a street lamp at the corner, and as he walked toward it he +noted all at once that his feet were keeping step to the movement of +the music proceeding from the organ within the church--a vaguely +processional air, marked enough in measure, but still with a dreamy +effect. It became a pleasure to identify his progress with the quaint +rhythm of sound as he sauntered along. He discovered, as he neared +the light, that he was instinctively stepping over the seams in the +flagstone sidewalk as he had done as a boy. He smiled again at this. +There was something exceptionally juvenile and buoyant about his mood, +now that he examined it. He set it down as a reaction from that doctor's +extravagant and incendiary talk. One thing was certain--he would never +be caught up at that house beyond the race-course, with its reptiles and +its Chinaman. Should he ever even go to the pastorate again? He decided +not to quite definitely answer THAT in the negative, but as he felt now, +the chances were all against it. + +Turning the corner, and walking off into the shadows along the side +of the huge church building, Theron noted, almost at the end of the +edifice, a small door--the entrance to a porch coming out to the +sidewalk--which stood wide open. A thin, pale, vertical line of light +showed that the inner door, too, was ajar. + +Through this wee aperture the organ-music, reduced and mellowed by +distance, came to him again with that same curious, intimate, personal +relation which had so moved him at the start, before the doctor closed +the window. It was as if it was being played for him alone. + +He paused for a doubting minute or two, with bowed head, listening to +the exquisite harmony which floated out to caress and soothe and enfold +him. There was no spiritual, or at least pious, effect in it now. +He fancied that it must be secular music, or, if not, then something +adapted to marriage ceremonies--rich, vivid, passionate, a celebration +of beauty and the glory of possession, with its ruling note of joy only +heightened by soft, wooing interludes, and here and there the tremor of +a fond, timid little sob. + +Theron turned away irresolutely, half frightened at the undreamt-of +impression this music was making upon him. Then, all at once, he wheeled +and stepped boldly into the porch, pushing the inner door open and +hearing it rustle against its leathern frame as it swung to behind him. + +He had never been inside a Catholic church before. + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Jeremiah Madden was supposed to be probably the richest man in Octavius. +There was no doubt at all about his being its least pretentious citizen. + +The huge and ornate modern mansion which he had built, putting to shame +every other house in the place, gave an effect of ostentation to the +Maddens as a family; it seemed only to accentuate the air of humility +which enveloped Jeremiah as with a garment. Everybody knew some version +of the many tales afloat which, in a kindly spirit, illustrated the +incongruity between him and his splendid habitation. Some had it that he +slept in the shed. Others told whimsical stories of his sitting alone in +the kitchen evenings, smoking his old clay pipe, and sorrowing because +the second Mrs. Madden would not suffer the pigs and chickens to come +in and bear him company. But no matter how comic the exaggeration, +these legends were invariably amiable. It lay in no man's mouth to speak +harshly of Jeremiah Madden. + +He had been born a Connemara peasant, and he would die one. When he +was ten years old he had seen some of his own family, and most of his +neighbors, starve to death. He could remember looking at the stiffened +figure of a woman stretched on the stones by the roadside, with the +green stain of nettles on her white lips. A girl five years or so +older than himself, also a Madden and distantly related, had started +in despair off across the mountains to the town where it was said the +poor-law officers were dealing out food. He could recall her coming back +next day, wild-eyed with hunger and the fever; the officers had refused +her relief because her bare legs were not wholly shrunken to the bone. +“While there's a calf on the shank, there's no starvation,” they had +explained to her. The girl died without profiting by this official +apothegm. The boy found it burned ineffaceably upon his brain. Now, +after a lapse of more than forty years, it seemed the thing that he +remembered best about Ireland. + +He had drifted westward as an unconsidered, unresisting item in that +vast flight of the famine years. Others whom he rubbed against in that +melancholy exodus, and deemed of much greater promise than himself, had +done badly. Somehow he did well. He learned the wheelwright's trade, +and really that seemed all there was to tell. The rest had been calm +and sequent progression--steady employment as a journeyman first; then +marriage and a house and lot; the modest start as a master; the move to +Octavius and cheap lumber; the growth of his business, always marked of +late years stupendous--all following naturally, easily, one thing out of +another. Jeremiah encountered the idea among his fellows, now and again, +that he was entitled to feel proud of all this. He smiled to himself at +the thought, and then sent a sigh after the smile. What was it all but +empty and transient vanity? The score of other Connemara boys he had +known--none very fortunate, several broken tragically in prison or the +gutter, nearly all now gone the way of flesh--were as good as he. He +could not have it in his heart to take credit for his success; it would +have been like sneering over their poor graves. + +Jeremiah Madden was now fifty-three--a little man of a reddened, +weather-worn skin and a meditative, almost saddened, aspect. He had blue +eyes, but his scanty iron-gray hair showed raven black in its shadows. +The width and prominence of his cheek-bones dominated all one's +recollections of his face. The long vertical upper-lip and irregular +teeth made, in repose, an unshapely mouth; its smile, though, sweetened +the whole countenance. He wore a fringe of stiff, steel-colored beard, +passing from ear to ear under his chin. His week-day clothes were as +simple as his workaday manners, fitting his short black pipe and his +steadfast devotion to his business. On Sundays he dressed with a certain +rigor of respectability, all in black, and laid aside tobacco, at least +to the public view. He never missed going to the early Low Mass, quite +alone. His family always came later, at the ten o'clock High Mass. + +There had been, at one time or another, a good many members of this +family. Two wives had borne Jeremiah Madden a total of over a dozen +children. Of these there survived now only two of the first Mrs. +Madden's offspring--Michael and Celia--and a son of the present wife, +who had been baptized Terence, but called himself Theodore. This +minority of the family inhabited the great new house on Main Street. +Jeremiah went every Sunday afternoon by himself to kneel in the presence +of the majority, there where they lay in Saint Agnes' consecrated +ground. If the weather was good, he generally extended his walk through +the fields to an old deserted Catholic burial-field, which had been used +only in the first years after the famine invasion, and now was clean +forgotten. The old wagon-maker liked to look over the primitive, +neglected stones which marked the graves of these earlier exiles. Fully +half of the inscriptions mentioned his County Galway--there were two +naming the very parish adjoining his. The latest date on any stone was +of the remoter 'fifties. They had all been stricken down, here in this +strange land with its bitter winters, while the memory of their own +soft, humid, gentle west-coast air was fresh within them. Musing upon +the clumsy sculpture, with its “R.I.P.,” or “Pray for the Soul of,” half +to be guessed under the stain and moss of a generation, there would seem +to him but a step from this present to that heart-rending, awful past. +What had happened between was a meaningless vision--as impersonal as the +passing of the planets overhead. He rarely had an impulse to tears +in the new cemetery, where his ten children were. He never left this +weed-grown, forsaken old God's-acre dry-eyed. + +One must not construct from all this the image of a melancholy man, as +his fellows met and knew him. Mr. Madden kept his griefs, racial and +individual, for his own use. To the men about him in the offices and +the shops he presented day after day, year after year, an imperturbable +cheeriness of demeanor. He had been always fortunate in the selection of +lieutenants and chief helpers. Two of these had grown now into partners, +and were almost as much a part of the big enterprise as Jeremiah +himself. They spoke often of their inability to remember any unjust or +petulant word of his--much less any unworthy deed. Once they had seen +him in a great rage, all the more impressive because he said next to +nothing. A thoughtless fellow told a dirty story in the presence of +some apprentices; and Madden, listening to this, drove the offender +implacably from his employ. It was years now since any one who knew him +had ventured upon lewd pleasantries in his hearing. Jokes of the sort +which women might hear he was very fond of though he had not much humor +of his own. Of books he knew nothing whatever, and he made only the most +perfunctory pretence now and again of reading the newspapers. + +The elder son Michael was very like his father--diligent, unassuming, +kindly, and simple--a plain, tall, thin red man of nearly thirty, who +toiled in paper cap and rolled-up shirt-sleeves as the superintendent in +the saw-mill, and put on no airs whatever as the son of the master. +If there was surprise felt at his not being taken into the firm as a +partner, he gave no hint of sharing it. He attended to his religious +duties with great zeal, and was President of the Sodality as a matter +of course. This was regarded as his blind side; and young employees +who cultivated it, and made broad their phylacteries under his notice, +certainly had an added chance of getting on well in the works. To some +few whom he knew specially well, Michael would confess that if he +had had the brains for it, he should have wished to be a priest. He +displayed no inclination to marry. + +The other son, Terence, was some eight years younger, and seemed the +product of a wholly different race. The contrast between Michael's sandy +skin and long gaunt visage and this dark boy's handsome, rounded face, +with its prettily curling black hair, large, heavily fringed brown +eyes, and delicately modelled features, was not more obvious than their +temperamental separation. This second lad had been away for years at +school,--indeed, at a good many schools, for no one seemed to manage +to keep him long. He had been with the Jesuits at Georgetown, with the +Christian Brothers at Manhattan; the sectarian Mt. St. Mary's and the +severely secular Annapolis had both been tried, and proved misfits. +The young man was home again now, and save that his name had become +Theodore, he appeared in no wise changed from the beautiful, wilful, +bold, and showy boy who had gone away in his teens. He was still rather +small for his years, but so gracefully moulded in form, and so perfectly +tailored, that the fact seemed rather an advantage than otherwise. +He never dreamed of going near the wagon-works, but he did go a good +deal--in fact, most of the time--to the Nedahma Club. His mother spoke +often to her friends about her fears for his health. He never spoke to +his friends about his mother at all. + +The second Mrs. Madden did not, indeed, appeal strongly to the family +pride. She had been a Miss Foley, a dress-maker, and an old maid. +Jeremiah had married her after a brief widowerhood, principally +because she was the sister of his parish priest, and had a considerable +reputation for piety. It was at a time when the expansion of his +business was promising certain wealth, and suggesting the removal to +Octavius. He was conscious of a notion that his obligations to social +respectability were increasing; it was certain that the embarrassments +of a motherless family were. Miss Foley had shown a good deal of +attention to his little children. She was not ill-looking; she bore +herself with modesty; she was the priest's sister--the niece once +removed of a vicar-general. And so it came about. + +Although those most concerned did not say so, everybody could see from +the outset the pity of its ever having come about at all. The pious +and stiffly respectable priest's sister had been harmless enough as +a spinster. It made the heart ache to contemplate her as a wife. +Incredibly narrow-minded, ignorant, suspicious, vain, and sour-tempered, +she must have driven a less equable and well-rooted man than Jeremiah +Madden to drink or flight. He may have had his temptations, but they +made no mark on the even record of his life. He only worked the harder, +concentrating upon his business those extra hours which another sort of +home-life would have claimed instead. The end of twenty years found him +a rich man, but still toiling pertinaciously day by day, as if he had +his wage to earn. In the great house which had been built to please, or +rather placate, his wife, he kept to himself as much as possible. The +popular story of his smoking alone in the kitchen was more or less +true; only Michael as a rule sat with him, too weak-lunged for tobacco +himself, but reading stray scraps from the papers to the lonely old man, +and talking with him about the works, the while Jeremiah meditatively +sucked his clay pipe. One or two evenings in the week the twain spent up +in Celia's part of the house, listening with the awe of simple, honest +mechanics to the music she played for them. + +Celia was to them something indefinably less, indescribably more, than +a daughter and sister. They could not think there had ever been anything +like her before in the world; the notion of criticising any deed or word +of hers would have appeared to them monstrous and unnatural. + +She seemed to have come up to this radiant and wise and marvellously +talented womanhood of hers, to their minds, quite spontaneously. There +had been a little Celia--a red-headed, sulky, mutinous slip of a girl, +always at war with her step-mother, and affording no special comfort or +hope to the rest of the family. Then there was a long gap, during which +the father, four times a year, handed Michael a letter he had received +from the superioress of a distant convent, referring with cold formality +to the studies and discipline by which Miss Madden might profit more if +she had been better brought up, and enclosing a large bill. Then all at +once they beheld a big Celia, whom they spoke of as being home again, +but who really seemed never to have been there before--a tall, handsome, +confident young woman, swift of tongue and apprehension, appearing to +know everything there was to be known by the most learned, able to paint +pictures, carve wood, speak in divers languages, and make music for the +gods, yet with it all a very proud lady, one might say a queen. + +The miracle of such a Celia as this impressed itself even upon the +step-mother. Mrs. Madden had looked forward with a certain grim +tightening of her combative jaws to the home-coming of the “red-head.” + She felt herself much more the fine lady now than she had been when the +girl went away. She had her carriage now, and the magnificent new house +was nearly finished, and she had a greater number of ailments, and +spent far more money on doctor's bills, than any other lady in the +whole section. The flush of pride in her greatest achievement up to +date--having the most celebrated of New York physicians brought up to +Octavius by special train--still prickled in her blood. It was in +all the papers, and the admiration of the flatterers and +“soft-sawdherers”--wives of Irish merchants and smaller professional men +who formed her social circle--was raising visions in her poor head of +going next year with Theodore to Saratoga, and fastening the attention +of the whole fashionable republic upon the variety and resources of her +invalidism. Mrs. Madden's fancy did not run to the length of seeing her +step-daughter also at Saratoga; it pictured her still as the sullen +and hated “red-head,” moping defiantly in corners, or courting by +her insolence the punishments which leaped against their leash in the +step-mother's mind to get at her. + +The real Celia, when she came, fairly took Mrs. Madden's breath away. +The peevish little plans for annoyance and tyranny, the resolutions born +of ignorant and jealous egotism, found themselves swept out of sight by +the very first swirl of Celia's dress-train, when she came down from her +room robed in peacock blue. The step-mother could only stare. + +Now, after two years of it, Mrs. Madden still viewed her step-daughter +with round-eyed uncertainty, not unmixed with wrathful fear. She still +drove about behind two magnificent horses; the new house had become +almost tiresome by familiarity; her pre-eminence in the interested minds +of the Dearborn County Medical Society was as towering as ever, but +somehow it was all different. There was a note of unreality nowadays +in Mrs. Donnelly's professions of wonder at her bearing up under +her multiplied maladies; there was almost a leer of mockery in the +sympathetic smirk with which the Misses Mangan listened to her symptoms. +Even the doctors, though they kept their faces turned toward her, +obviously did not pay much attention; the people in the street seemed no +longer to look at her and her equipage at all. Worst of all, something +of the meaning of this managed to penetrate her own mind. She caught now +and again a dim glimpse of herself as others must have been seeing her +for years--as a stupid, ugly, boastful, and bad-tempered old nuisance. +And it was always as if she saw this in a mirror held up by Celia. + +Of open discord there had been next to none. Celia would not permit it, +and showed this so clearly from the start that there was scarcely need +for her saying it. It seemed hardly necessary for her to put into words +any of her desires, for that matter. All existing arrangements in the +Madden household seemed to shrink automatically and make room for her, +whichever way she walked. A whole quarter of the unfinished house set +itself apart for her. Partitions altered themselves; door-ways moved +across to opposite sides; a recess opened itself, tall and deep, for it +knew not what statue--simply because, it seemed, the Lady Celia willed +it so. + +When the family moved into this mansion, it was with a consciousness +that the only one who really belonged there was Celia. She alone could +behave like one perfectly at home. It seemed entirely natural to the +others that she should do just what she liked, shut them off from her +portion of the house, take her meals there if she felt disposed, and +keep such hours as pleased her instant whim. If she awakened them at +midnight by her piano, or deferred her breakfast to the late afternoon, +they felt that it must be all right, since Celia did it. She had one +room furnished with only divans and huge, soft cushions, its walls +covered with large copies of statuary not too strictly clothed, which +she would suffer no one, not even the servants, to enter. Michael +fancied sometimes, when he passed the draped entrance to this sacred +chamber, that the portiere smelt of tobacco, but he would not have +spoken of it, even had he been sure. Old Jeremiah, whose established +habit it was to audit minutely the expenses of his household, covered +over round sums to Celia's separate banking account, upon the mere +playful hint of her holding her check-book up, without a dream of +questioning her. + +That the step-mother had joy, or indeed anything but gall and wormwood, +out of all this is not to be pretended. There lingered along in the +recollection of the family some vague memories of her having tried to +assert an authority over Celia's comings and goings at the outset, but +they grouped themselves as only parts of the general disorder of moving +and settling, which a fort-night or so quite righted. Mrs. Madden +still permitted herself a certain license of hostile comment when her +step-daughter was not present, and listened with gratification to what +the women of her acquaintance ventured upon saying in the same spirit; +but actual interference or remonstrance she never offered nowadays. +The two rarely met, for that matter, and exchanged only the baldest and +curtest forms of speech. + +Celia Madden interested all Octavius deeply. This she must have done +in any case, if only because she was the only daughter of its richest +citizen. But the bold, luxuriant quality of her beauty, the original +and piquant freedom of her manners, the stories told in gossip about +her lawlessness at home, her intellectual attainments, and artistic +vagaries--these were even more exciting. The unlikelihood of her +marrying any one--at least any Octavian--was felt to add a certain +romantic zest to the image she made on the local perceptions. There was +no visible young Irishman at all approaching the social and financial +standard of the Maddens; it was taken for granted that a mixed marriage +was quite out of the question in this case. She seemed to have more +business about the church than even the priest. She was always playing +the organ, or drilling the choir, or decorating the altars with flowers, +or looking over the robes of the acolytes for rents and stains, or going +in or out of the pastorate. Clearly this was not the sort of girl to +take a Protestant husband. + +The gossip of the town concerning her was, however, exclusively +Protestant. The Irish spoke of her, even among themselves, but seldom. +There was no occasion for them to pretend to like her: they did not know +her, except in the most distant and formal fashion. Even the members of +the choir, of both sexes, had the sense of being held away from her +at haughty arm's length. No single parishioner dreamed of calling her +friend. But when they referred to her, it was always with a cautious and +respectful reticence. For one thing, she was the daughter of their chief +man, the man they most esteemed and loved. For another, reservations +they may have had in their souls about her touched close upon a +delicately sore spot. It could not escape their notice that their +Protestant neighbors were watching her with vigilant curiosity, and with +a certain tendency to wink when her name came into conversation along +with that of Father Forbes. It had never yet got beyond a tendency--the +barest fluttering suggestion of a tempted eyelid--but the whole Irish +population of the place felt themselves to be waiting, with clenched +fists but sinking hearts, for the wink itself. + +The Rev. Theron Ware had not caught even the faintest hint of these +overtures to suspicion. + +When he had entered the huge, dark, cool vault of the church, he could +see nothing at first but a faint light up over the gallery, far at the +other end. Then, little by little, his surroundings shaped themselves +out of the gloom. To his right was a rail and some broad steps rising +toward a softly confused mass of little gray vertical bars and the pale +twinkle of tiny spots of gilded reflection, which he made out in the +dusk to be the candles and trappings of the altar. Overhead the great +arches faded away from foundations of dimly discernible capitals +into utter blackness. There was a strange medicinal odor--as of cubeb +cigarettes--in the air. + +After a little pause, he tiptoed noiselessly up the side aisle toward +the end of the church--toward the light above the gallery. This radiance +from a single gas-jet expanded as he advanced, and spread itself upward +over a burnished row of monster metal pipes, which went towering into +the darkness like giants. They were roaring at him now--a sonorous, +deafening, angry bellow, which made everything about him vibrate. The +gallery balustrade hid the keyboard and the organist from view. There +were only these jostling brazen tubes, as big round as trees and as +tall, trembling with their own furious thunder. It was for all the world +as if he had wandered into some vast tragical, enchanted cave, and was +being drawn against his will--like fascinated bird and python--toward +fate at the savage hands of these swollen and enraged genii. + +He stumbled in the obscure light over a kneeling-bench, making a +considerable racket. On the instant the noise from the organ ceased, and +he saw the black figure of a woman rise above the gallery-rail and look +down. + +“Who is it?” the indubitable voice of Miss Madden demanded sharply. + +Theron had a sudden sheepish notion of turning and running. With the +best grace he could summon, he called out an explanation instead. + +“Wait a minute. I'm through now. I'm coming down,” she returned. He +thought there was a note of amusement in her tone. + +She came to him a moment later, accompanied by a thin, tall man, whom +Theron could barely see in the dark, now that the organ-light too was +gone. This man lighted a match or two to enable them to make their way +out. + +When they were on the sidewalk, Celia spoke: “Walk on ahead, Michael!” + she said. “I have some matters to speak of with Mr. Ware.” + + + +CHAPTER X + + +“Well, what did you think of Dr. Ledsmar?” + +The girl's abrupt question came as a relief to Theron. They were walking +along in a darkness so nearly complete that he could see next to nothing +of his companion. For some reason, this seemed to suggest a sort of +impropriety. He had listened to the footsteps of the man ahead--whom +he guessed to be a servant--and pictured him as intent upon getting up +early next morning to tell everybody that the Methodist minister had +stolen into the Catholic church at night to walk home with Miss Madden. +That was going to be very awkward--yes, worse than awkward! It might +mean ruin itself. She had mentioned aloud that she had matters to talk +over with him: that of course implied confidences, and the man might +put heaven only knew what construction on that. It was notorious that +servants did ascribe the very worst motives to those they worked for. +The bare thought of the delight an Irish servant would have in also +dragging a Protestant clergyman into the thing was sickening. And what +could she want to talk to him about, anyway? The minute of silence +stretched itself out upon his nerves into an interminable period of +anxious unhappiness. Her mention of the doctor at last somehow, seemed +to lighten the situation. + +“Oh, I thought he was very smart.” he made haste to answer. “Wouldn't +it be better--to--keep close to your man? He--may--think we've gone some +other way.” + +“It wouldn't matter if he did,” remarked Celia. She appeared to +comprehend his nervousness and take pity on it, for she added, “It is +my brother Michael, as good a soul as ever lived. He is quite used to my +ways.” + +The Rev. Mr. Ware drew a long comforting breath. “Oh, I see! He went +with you to--bring you home.” + +“To blow the organ,” said the girl in the dark, correctingly. “But about +that doctor; did you like him?” + +“Well,” Theron began, “'like' is rather a strong word for so short +an acquaintance. He talked very well; that is, fluently. But he is so +different from any other man I have come into contact with that--” + +“What I wanted you to say was that you hated him,” put in Celia, firmly. + +“I don't make a practice of saying that of anybody,” returned Theron, so +much at his ease again that he put an effect of gentle, smiling reproof +into the words. “And why specially should I make an exception for him?” + +“Because he's a beast!” + +Theron fancied that he understood. “I noticed that he seemed not to have +much of an ear for music,” he commented, with a little laugh. “He shut +down the window when you began to play. His doing so annoyed me, because +I--I wanted very much to hear it all. I never heard such music before. +I--I came into the church to hear more of it; but then you stopped!” + +“I will play for you some other time,” Celia said, answering the +reproach in his tone. “But tonight I wanted to talk with you instead.” + +She kept silent, in spite of this, so long now that Theron was on the +point of jestingly asking when the talk was to begin. Then she put a +question abruptly-- + +“It is a conventional way of putting it, but are you fond of poetry, Mr. +Ware?” + +“Well, yes, I suppose I am,” replied Theron, much mystified. “I can't +say that I am any great judge; but I like the things that I like--and--” + +“Meredith,” interposed Celia, “makes one of his women, Emilia in +England, say that poetry is like talking on tiptoe; like animals in +cages, always going to one end and back again. Does it impress you that +way?” + +“I don't know that it does,” said he, dubiously. It seemed, however, +to be her whim to talk literature, and he went on: “I've hardly read +Meredith at all. I once borrowed his 'Lucile,' but somehow I never got +interested in it. I heard a recitation of his once, though--a piece +about a dead wife, and the husband and another man quarrelling as to +whose portrait was in the locket on her neck, and of their going up to +settle the dispute, and finding that it was the likeness of a third man, +a young priest--and though it was very striking, it didn't give me a +thirst to know his other poems. I fancied I shouldn't like them. But +I daresay I was wrong. As I get older, I find that I take less narrow +views of literature--that is, of course, of light literature--and +that--that--” + +Celia mercifully stopped him. “The reason I asked you was--” she began, +and then herself paused. “Or no,--never mind that--tell me something +else. Are you fond of pictures, statuary, the beautiful things of the +world? Do great works of art, the big achievements of the big artists, +appeal to you, stir you up?” + +“Alas! that is something I can only guess at myself,” answered Theron, +humbly. “I have always lived in little places. I suppose, from your +point of view, I have never seen a good painting in my life. I can only +say this, though--that it has always weighed on my mind as a great and +sore deprivation, this being shut out from knowing what others mean when +they talk and write about art. Perhaps that may help you to get at what +you are after. If I ever went to New York, I feel that one of the first +things I should do would be to see all the picture galleries; is that +what you meant? And--would you mind telling me--why you--?” + +“Why I asked you?” Celia supplied his halting question. “No, I DON'T +mind. I have a reason for wanting to know--to satisfy myself whether I +had guessed rightly or not--about the kind of man you are. I mean in the +matter of temperament and bent of mind and tastes.” + +The girl seemed to be speaking seriously, and without intent to offend. +Theron did not find any comment ready, but walked along by her side, +wondering much what it was all about. + +“I daresay you think me 'too familiar on short acquaintance,'” she +continued, after a little. + +“My dear Miss Madden!” he protested perfunctorily. + +“No; it is a matter of a good deal of importance,” she went on. “I can +see that you are going to be thrown into friendship, close contact, with +Father Forbes. He likes you, and you can't help liking him. There is +nobody else in this raw, overgrown, empty-headed place for you and him +TO like, nobody except that man, that Dr. Ledsmar. And if you like HIM, +I shall hate you! He has done mischief enough already. I am counting on +you to help undo it, and to choke him off from doing more. It would be +different if you were an ordinary Orthodox minister, all encased like +a terrapin in prejudices and nonsense. Of course, if you had been THAT +kind, we should never have got to know you at all. But when I saw you in +MacEvoy's cottage there, it was plain that you were one of US--I mean a +MAN, and not a marionette or a mummy. I am talking very frankly to you, +you see. I want you on my side, against that doctor and his heartless, +bloodless science.” + +“I feel myself very heartily on your side,” replied Theron. She had set +their progress at a slower pace, now that the lights of the main +street were drawing near, as if to prolong their talk. All his earlier +reservations had fled. It was almost as if she were a parishioner of +his own. “I need hardly tell you that the doctor's whole attitude +toward--toward revelation--was deeply repugnant to me. It doesn't make +it any the less hateful to call it science. I am afraid, though,” he +went on hesitatingly, “that there are difficulties in the way of my +helping, as you call it. You see, the very fact of my being a Methodist +minister, and his being a Catholic priest, rather puts my interference +out of the question.” + +“No; that doesn't matter a button,” said Celia, lightly. “None of us +think of that at all.” + +“There is the other embarrassment, then,” pursued Theron, diffidently, +“that Father Forbes is a vastly broader and deeper scholar--in all these +matters--than I am. How could I possibly hope to influence him by my +poor arguments? I don't know even the alphabet of the language he thinks +in--on these subjects, I mean.” + +“Of course you don't!” interposed the girl, with a confidence which the +other, for all his meekness, rather winced under. “That wasn't what +I meant at all. We don't want arguments from our friends: we want +sympathies, sensibilities, emotional bonds. The right person's silence +is worth more for companionship than the wisest talk in the world from +anybody else. It isn't your mind that is needed here, or what you know; +it is your heart, and what you feel. You are full of poetry, of ideals, +of generous, unselfish impulses. You see the human, the warm-blooded +side of things. THAT is what is really valuable. THAT is how you can +help!” + +“You overestimate me sadly,” protested Theron, though with considerable +tolerance for her error in his tone. “But you ought to tell me something +about this Dr. Ledsmar. He spoke of being an old friend of the pr--of +Father Forbes.” + +“Oh, yes, they've always known each other; that is, for many years. They +were professors together in a college once, heaven only knows how long +ago. Then they separated, I fancy they quarrelled, too, before they +parted. The doctor came here, where some relative had left him the +place he lives in. Then in time the Bishop chanced to send Father Forbes +here--that was about three years ago,--and the two men after a while +renewed their old relations. They dine together; that is the doctor's +stronghold. He knows more about eating than any other man alive, I +believe. He studies it as you would study a language. He has taught +old Maggie, at the pastorate there, to cook like the mother of all +the Delmonicos. And while they sit and stuff themselves, or loll about +afterward like gorged snakes, they think it is smart to laugh at all the +sweet and beautiful things in life, and to sneer at people who believe +in ideals, and to talk about mankind being merely a fortuitous product +of fermentation, and twaddle of that sort. It makes me sick!” + +“I can readily see,” said Theron, with sympathy, “how such a cold, +material, and infidel influence as that must shock and revolt an +essentially religious temperament like yours.” + +Miss Madden looked up at him. They had turned into the main street, and +there was light enough for him to detect something startlingly like a +grin on her beautiful face. + +“But I'm not religious at all, you know,” he heard her say. “I'm as +Pagan as--anything! Of course there are forms to be observed, and so on; +I rather like them than otherwise. I can make them serve very well for +my own system; for I am myself, you know, an out-an-out Greek.” + +“Why, I had supposed that you were full blooded Irish,” the Rev. Mr. +Ware found himself remarking, and then on the instant was overwhelmed by +the consciousness that he had said a foolish thing. Precisely where the +folly lay he did not know, but it was impossible to mistake the gesture +of annoyance which his companion had instinctively made at his words. +She had widened the distance between them now, and quickened her step. +They went on in silence till they were within a block of her house. +Several people had passed them who Theron felt sure must have recognized +them both. + +“What I meant was,” the girl all at once began, drawing nearer again, +and speaking with patient slowness, “that I find myself much more in +sympathy with the Greek thought, the Greek theology of the beautiful +and the strong, the Greek philosophy of life, and all that, than what is +taught nowadays. Personally, I take much more stock in Plato than I +do in Peter. But of course it is a wholly personal affair; I had no +business to bother you with it. And for that matter, I oughtn't to have +troubled you with any of our--” + +“I assure you, Miss Madden!” the young minister began, with fervor. + +“No,” she broke in, in a resigned and even downcast tone; “let it all be +as if I hadn't spoken. Don't mind anything I have said. If it is to be, +it will be. You can't say more than that, can you?” + +She looked into his face again, and her large eyes produced an +impression of deep melancholy, which Theron found himself somehow +impelled to share. Things seemed all at once to have become very sad +indeed. + +“It is one of my unhappy nights,” she explained, in gloomy confidence. +“I get them every once in a while--as if some vicious planet or other +was crossing in front of my good star--and then I'm a caution to snakes. +I shut myself up--that's the only thing to do--and have it out with +myself I didn't know but the organ-music would calm me down, but it +hasn't. I shan't sleep a wink tonight, but just rage around from one +room to another, piling all the cushions from the divans on to the +floor, and then kicking them away again. Do YOU ever have fits like +that?” + +Theron was able to reply with a good conscience in the negative. It +occurred to him to add, with jocose intent: “I am curious to know, +do these fits, as you call them, occupy a prominent part in Grecian +philosophy as a general rule?” + +Celia gave a little snort, which might have signified amusement, but did +not speak until they were upon her own sidewalk. “There is my brother, +waiting at the gate,” she said then, briefly. + +“Well, then, I will bid you good-night here, I think,” Theron remarked, +coming to a halt, and offering his hand. “It must be getting very +late, and my--that is--I have to be up particularly early tomorrow. So +good-night; I hope you will be feeling ever so much better in spirits in +the morning.” + +“Oh, that doesn't matter,” replied the girl, listlessly. “It's a very +paltry little affair, this life of ours, at the best of it. Luckily it's +soon done with--like a bad dream.” + +“Tut! Tut! I won't have you talk like that!” interrupted Theron, with a +swift and smart assumption of authority. “Such talk isn't sensible, and +it isn't good. I have no patience with it!” + +“Well, try and have a little patience with ME, anyway, just for +tonight,” said Celia, taking the reproof with gentlest humility, rather +to her censor's surprise. “I really am unhappy tonight, Mr. Ware, very +unhappy. It seems as if all at once the world had swelled out in size +a thousandfold, and that poor me had dwindled down to the merest wee +little red-headed atom--the most helpless and forlorn and lonesome of +atoms at that.” She seemed to force a sorrowful smile on her face as she +added: “But all the same it has done me good to be with you--I am sure +it has--and I daresay that by tomorrow I shall be quite out of the +blues. Good-night, Mr. Ware. Forgive my making such an exhibition of +myself I WAS going to be such a fine early Greek, you know, and I have +turned out only a late Milesian--quite of the decadence. I shall do +better next time. And good-night again, and ever so many thanks.” + +She was walking briskly away toward the gate now, where the shadowy +Michael still patiently stood. Theron strode off in the opposite +direction, taking long, deliberate steps, and bowing his head in +thought. He had his hands behind his back, as was his wont, and the +sense of their recent contact with her firm, ungloved hands was, +curiously enough, the thing which pushed itself uppermost in his mind. +There had been a frank, almost manly vigor in her grasp; he said +to himself that of course that came from her playing so much on the +keyboard; the exercise naturally would give her large, robust hands. + +Suddenly he remembered about the piano; he had quite forgotten to +solicit her aid in selecting it. He turned, upon the impulse, to go +back. She had not entered the gate as yet, but stood, shiningly visible +under the street lamp, on the sidewalk, and she was looking in his +direction. He turned again like a shot, and started homeward. + +The front door of the parsonage was unlocked, and he made his way on +tiptoe through the unlighted hall to the living-room. The stuffy air +here was almost suffocating with the evil smell of a kerosene +lamp turned down too low. Alice sat asleep in her old farmhouse +rocking-chair, with an inelegant darning-basket on the table by her +side. The whole effect of the room was as bare and squalid to Theron's +newly informed eye as the atmosphere was offensive to his nostrils. He +coughed sharply, and his wife sat up and looked at the clock. It was +after eleven. + +“Where on earth have you been?” she asked, with a yawn, turning up the +wick of her sewing-lamp again. + +“You ought never to turn down a light like that,” said Theron, with a +complaining note in his voice. “It smells up the whole place. I never +dreamed of your sitting up for me like this. You ought to have gone to +bed.” + +“But how could I guess that you were going to be so late?,” she +retorted. “And you haven't told me where you were. Is this book of yours +going to keep you up like this right along?” + +The episode of the book was buried in the young minister's mind beneath +such a mass of subsequent experiences that it required an effort for him +to grasp what she was talking about. It seemed as if months had elapsed +since he was in earnest about that book; and yet he had left the house +full of it only a few hours before. He shook his wits together, and made +answer-- + +“Oh, bless you, no! Only there arose a very curious question. You have +no idea, literally no conception, of the interesting and important +problems which are raised by the mere fact of Abraham leaving the city +of Ur. It's amazing, I assure you. I hadn't realized it myself.” + +“Well,” remarked Alice, rising--and with good-humor and petulance +struggling sleepily ill her tone--“all I've got to say is, that if +Abraham hasn't anything better to do than to keep young ministers of the +gospel out, goodness knows where, till all hours of the night, I wish to +gracious he'd stayed in the city of Ur right straight along.” + +“You have no idea what a scholarly man Dr. Ledsmar is,” Theron suddenly +found himself inspired to volunteer. “He has the most marvellous +collection of books--a whole library devoted to this very subject--and +he has put them all quite freely at my disposal. Extremely kind of him, +isn't it?” + +“Ledsmar? Ledsmar?” queried Alice. “I don't seem to remember the name. +He isn't the little man with the birthmark, who sits in the pew behind +the Lovejoys, is he? I think some one said he was a doctor.” + +“Yes, a horse doctor!” said Theron, with a sniff. “No; you haven't seen +this Dr. Ledsmar at all. I--I don't know that he attends any church +regularly. I scraped his acquaintance quite by accident. He is really a +character. He lives in the big house, just beyond the race-course, you +know--the one with the tower at the back--” + +“No, I don't know. How should I? I've hardly poked my nose outside of +the yard since I have been here.” + +“Well, you shall go,” said the husband, consolingly. “You HAVE been +cooped up here too much, poor girl. I must take you out more, really. +I don't know that I could take you to the doctor's place--without an +invitation, I mean. He is very queer about some things. He lives there +all alone, for instance, with only a Chinaman for a servant. He told +me I was almost the only man he had asked under his roof for years. He +isn't a practising physician at all, you know. He is a scientist; he +makes experiments with lizards--and things.” + +“Theron,” the wife said, pausing lamp in hand on her way to the bedroom, +“do you be careful, now! For all you know this doctor may be a loose +man, or pretty near an infidel. You've got to be mighty particular in +such matters, you know, or you'll have the trustees down on you like a +'thousand of bricks.'” + +“I will thank the trustees to mind their own business,” said Theron, +stiffly, and the subject dropped. + +The bedroom window upstairs was open, and upon the fresh night air +was borne in the shrill, jangling sound of a piano, being played off +somewhere in the distance, but so vehemently that the noise imposed +itself upon the silence far and wide. Theron listened to this as he +undressed. It proceeded from the direction of the main street, and he +knew, as by instinct, that it was the Madden girl who was playing. The +incongruity of the hour escaped his notice. He mused instead upon the +wild and tropical tangle of moods, emotions, passions, which had grown +up in that strange temperament. He found something very pathetic in +that picture she had drawn of herself in forecast, roaming disconsolate +through her rooms the livelong night, unable to sleep. The woful moan of +insomnia seemed to make itself heard in every strain from her piano. + +Alice heard it also, but being unillumined, she missed the romantic +pathos. “I call it disgraceful,” she muttered from her pillow, “for +folks to be banging away on a piano at this time of night. There ought +to be a law to prevent it.” + +“It may be some distressed soul,” said Theron, gently, “seeking relief +from the curse of sleeplessness.” + +The wife laughed, almost contemptuously. “Distressed fiddlesticks!” was +her only other comment. + +The music went on for a long time--rising now to strident heights, now +sinking off to the merest tinkling murmur, and broken ever and again by +intervals of utter hush. It did not prevent Alice from at once falling +sound asleep; but Theron lay awake, it seemed to him, for hours, +listening tranquilly, and letting his mind wander at will through the +pleasant antechambers of Sleep, where are more unreal fantasies than +Dreamland itself affords. + + + + +PART II + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +For some weeks the Rev. Theron Ware saw nothing of either the priest or +the doctor, or the interesting Miss Madden. + +There were, indeed, more urgent matters to think about. June had come; +and every succeeding day brought closer to hand the ordeal of his first +Quarterly Conference in Octavius. The waters grew distinctly rougher as +his pastoral bark neared this difficult passage. + +He would have approached the great event with an easier mind if he could +have made out just how he stood with his congregation. Unfortunately +nothing in his previous experiences helped him in the least to measure +or guess at the feelings of these curious Octavians. Their Methodism +seemed to be sound enough, and to stick quite to the letter of the +Discipline, so long as it was expressed in formulae. It was its spirit +which he felt to be complicated by all sorts of conditions wholly novel +to him. + +The existence of a line of street-cars in the town, for example, would +not impress the casual thinker as likely to prove a rock in the path of +peaceful religion. Theron, in his simplicity, had even thought, when he +first saw these bobtailed cars bumping along the rails in the middle of +the main street, that they must be a great convenience to people living +in the outskirts, who wished to get in to church of a Sunday morning. He +was imprudent enough to mention this in conversation with one of his new +parishioners. Then he learned, to his considerable chagrin, that when +this line was built, some years before, a bitter war of words had been +fought upon the question of its being worked on the Sabbath day. The +then occupant of the Methodist pulpit had so distinguished himself +above the rest by the solemnity and fervor of his protests against this +insolent desecration of God's day that the Methodists of Octavius +still felt themselves peculiarly bound to hold this horse-car line, its +management, and everything connected with it, in unbending aversion. At +least once a year they were accustomed to expect a sermon denouncing it +and all its impious Sunday patrons. Theron made a mental resolve that +this year they should be disappointed. + +Another burning problem, which he had not been called upon before to +confront, he found now entangled with the mysterious line which divided +a circus from a menagerie. Those itinerant tent-shows had never come his +way heretofore, and he knew nothing of that fine balancing proportion +between ladies in tights on horseback and cages full of deeply +educational animals, which, even as the impartial rain, was designed +to embrace alike the just and the unjust. There had arisen inside the +Methodist society of Octavius some painful episodes, connected with +members who took their children “just to see the animals,” and were +convicted of having also watched the Rose-Queen of the Arena, in her +unequalled flying leap through eight hoops, with an ardent and unashamed +eye. One of these cases still remained on the censorial docket of the +church; and Theron understood that he was expected to name a committee +of five to examine and try it. This he neglected to do. + +He was no longer at all certain that the congregation as a whole liked +his sermons. The truth was, no doubt, that he had learned enough to +cease regarding the congregation as a whole. He could still rely upon +carrying along with him in his discourses from the pulpit a large +majority of interested and approving faces. But here, unhappily, was a +case where the majority did not rule. The minority, relatively small in +numbers, was prodigious in virile force. + +More than twenty years had now elapsed since that minor schism in the +Methodist Episcopal Church, the result of which was the independent body +known as Free Methodists, had relieved the parent flock of its principal +disturbing element. The rupture came fittingly at that time when all the +“isms” of the argumentative fifties were hurled violently together into +the melting-pot of civil war. The great Methodist Church, South, had +broken bodily off on the question of State Rights. The smaller and +domestic fraction of Free Methodism separated itself upon an issue +which may be most readily described as one of civilization. The seceders +resented growth in material prosperity; they repudiated the introduction +of written sermons and organ-music; they deplored the increasing laxity +in meddlesome piety, the introduction of polite manners in the pulpit +and classroom, and the development of even a rudimentary desire among +the younger people of the church to be like others outside in dress and +speech and deportment. They did battle as long as they could, inside +the fold, to restore it to the severely straight and narrow path of +primitive Methodism. When the adverse odds became too strong for them, +they quitted the church and set up a Bethel for themselves. + +Octavius chanced to be one of the places where they were able to hold +their own within the church organization. The Methodism of the town had +gone along without any local secession. It still held in full fellowship +the radicals who elsewhere had followed their unbridled bent into the +strongest emotional vagaries--where excited brethren worked themselves +up into epileptic fits, and women whirled themselves about in weird +religious ecstasies, like dervishes of the Orient, till they +fell headlong in a state of trance. Octavian Methodism was spared +extravagances of this sort, it is true, but it paid a price for the +immunity. The people whom an open split would have taken away remained +to leaven and dominate the whole lump. This small advanced section, with +its men of a type all the more aggressive from its narrowness, and women +who went about solemnly in plain gray garments, with tight-fitting, +unadorned, mouse-colored sunbonnets, had not been able wholly to +enforce its views upon the social life of the church members, but of its +controlling influence upon their official and public actions there could +be no doubt. + +The situation had begun to unfold itself to Theron from the outset. +He had recognized the episodes of the forbidden Sunday milk and of the +flowers in poor Alice's bonnet as typical of much more that was to +come. No week followed without bringing some new fulfilment of this +foreboding. Now, at the end of two months, he knew well enough that +the hitherto dominant minority was hostile to him and his ministry, and +would do whatever it could against him. + +Though Theron at once decided to show fight, and did not at all waver +in that resolve, his courage was in the main of a despondent sort. +Sometimes it would flutter up to the point of confidence, or at +least hopefulness, when he met with substantial men of the church who +obviously liked him, and whom he found himself mentally ranging on his +side, in the struggle which was to come. But more often it was blankly +apparent to him that, the moment flags were flying and drums on the +roll, these amiable fair-weather friends would probably take to their +heels. + +Still, such as they were, his sole hope lay in their support. He must +make the best of them. He set himself doggedly to the task of gathering +together all those who were not his enemies into what, when the proper +time came, should be known as the pastor's party. There was plenty of +apostolic warrant for this. If there had not been, Theron felt that the +mere elementary demands of self-defence would have justified his use of +strategy. + +The institution of pastoral calling, particularly that inquisitorial +form of it laid down in the Discipline, had never attracted Theron. +He and Alice had gone about among their previous flocks in quite a +haphazard fashion, without thought of system, much less of deliberate +purpose. Theron made lists now, and devoted thought and examination to +the personal tastes and characteristics of the people to be cultivated. +There were some, for example, who would expect him to talk pretty much +as the Discipline ordained--that is, to ask if they had family prayer, +to inquire after their souls, and generally to minister grace to his +hearers--and these in turn subdivided themselves into classes, ranging +from those who would wish nothing else to those who needed only a mild +spiritual flavor. There were others whom he would please much better by +not talking shop at all. Although he could ill afford it, he subscribed +now for a daily paper that he might have a perpetually renewed source of +good conversational topics for these more worldly calls. He also bought +several pounds of candy, pleasing in color, but warranted to be entirely +harmless, and he made a large mysterious mark on the inside of his new +silk hat to remind him not to go out calling without some of this in his +pocket for the children. + +Alice, he felt, was not helping him in this matter as effectively as he +could have wished. Her attitude toward the church in Octavius might best +be described by the word “sulky.” Great allowance was to be made, he +realized, for her humiliation over the flowers in her bonnet. That might +justify her, fairly enough, in being kept away from meeting now and +again by headaches, or undefined megrims. But it ought not to prevent +her from going about and making friends among the kindlier parishioners +who would welcome such a thing, and whom he from time to time indicated +to her. She did go to some extent, it is true, but she produced, +in doing so, an effect of performing a duty. He did not find traces +anywhere of her having created a brilliant social impression. When they +went out together, he was peculiarly conscious of having to do the work +unaided. + +This was not at all like the Alice of former years, of other charges. +Why, she had been, beyond comparison, the most popular young woman in +Tyre. What possessed her to mope like this in Octavius? + +Theron looked at her attentively nowadays, when she was unaware of his +gaze, to try if her face offered any answer to the riddle. It could not +be suggested that she was ill. Never in her life had she been looking so +well. She had thrown herself, all at once, and with what was to him +an unaccountable energy, into the creation and management of a +flower-garden. She was out the better part of every day, rain or shine, +digging, transplanting, pruning, pottering generally about among her +plants and shrubs. This work in the open air had given her an aspect of +physical well-being which it was impossible to be mistaken about. + +Her husband was glad, of course, that she had found some occupation +which at once pleased her and so obviously conduced to health. This was +so much a matter of course, in fact, that he said to himself over and +over again that he was glad. Only--only, sometimes the thought WOULD +force itself upon his attention that if she did not spend so much of her +time in her own garden, she would have more time to devote to winning +friends for them in the Garden of the Lord--friends whom they were going +to need badly. + +The young minister, in taking anxious stock of the chances for and +against him, turned over often in his mind the fact that he had already +won rank as a pulpit orator. His sermons had attracted almost universal +attention at Tyre, and his achievement before the Conference at +Tecumseh, if it did fail to receive practical reward, had admittedly +distanced all the other preaching there. It was a part of the evil luck +pursuing him that here in this perversely enigmatic Octavius his special +gift seemed to be of no use whatever. There were times, indeed, when he +was tempted to think that bad preaching was what Octavius wanted. + +Somewhere he had heard of a Presbyterian minister, in charge of a big +city church, who managed to keep well in with a watchfully Orthodox +congregation, and at the same time establish himself in the affections +of the community at large, by simply preaching two kinds of sermons. In +the morning, when almost all who attended were his own communicants, +he gave them very cautious and edifying doctrinal discourses, treading +loyally in the path of the Westminster Confession. To the evening +assemblages, made up for the larger part of outsiders, he addressed +broadly liberal sermons, literary in form, and full of respectful +allusions to modern science and the philosophy of the day. Thus he +filled the church at both services, and put money in its treasury and +his own fame before the world. There was of course the obvious danger +that the pious elders who in the forenoon heard infant damnation +vigorously proclaimed, would revolt when they heard after supper that +there was some doubt about even adults being damned at all. But either +because the same people did not attend both services, or because the +minister's perfect regularity in the morning was each week regarded as a +retraction of his latest vagaries of an evening, no trouble ever came. + +Theron had somewhat tentatively tried this on in Octavius. It was no +good. His parishioners were of the sort who would have come to church +eight times a day on Sunday, instead of two, if occasion offered. The +hope that even a portion of them would stop away, and that their places +would be taken in the evening by less prejudiced strangers who wished +for intellectual rather than theological food, fell by the wayside. The +yearned-for strangers did not come; the familiar faces of the morning +service all turned up in their accustomed places every evening. They +were faces which confused and disheartened Theron in the daytime. +Under the gaslight they seemed even harder and more unsympathetic. He +timorously experimented with them for an evening or two, then abandoned +the effort. + +Once there had seemed the beginning of a chance. The richest banker in +Octavius--a fat, sensual, hog-faced old bachelor--surprised everybody +one evening by entering the church and taking a seat. Theron happened +to know who he was; even if he had not known, the suppressed excitement +visible in the congregation, the way the sisters turned round to +look, the way the more important brethren put their heads together and +exchanged furtive whispers--would have warned him that big game was in +view. He recalled afterward with something like self-disgust the eager, +almost tremulous pains he himself took to please this banker. There was +a part of the sermon, as it had been written out, which might easily +give offence to a single man of wealth and free notions of life. With +the alertness of a mental gymnast, Theron ran ahead, excised this +portion, and had ready when the gap was reached some very pretty general +remarks, all the more effective and eloquent, he felt, for having +been extemporized. People said it was a good sermon; and after +the benediction and dispersion some of the officials and principal +pew-holders remained to talk over the likelihood of a capture having +been effected. Theron did not get away without having this mentioned +to him, and he was conscious of sharing deeply the hope of the +brethren--with the added reflection that it would be a personal triumph +for himself into the bargain. He was ashamed of this feeling a little +later, and of his trick with the sermon. But this chastening product +of introspection was all the fruit which the incident bore. The banker +never came again. + +Theron returned one afternoon, a little earlier than usual, from a group +of pastoral calls. Alice, who was plucking weeds in a border at the +shady side of the house, heard his step, and rose from her labors. He +was walking slowly, and seemed weary. He took off his high hat, as +he saw her, and wiped his brow. The broiling June sun was still high +overhead. Doubtless it was its insufferable heat which was accountable +for the worn lines in his face and the spiritless air which the wife's +eye detected. She went to the gate, and kissed him as he entered. + +“I believe if I were you,” she said, “I'd carry an umbrella such +scorching days as this. Nobody'd think anything of it. I don't see why a +minister shouldn't carry one as much as a woman carries a parasol.” + +Theron gave her a rueful, meditative sort of smile. “I suppose people +really do think of us as a kind of hybrid female,” he remarked. Then, +holding his hat in his hand, he drew a long breath of relief at finding +himself in the shade, and looked about him. + +“Why, you've got more posies here, on this one side of the house alone, +than mother had in her whole yard,” he said, after a little. “Let's +see--I know that one: that's columbine, isn't it? And that's London +pride, and that's ragged robin. I don't know any of the others.” + +Alice recited various unfamiliar names, as she pointed out the several +plants which bore them, and he listened with a kindly semblance of +interest. + +They strolled thus to the rear of the house, where thick clumps of +fragrant pinks lined both sides of the path. She picked some of these +for him, and gave him more names with which to label the considerable +number of other plants he saw about him. + +“I had no idea we were so well provided as all this,” he commented at +last. “Those Van Sizers must have been tremendous hands for flowers. You +were lucky in following such people.” + +“Van Sizers!” echoed Alice, with contempt. “All they left was old tomato +cans and clamshells. Why, I've put in every blessed one of these myself, +all except those peonies, there, and one brier on the side wall.” + +“Good for you!” exclaimed Theron, approvingly. Then it occurred to him +to ask, “But where did you get them all? Around among our friends?” + +“Some few,” responded Alice, with a note of hesitation in her voice. +“Sister Bult gave me the verbenas, there, and the white pinks were +a present from Miss Stevens. But most of them Levi Gorringe was good +enough to send me--from his garden.” + +“I didn't know that Gorringe had a garden,” said Theron. “I thought he +lived over his law-office, in the brick block, there.” + +“Well, I don't know that it's exactly HIS,” explained Alice; “but it's a +big garden somewhere outside, where he can have anything he likes.” She +went on with a little laugh: “I didn't like to question him too closely, +for fear he'd think I was looking a gift horse in the mouth--or else +hinting for more. It was quite his own offer, you know. He picked them +all out for me, and brought them here, and lent me a book telling me +just what to do with each one. And in a few days, now, I am to have +another big batch of plants--dahlias and zinnias and asters and so on; +I'm almost ashamed to take them. But it's such a change to find some one +in this Octavius who isn't all self!” + +“Yes, Gorringe is a good fellow,” said Theron. “I wish he was a +professing member.” Then some new thought struck him. “Alice,” he +exclaimed, “I believe I'll go and see him this very afternoon. I don't +know why it hasn't occurred to me before: he's just the man whose advice +I need most. He knows these people here; he can tell me what to do.” + +“Aren't you too tired now?” suggested Alice, as Theron put on his hat. + +“No, the sooner the better,” he replied, moving now toward the gate. + +“Well,” she began, “if I were you, I wouldn't say too much about--that +is, I--but never mind.” + +“What is it?” asked her husband. + +“Nothing whatever,” replied Alice, positively. “It was only some +nonsense of mine;” and Theron, placidly accepting the feminine whim, +went off down the street again. + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The Rev. Mr. Ware found Levi Gorringe's law-office readily enough, but +its owner was not in. He probably would be back again, though, in a +quarter of an hour or so, the boy said, and the minister at once decided +to wait. + +Theron was interested in finding that this office-boy was no other than +Harvey--the lad who brought milk to the parsonage every morning. He +remembered now that he had heard good things of this urchin, as to the +hard work he did to help his mother, the Widow Semple, in her struggle +to keep a roof over her head; and also bad things, in that he did +not come regularly either to church or Sunday-school. The clergyman +recalled, too, that Harvey had impressed him as a character. + +“Well, sonny, are you going to be a lawyer?” he asked, as he seated +himself by the window, and looked about him, first at the dusty litter +of old papers, pamphlets, and tape-bound documents in bundles which +crowded the stuffy chamber, and then at the boy himself. + +Harvey was busy at a big box--a rough pine dry-goods box which bore the +flaring label of an express company, and also of a well-known seed firm +in a Western city, and which the boy had apparently just opened. He was +lifting from it, and placing on the table after he had shaken off the +sawdust and moss in which they were packed, small parcels of what looked +in the fading light to be half-dried plants. + +“Well, I don't know--I rather guess not,” he made answer, as he pursued +his task. “So far as I can make out, this wouldn't be the place to start +in at, if I WAS going to be a lawyer. A boy can learn here first-rate +how to load cartridges and clean a gun, and braid trout-flies on to +leaders, but I don't see much law laying around loose. Anyway,” he went +on, “I couldn't afford to read law, and not be getting any wages. I have +to earn money, you know.” + +Theron felt that he liked the boy. “Yes,” he said, with a kindly tone; +“I've heard that you are a good, industrious youngster. I daresay Mr. +Gorringe will see to it that you get a chance to read law, and get wages +too.” + +“Oh, I can read all there is here and welcome,” the boy explained, +stepping toward the window to decipher the label on a bundle of roots +in his hand, “but that's no good unless there's regular practice coming +into the office all the while. THAT'S how you learn to be a lawyer. But +Gorringe don't have what I call a practice at all. He just sees men in +the other room there, with the door shut, and whatever there is to do he +does it all himself.” + +The minister remembered a stray hint somewhere that Mr. Gorringe was +a money-lender--what was colloquially called a “note-shaver.” To his +rustic sense, there was something not quite nice about that occupation. +It would be indecorous, he felt, to encourage further talk about it from +the boy. + +“What are you doing there?” he inquired, to change the subject. + +“Sorting out some plants,” replied Harvey. “I don't know what's got +into Gorringe lately. This is the third big box he's had since I've been +here--that is, in six weeks--besides two baskets full of rose-bushes. +I don't know what he does with them. He carries them off himself +somewhere. I've had kind of half a notion that he's figurin' on getting +married. I can't think of anything else that would make a man spend +money like water--just for flowers and bushes. They do get foolish, you +know, when they've got marriage on the brain.” + +Theron found himself only imperfectly following the theories of the +young philosopher. It was his fact that monopolized the minister's +attention. + +“But as I understand it,” he remarked hesitatingly, “Brother +Gorringe--or rather Mr. Gorringe--gets all the plants he wants, +everything he likes, from a big garden somewhere outside. I don't +know that it is exactly his; but I remember hearing something to that +effect.” + +The boy slapped the last litter off his hands, and, as he came to the +window, shook his head. “These don't come from no garden outside,” he +declared. “They come from the dealers', and he pays solid cash for 'em. +The invoice for this lot alone was thirty-one dollars and sixty cents. +There it is on the table. You can see it for yourself.” + +Mr. Ware did not offer to look. “Very likely these are for the garden I +was speaking of,” he said. “Of course you can't go on taking plants out +of a garden indefinitely without putting others in.” + +“I don't know anything about any garden that he takes plants out of,” + answered Harvey, and looked meditatively for a minute or two out upon +the street below. Then he turned to the minister. “Your wife's doing a +good deal of gardening this spring, I notice,” he said casually. “You'd +hardly think it was the same place, she's fixed it up so. If she wants +any extra hoeing done, I can always get off Saturday afternoons.” + +“I will remember,” said Theron. He also looked out of the window; and +nothing more was said until, a few moments later, Mr. Gorringe himself +came in. + +The lawyer seemed both surprised and pleased at discovering the +identity of his visitor, with whom he shook hands in almost an excess of +cordiality. He spread a large newspaper over the pile of seedling plants +on the table, pushed the packing-box under the table with his foot, and +said almost peremptorily to the boy, “You can go now!” Then he turned +again to Theron. + +“Well, Mr. Ware, I'm glad to see you,” he repeated, and drew up a chair +by the window. “Things are going all right with you, I hope.” + +Theron noted again the waving black hair, the dark skin, and the +carefully trimmed mustache and chin-tuft which gave the lawyer's face +a combined effect of romance and smartness. No; it was the eyes, +cool, shrewd, dark-gray eyes, which suggested this latter quality. The +recollection of having seen one of them wink, in deliberate hostility +of sarcasm, when those other trustees had their backs turned, came +mercifully at the moment to recall the young minister to his errand. + +“I thought I would drop in and have a chat with you,” he said, getting +better under way as he went on. “Quarterly Conference is only a +fortnight off, and I am a good deal at sea about what is going to +happen.” + +“I'm not a church member, you know,” interposed Gorringe. “That shuts me +out of the Quarterly Conference.” + +“Alas, yes!” said Theron. “I wish it didn't. I'm afraid I'm not going to +have any friends to spare there.” + +“What are you afraid of?” asked the lawyer, seeming now to be wholly at +his ease again “They can't eat you.” + +“No, they keep me too lean for that,” responded Theron, with a pensive +smile. “I WAS going to ask, you know, for an increase of salary, or an +extra allowance. I don't see how I can go on as it is. The sum fixed by +the last Quarterly Conference of the old year, and which I am getting +now, is one hundred dollars less than my predecessor had. That isn't +fair, and it isn't right. But so far from its looking as if I could get +an increase, the prospect seems rather that they will make me pay for +the gas and that sidewalk. I never recovered more than about half of my +moving expenses, as you know, and--and, frankly, I don't know which way +to turn. It keeps me miserable all the while.” + +“That's where you're wrong,” said Mr. Gorringe. “If you let things +like that worry you, you'll keep a sore skin all your life. You take +my advice and just go ahead your own gait, and let other folks do the +worrying. They ARE pretty close-fisted here, for a fact, but you +can manage to rub along somehow. If you should get into any real +difficulties, why, I guess--” the lawyer paused to smile in a +hesitating, significant way--“I guess some road out can be found all +right. The main thing is, don't fret, and don't allow your wife to--to +fret either.” + +He stopped abruptly. Theron nodded in recognition of his amiable tone, +and then found the nod lengthening itself out into almost a bow as the +thought spread through his mind that this had been nothing more nor less +than a promise to help him with money if worst came to worst. He looked +at Levi Gorringe, and said to himself that the intuition of women was +wonderful. Alice had picked him out as a friend of theirs merely by +seeing him pass the house. + +“Yes,” he said; “I am specially anxious to keep my wife from worrying. +She was surrounded in her girlhood by a good deal of what, relatively, +we should call luxury, and that makes it all the harder for her to be a +poor minister's wife. I had quite decided to get her a hired girl, come +what might, but she thinks she'd rather get on without one. Her health +is better, I must admit, than it was when we came here. She works out in +her garden a great deal, and that seems to agree with her.” + +“Octavius is a healthy place--that's generally admitted,” replied the +lawyer, with indifference. He seemed not to be interested in Mrs. Ware's +health, but looked intently out through the window at the buildings +opposite, and drummed with his fingers on the arms of his chair. + +Theron made haste to revert to his errand. “Of course, your not being in +the Quarterly Conference,” he said, “renders certain things impossible. +But I didn't know but you might have some knowledge of how matters are +going, what plans the officials of the church had; they seem to have +agreed to tell me nothing.” + +“Well, I HAVE heard this much,” responded Gorringe. “They're figuring on +getting the Soulsbys here to raise the debt and kind o' shake things up +generally. I guess that's about as good as settled. Hadn't you heard of +it?” + +“Not a breath!” exclaimed Theron, mournfully. “Well,” he added upon +reflection, “I'm sorry, downright sorry. The debt-raiser seems to me +about the lowest-down thing we produce. I've heard of those Soulsbys; I +think I saw HIM indeed once at Conference, but I believe SHE is the head +of the firm.” + +“Yes; she wears the breeches, I understand,” said Gorringe +sententiously. + +“I HAD hoped,” the young minister began with a rueful sigh, “in fact, I +felt quite confident at the outset that I could pay off this debt, and +put the church generally on a new footing, by giving extra attention to +my pulpit work. It is hardly for me to say it, but in other places where +I have been, my preaching has been rather--rather a feature in the town +itself. I have always been accustomed to attract to our services a good +many non-members, and that, as you know, helps tremendously from a money +point of view. But somehow that has failed here. I doubt if the average +congregations are a whit larger now than they were when I came in April. +I know the collections are not.” + +“No,” commented the lawyer, slowly; “you'll never do anything in that +line in Octavius. You might, of course, if you were to stay here and +work hard at it for five or six years--” + +“Heaven forbid!” groaned Mr. Ware. + +“Quite so,” put in the other. “The point is that the Methodists here +are a little set by themselves. I don't know that they like one another +specially, but I do know that they are not what you might call popular +with people outside. Now, a new preacher at the Presbyterian church, +or even the Baptist--he might have a chance to create talk, and make +a stir. But Methodist--no! People who don't belong won't come near the +Methodist church here so long as there's any other place with a roof on +it to go to. Give a dog a bad name, you know. Well, the Methodists here +have got a bad name; and if you could preach like Henry Ward Beecher +himself you wouldn't change it, or get folks to come and hear you.” + +“I see what you mean,” Theron responded. “I'm not particularly surprised +myself that Octavius doesn't love us, or look to us for intellectual +stimulation. I myself leave that pulpit more often than otherwise +feeling like a wet rag--utterly limp and discouraged. But, if you don't +mind my speaking of it, YOU don't belong, and yet YOU come.” + +It was evident that the lawyer did not mind. He spoke freely in reply. +“Oh, yes, I've got into the habit of it. I began going when I first came +here, and--and so it grew to be natural for me to go. Then, of course, +being the only lawyer you have, a considerable amount of my business is +mixed up in one way or another with your membership; you see those are +really the things which settle a man in a rut, and keep him there.” + +“I suppose your people were Methodists,” said Theron, to fill in the +pause, “and that is how you originally started with us.” + +Levi Gorringe shook his head. He leaned back, half closed his eyes, +put his finger-tips together, and almost smiled as if something in +retrospect pleased and moved him. + +“No,” he said; “I went to the church first to see a girl who used to +go there. It was long before your time. All her family moved away years +ago. You wouldn't know any of them. I was younger then, and I didn't +know as much as I do now. I worshipped the very ground that girl walked +on, and like a fool I never gave her so much as a hint of it. Looking +back now, I can see that I might have had her if I'd asked her. But +I went instead and sat around and looked at her at church and +Sunday-school and prayer-meetings Thursday nights, and class-meetings +after the sermon. She was devoted to religion and church work; and, +thinking it would please her, I joined the church on probation. Men can +fool themselves easier than they can other people. I actually believed +at the time that I had experienced religion. I felt myself full of all +sorts of awakenings of the soul and so forth. But it was really that +girl. You see I'm telling you the thing just as it was. I was very +happy. I think it was the happiest time of my life. I remember there was +a love-feast while I was on probation; and I sat down in front, right +beside her, and we ate the little square chunks of bread and drank the +water together, and I held one corner of her hymn-book when we stood up +and sang. That was the nearest I ever got to her, or to full membership +in the church. That very next week, I think it was, we learned that she +had got engaged to the minister's son--a young man who had just become +a minister himself. They got married, and went away--and I--somehow I +never took up my membership when the six months' probation was over. +That's how it was.” + +“It is very interesting,” remarked Theron, softly, after a little +silence--“and very full of human nature.” + +“Well, now you see,” said the lawyer, “what I mean when I say that there +hasn't been another minister here since, that I should have felt like +telling this story to. They wouldn't have understood it at all. They +would have thought it was blasphemy for me to say straight out that +what I took for experiencing religion was really a girl. But you are +different. I felt that at once, the first time I saw you. In a pulpit or +out of it, what I like in a human being is that he SHOULD be human.” + +“It pleases me beyond measure that you should like me, then” returned +the young minister, with frank gratification shining on his face. “The +world is made all the sweeter and more lovable by these--these elements +of romance. I am not one of those who would wish to see them banished or +frowned upon. I don't mind admitting to you that there is a good deal in +Methodism--I mean the strict practice of its letter which you find here +in Octavius--that is personally distasteful to me. I read the other day +of an English bishop who said boldly, publicly, that no modern nation +could practise the principles laid down in the Sermon on the Mount and +survive for twenty-four hours.” + +“Ha, ha! That's good!” laughed the lawyer. + +“I felt that it was good, too,” pursued Theron. “I am getting to see +a great many things differently, here in Octavius. Our Methodist +Discipline is like the Beatitudes--very helpful and beautiful, if +treated as spiritual suggestion, but more or less of a stumbling-block +if insisted upon literally. I declare!” he added, sitting up in his +chair, “I never talked like this to a living soul before in all my life. +Your confidences were contagious.” + +The Rev. Mr. Ware rose as he spoke, and took up his hat. + +“Must you be going?” asked the lawyer, also rising. “Well, I'm glad I +haven't shocked you. Come in oftener when you are passing. And if you +see anything I can help you in, always tell me.” + +The two men shook hands, with an emphatic and lingering clasp. + +“I am glad,” said Theron, “that you didn't stop coming to church just +because you lost the girl.” + +Levi Gorringe answered the minister's pleasantry with a smile which +curled his mustache upward, and expanded in little wrinkles at the ends +of his eyes. “No,” he said jestingly. “I'm death on collecting debts; +and I reckon that the church still owes me a girl. I'll have one yet.” + +So, with merriment the echoes of which pleasantly accompanied Theron +down the stairway, the two men parted. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Though time lagged in passing with a slowness which seemed born of +studied insolence, there did arrive at last a day which had something +definitive about it to Theron's disturbed and restless mind. It was a +Thursday, and the prayer-meeting to be held that evening would be the +last before the Quarterly Conference, now only four days off. + +For some reason, the young minister found himself dwelling upon this +fact, and investing it with importance. But yesterday the Quarterly +Conference had seemed a long way ahead. Today brought it alarmingly +close to hand. He had not heretofore regarded the weekly assemblage +for prayer and song as a thing calling for preparation, or for any +preliminary thought. Now on this Thursday morning he went to his desk +after breakfast, which was a sign that he wanted the room to himself, +quite as if he had the task of a weighty sermon before him. He sat at +the desk all the forenoon, doing no writing, it is true, but remembering +every once in a while, when his mind turned aside from the book in his +hands, that there was that prayer-meeting in the evening. + +Sometimes he reached the point of vaguely wondering why this strictly +commonplace affair should be forcing itself thus upon his attention. +Then, with a kind of mental shiver at the recollection that this was +Thursday, and that the great struggle came on Monday, he would go back +to his book. + +There were a half-dozen volumes on the open desk before him. He had +taken them out from beneath a pile of old “Sunday-School Advocates” and +church magazines, where they had lain hidden from Alice's view most of +the week. If there had been a locked drawer in the house, he would have +used it instead to hold these books, which had come to him in a neat +parcel, which also contained an amiable note from Dr. Ledsmar, recalling +a pleasant evening in May, and expressing the hope that the accompanying +works would be of some service. Theron had glanced at the backs of the +uppermost two, and discovered that their author was Renan. Then he had +hastily put the lot in the best place he could think of to escape his +wife's observation. + +He realized now that there had been no need for this secrecy. Of the +other four books, by Sayce, Budge, Smith, and Lenormant, three indeed +revealed themselves to be published under religious auspices. As for +Renan, he might have known that the name would be meaningless to Alice. +The feeling that he himself was not much wiser in this matter than his +wife may have led him to pass over the learned text-books on Chaldean +antiquity, and even the volume of Renan which appeared to be devoted +to Oriental inscriptions, and take up his other book, entitled in +the translation, “Recollections of my Youth.” This he rather glanced +through, at the outset, following with a certain inattention the +introductory sketches and essays, which dealt with an unfamiliar, and, +to his notion, somewhat preposterous Breton racial type. Then, little by +little, it dawned upon him that there was a connected story in all this; +and suddenly he came upon it, out in the open, as it were. It was +the story of how a deeply devout young man, trained from his earliest +boyhood for the sacred office, and desiring passionately nothing but +to be worthy of it, came to a point where, at infinite cost of pain to +himself and of anguish to those dearest to him, he had to declare that +he could no longer believe at all in revealed religion. + +Theron Ware read this all with an excited interest which no book had +ever stirred in him before. Much of it he read over and over again, to +make sure that he penetrated everywhere the husk of French habits of +thought and Catholic methods in which the kernel was wrapped. He broke +off midway in this part of the book to go out to the kitchen to dinner, +and began the meal in silence. To Alice's questions he replied briefly +that he was preparing himself for the evening's prayer-meeting. She +lifted her brows in such frank surprise at this that he made a further +and somewhat rambling explanation about having again taken up the work +on his book--the book about Abraham. + +“I thought you said you'd given that up altogether,” she remarked. + +“Well,” he said, “I WAS discouraged about it for a while. But a man +never does anything big without getting discouraged over and over again +while he's doing it. I don't say now that I shall write precisely +THAT book--I'm merely reading scientific works about the period, just +now--but if not that, I shall write some other book. Else how will you +get that piano?” he added, with an attempt at a smile. + +“I thought you had given that up, too!” she replied ruefully. Then +before he could speak, she went on: “Never mind the piano; that can +wait. What I've got on my mind just now isn't piano; it's potatoes. +Do you know, I saw some the other day at Rasbach's, splendid +potatoes--these are some of them--and fifteen cents a bushel cheaper +than those dried-up old things Brother Barnum keeps, and so I bought two +bushels. And Sister Barnum met me on the street this morning, and threw +it in my face that the Discipline commands us to trade with each other. +Is there any such command?” + +“Yes,” said the husband. “It's Section 33. Don't you remember? I looked +it up in Tyre. We are to 'evidence our desire of salvation by doing +good, especially to them that are of the household of faith, or groaning +so to be; by employing them preferably to others; buying one of another; +helping each other in business'--and so on. Yes, it's all there.” + +“Well, I told her I didn't believe it was,” put in Alice, “and I said +that even if it was, there ought to be another section about selling +potatoes to their minister for more than they're worth--potatoes that +turn all green when you boil them, too. I believe I'll read up that old +Discipline myself, and see if it hasn't got some things that I can talk +back with.” + +“The very section before that, Number 32, enjoins members against +'uncharitable or unprofitable conversation--particularly speaking evil +of magistrates or ministers.' You'd have 'em there, I think.” Theron had +begun cheerfully enough, but the careworn, preoccupied look returned now +to his face. “I'm sorry if we've fallen out with the Barnums,” he said. +“His brother-in-law, Davis, the Sunday-school superintendent, is a +member of the Quarterly Conference, you know, and I've been hoping that +he was on my side. I've been taking a good deal of pains to make up to +him.” + +He ended with a sigh, the pathos of which impressed Alice. “If you think +it will do any good,” she volunteered, “I'll go and call on the Davises +this very afternoon. I'm sure to find her at home,--she's tied hand +and foot with that brood of hers--and you'd better give me some of that +candy for them.” + +Theron nodded his approval and thanks, and relapsed into silence. When +the meal was over, he brought out the confectionery to his wife, and +without a word went back to that remarkable book. + +When Alice returned toward the close of day, to prepare the simple tea +which was always laid a half-hour earlier on Thursdays and Sundays, +she found her husband where she had left him, still busy with those new +scientific works. She recounted to him some incidents of her call +upon Mrs. Davis, as she took off her hat and put on the big kitchen +apron--how pleased Mrs. Davis seemed to be; how her affection for +her sister-in-law, the grocer's wife, disclosed itself to be not even +skin-deep; how the children leaped upon the candy as if they had never +seen any before; and how, in her belief, Mr. Davis would be heart and +soul on Theron's side at the Conference. + +To her surprise, the young minister seemed not at all interested. +He hardly looked at her during her narrative, but reclined in the +easy-chair with his head thrown back, and an abstracted gaze wandering +aimlessly about the ceiling. When she avowed her faith in the +Sunday-school superintendent's loyal partisanship, which she did with +a pardonable pride in having helped to make it secure, her husband even +closed his eyes, and moved his head with a gesture which plainly bespoke +indifference. + +“I expected you'd be tickled to death,” she remarked, with evident +disappointment. + +“I've a bad headache,” he explained, after a minute's pause. + +“No wonder!” Alice rejoined, sympathetically enough, but with a note of +reproof as well. “What can you expect, staying cooped up in here all day +long, poring over those books? People are all the while remarking that +you study too much. I tell them, of course, that you're a great hand for +reading, and always were; but I think myself it would be better if you +got out more, and took more exercise, and saw people. You know lots +and slathers more than THEY do now, or ever will, if you never opened +another book.” + +Theron regarded her with an expression which she had never seen on his +face before. “You don't realize what you are saying,” he replied slowly. +He sighed as he added, with increased gravity, “I am the most ignorant +man alive!” + +Alice began a little laugh of wifely incredulity, and then let it die +away as she recognized that he was really troubled and sad in his mind. +She bent over to kiss him lightly on the brow, and tiptoed her way out +into the kitchen. + +“I believe I will let you make my excuses at the prayer-meeting this +evening,” he said all at once, as the supper came to an end. He +had eaten next to nothing during the meal, and had sat in a sort of +brown-study from which Alice kindly forbore to arouse him. “I don't +know--I hardly feel equal to it. They won't take it amiss--for once--if +you explain to them that I--I am not at all well.” + +“Oh, I do hope you're not coming down with anything!” Alice had risen +too, and was gazing at him with a solicitude the tenderness of which at +once comforted, and in some obscure way jarred on his nerves. “Is there +anything I can do--or shall I go for a doctor? We've got mustard in the +house, and senna--I think there's some senna left--and Jamaica ginger.” + +Theron shook his head wearily at her. “Oh, no,--no!” he expostulated. +“It isn't anything that needs drugs, or doctors either. It's just mental +worry and fatigue, that's all. An evening's quiet rest in the big chair, +and early to bed--that will fix me up all right.” + +“But you'll read; and that will make your head worse,” said Alice. + +“No, I won't read any more,” he promised her, walking slowly into the +sitting-room, and settling himself in the big chair, the while she +brought out a pillow from the adjoining best bedroom, and adjusted it +behind his head. “That's nice! I'll just lie quiet here, and perhaps +doze a little till you come back. I feel in the mood for the rest; it +will do me all sorts of good.” + +He closed his eyes; and Alice, regarding his upturned face anxiously, +decided that already it looked more at peace than awhile ago. + +“Well, I hope you'll be better when I get back,” she said, as she began +preparations for the evening service. These consisted in combing +stiffly back the strands of light-brown hair which, during the day, had +exuberantly loosened themselves over her temples into something +almost like curls; in fastening down upon this rebellious hair a plain +brown-straw bonnet, guiltless of all ornament save a binding ribbon of +dull umber hue; and in putting on a thin dark-gray shawl and a pair +of equally subdued lisle-thread gloves. Thus attired, she made a +mischievous little grimace of dislike at her puritanical image in +the looking-glass over the mantel, and then turned to announce her +departure. + +“Well, I'm off,” she said. Theron opened his eyes to take in this figure +of his wife dressed for prayer-meeting, and then closed them again +abruptly. “All right,” he murmured, and then he heard the door shut +behind her. + +Although he had been alone all day, there seemed to be quite a unique +value and quality in this present solitude. He stretched out his legs on +the opposite chair, and looked lazily about him, with the feeling that +at last he had secured some leisure, and could think undisturbed to his +heart's content. There were nearly two hours of unbroken quiet before +him; and the mere fact of his having stepped aside from the routine of +his duty to procure it; marked it in his thoughts as a special occasion, +which ought in the nature of things to yield more than the ordinary +harvest of mental profit. + +Theron's musings were broken in upon from time to time by rumbling +outbursts of hymn-singing from the church next door. Surely, he said to +himself, there could be no other congregation in the Conference, or in +all Methodism, which sang so badly as these Octavians did. The noise, +as it came to him now and again, divided itself familiarly into a main +strain of hard, high, sharp, and tinny female voices, with three or four +concurrent and clashing branch strains of part-singing by men who did +not know how. How well he already knew these voices! Through two wooden +walls he could detect the conceited and pushing note of Brother Lovejoy, +who tried always to drown the rest out, and the lifeless, unmeasured +weight of shrill clamor which Sister Barnum hurled into every chorus, +half closing her eyes and sticking out her chin as she did so. They +drawled their hymns too, these people, till Theron thought he understood +that injunction in the Discipline against singing too slowly. It had +puzzled him heretofore; now he felt that it must have been meant in +prophecy for Octavius. + +It was impossible not to recall in contrast that other church music +he had heard, a month before, and the whole atmosphere of that other +pastoral sitting room, from which he had listened to it. The startled +and crowded impressions of that strange evening had been lying hidden +in his mind all this while, driven into a corner by the pressure of more +ordinary, everyday matters. They came forth now, and passed across +his brain--no longer confusing and distorted, but in orderly and +intelligible sequence. Their earlier effect had been one of frightened +fascination. Now he looked them over calmly as they lifted themselves, +one by one, and found himself not shrinking at all, or evading anything, +but dwelling upon each in turn as a natural and welcome part of the most +important experience of his life. + +The young minister had arrived, all at once, at this conclusion. He did +not question at all the means by which he had reached it. Nothing was +clearer to his mind than the conclusion itself--that his meeting, with +the priest and the doctor was the turning-point in his career. They had +lifted him bodily out of the slough of ignorance, of contact with low +minds and sordid, narrow things, and put him on solid ground. This book +he had been reading--this gentle, tender, lovable book, which had as +much true piety in it as any devotional book he had ever read, and yet, +unlike all devotional books, put its foot firmly upon everything which +could not be proved in human reason to be true--must be merely one of a +thousand which men like Father Forbes and Dr. Ledsmar knew by heart. The +very thought that he was on the way now to know them, too, made Theron +tremble. The prospect wooed him, and he thrilled in response, with the +wistful and delicate eagerness of a young lover. + +Somehow, the fact that the priest and the doctor were not religious men, +and that this book which had so impressed and stirred him was nothing +more than Renan's recital of how he, too, ceased to be a religious man, +did not take a form which Theron could look square in the face. It wore +the shape, instead, of a vague premise that there were a great many +different kinds of religions--the past and dead races had multiplied +these in their time literally into thousands--and that each no doubt had +its central support of truth somewhere for the good men who were in it, +and that to call one of these divine and condemn all the others was +a part fit only for untutored bigots. Renan had formally repudiated +Catholicism, yet could write in his old age with the deepest filial +affection of the Mother Church he had quitted. Father Forbes could talk +coolly about the “Christ-myth” without even ceasing to be a priest, +and apparently a very active and devoted priest. Evidently there was an +intellectual world, a world of culture and grace, of lofty thoughts +and the inspiring communion of real knowledge, where creeds were not of +importance, and where men asked one another, not “Is your soul saved?” + but “Is your mind well furnished?” Theron had the sensation of having +been invited to become a citizen of this world. The thought so dazzled +him that his impulses were dragging him forward to take the new oath +of allegiance before he had had time to reflect upon what it was he was +abandoning. + +The droning of the Doxology from the church outside stirred Theron +suddenly out of his revery. It had grown quite dark, and he rose and lit +the gas. “Blest be the Tie that Binds,” they were singing. He paused, +with hand still in air, to listen. That well-worn phrase arrested his +attention, and gave itself a new meaning. He was bound to those people, +it was true, but he could never again harbor the delusion that the tie +between them was blessed. There was vaguely present in his mind the +consciousness that other ties were loosening as well. Be that as it +might, one thing was certain. He had passed definitely beyond pretending +to himself that there was anything spiritually in common between him and +the Methodist Church of Octavius. The necessity of his keeping up the +pretence with others rose on the instant like a looming shadow before +his mental vision. He turned away from it, and bent his brain to think +of something else. + +The noise of Alice opening the front door came as a pleasant digression. +A second later it became clear from the sound of voices that she had +brought some one back with her, and Theron hastily stretched himself out +again in the armchair, with his head back in the pillow, and his feet +on the other chair. He had come mighty near forgetting that he was an +invalid, and he protected himself the further now by assuming an air of +lassitude verging upon prostration. + +“Yes; there's a light burning. It's all right,” he heard Alice say. She +entered the room, and Theron's head was too bad to permit him to turn +it, and see who her companion was. + +“Theron dear,” Alice began, “I knew you'd be glad to see HER, even if +you were out of sorts; and I persuaded her just to run in for a minute. +Let me introduce you to Sister Soulsby. Sister Soulsby--my husband.” + +The Rev. Mr. Ware sat upright with an energetic start, and fastened upon +the stranger a look which conveyed anything but the satisfaction his +wife had been so sure about. It was at the first blush an undisguised +scowl, and only some fleeting memory of that reflection about needing +now to dissemble, prevented him from still frowning as he rose to his +feet, and perfunctorily held out his hand. + +“Delighted, I'm sure,” he mumbled. Then, looking up, he discovered that +Sister Soulsby knew he was not delighted, and that she seemed not to +mind in the least. + +“As your good lady said, I just ran in for a moment,” she remarked, +shaking his limp hand with a brisk, business-like grasp, and dropping +it. “I hate bothering sick people, but as we're to be thrown together +a good deal this next week or so, I thought I'd like to lose no time in +saying 'howdy.' I won't keep you up now. Your wife has been sweet enough +to ask me to move my trunk over here in the morning, so that you'll see +enough of me and to spare.” + +Theron looked falteringly into her face, as he strove for words which +should sufficiently mask the disgust this intelligence stirred within +him. A debt-raiser in the town was bad enough! A debt-raiser quartered +in the very parsonage!--he ground his teeth to think of it. + +Alice read his hesitation aright. “Sister Soulsby went to the hotel,” + she hastily put in; “and Loren Pierce was after her to come and stay at +his house, and I ventured to tell her that I thought we could make her +more comfortable here.” She accompanied this by so daring a grimace +and nod that her husband woke up to the fact that a point in Conference +politics was involved. + +He squeezed a doubtful smile upon his features. “We shall both do our +best,” he said. It was not easy, but he forced increasing amiability +into his glance and tone. “Is Brother Soulsby here, too?” he asked. + +The debt-raiser shook her head--again the prompt, decisive movement, so +like a busy man of affairs. “No,” she answered. “He's doing supply +down on the Hudson this week, but he'll be here in time for the Sunday +morning love-feast. I always like to come on ahead, and see how the land +lies. Well, good-night! Your head will be all right in the morning.” + +Precisely what she meant by this assurance, Theron did not attempt to +guess. He received her adieu, noted the masterful manner in which +she kissed his wife, and watched her pass out into the hall, with the +feeling uppermost that this was a person who decidedly knew her way +about. Much as he was prepared to dislike her, and much as he detested +the vulgar methods her profession typified, he could not deny that she +seemed a very capable sort of woman. + +This mental concession did not prevent his fixing upon Alice, when she +returned to the room, a glance of obvious disapproval. + +“Theron,” she broke forth, to anticipate his reproach, “I did it for the +best. The Pierces would have got her if I hadn't cut in. I thought it +would help to have her on our side. And, besides, I like her. She's the +first sister I've seen since we've been in this hole that's had a kind +word for me--or--or sympathized with me! And--and--if you're going to be +offended--I shall cry!” + +There were real tears on her lashes, ready to make good the threat. +“Oh, I guess I wouldn't,” said Theron, with an approach to his old, +half-playful manner. “If you like her, that's the chief thing.” + +Alice shook her tear-drops away. “No,” she replied, with a wistful +smile; “the chief thing is to have her like you. She's as smart as a +steel trap--that woman is--and if she took the notion, I believe she +could help get us a better place.” + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +The ensuing week went by with a buzz and whirl, circling about Theron +Ware's dizzy consciousness like some huge, impalpable teetotum sent +spinning under Sister Soulsby's resolute hands. Whenever his vagrant +memory recurred to it, in after months, he began by marvelling, and +ended with a shudder of repulsion. + +It was a week crowded with events, which seemed to him to shoot past +so swiftly that in effect they came all of a heap. He never essayed the +task, in retrospect, of arranging them in their order of sequence. They +had, however, a definite and interdependent chronology which it is worth +the while to trace. + +Mrs. Soulsby brought her trunk round to the parsonage bright and early +on Friday morning, and took up her lodgement in the best bedroom, +and her headquarters in the house at large, with a cheerful and +business-like manner. She desired nothing so much, she said, as that +people should not put themselves out on her account, or allow her to +get in their way. She appeared to mean this, too, and to have very good +ideas about securing its realization. + +During both Friday and the following day, indeed, Theron saw her only at +the family meals. There she displayed a hearty relish for all that was +set before her which quite won Mrs. Ware's heart, and though she talked +rather more than Theron found himself expecting from a woman, he could +not deny that her conversation was both seemly and entertaining. She had +evidently been a great traveller, and referred to things she had seen in +Savannah or Montreal or Los Angeles in as matter-of-fact fashion as +he could have spoken of a visit to Tecumseh. Theron asked her many +questions about these and other far-off cities, and her answers were +all so pat and showed so keen and clear an eye that he began in spite of +himself to think of her with a certain admiration. + +She in turn plied him with inquiries about the principal pew-holders +and members of his congregation--their means, their disposition, and the +measure of their devotion. She put these queries with such intelligence, +and seemed to assimilate his replies with such an alert understanding, +that the young minister was spurred to put dashes of character in +his descriptions, and set forth the idiosyncrasies and distinguishing +earmarks of his flock with what he felt afterward might have been too +free a tongue. But at the time her fine air of appreciation led him +captive. He gossiped about his parishioners as if he enjoyed it. He +made a specially happy thumb-nail sketch for her of one of his trustees, +Erastus Winch, the loud-mouthed, ostentatiously jovial, and really +cold-hearted cheese-buyer. She was particularly interested in hearing +about this man. The personality of Winch seemed to have impressed her, +and she brought the talk back to him more than once, and prompted Theron +to the very threshold of indiscretion in his confidences on the subject. + +Save at meal-times, Sister Soulsby spent the two days out around among +the Methodists of Octavius. She had little or nothing to say about +what she thus saw and heard, but used it as the basis for still further +inquiries. She told more than once, however, of how she had been pressed +here or there to stay to dinner or supper, and how she had excused +herself. “I've knocked about too much,” she would explain to the Wares, +“not to fight shy of random country cooking. When I find such a born +cook as you are--well I know when I'm well off.” Alice flushed with +pleased pride at this, and Theron himself felt that their visitor showed +great good sense. By Saturday noon, the two women were calling each +other by their first names. Theron learned with a certain interest that +Sister Soulsby's Christian name was Candace. + +It was only natural that he should give even more thought to her than to +her quaint and unfamiliar old Ethiopian name. She was undoubtedly a very +smart woman. To his surprise she had never introduced in her talk any of +the stock religious and devotional phrases which official Methodists +so universally employed in mutual converse. She might have been an +insurance agent, or a school-teacher, visiting in a purely secular +household, so little parade of cant was there about her. + +He caught himself wondering how old she was. She seemed to have been +pretty well over the whole American continent, and that must take years +of time. Perhaps, however, the exertion of so much travel would tend +to age one in appearance. Her eyes were still youthful--decidedly +wise eyes, but still juvenile. They had sparkled with almost girlish +merriment at some of his jokes. She turned them about a good deal when +she spoke, making their glances fit and illustrate the things she said. +He had never met any one whose eyes played so constant and prominent a +part in their owner's conversation. Theron had never seen a play; but +he had encountered the portraits of famous queens of the drama several +times in illustrated papers or shop windows, and it occurred to him that +some of the more marked contortions of Sister Soulsby's eyes--notably +a trick she had of rolling them swiftly round and plunging them, so to +speak, into an intent, yearning, one might almost say devouring, gaze +at the speaker--were probably employed by eminent actresses like Ristori +and Fanny Davenport. + +The rest of Sister Soulsby was undoubtedly subordinated in interest to +those eyes of hers. Sometimes her face seemed to be reviving temporarily +a comeliness which had been constant in former days; then again it would +look decidedly, organically, plain. It was the worn and loose-skinned +face of a nervous, middle-aged woman, who had had more than her share of +trouble, and drank too much tea. She wore the collar of her dress rather +low; and Theron found himself wondering at this, because, though long +and expansive, her neck certainly showed more cords and cavities than +consorted with his vague ideal of statuesque beauty. Then he wondered at +himself for thinking about it, and abruptly reined up his fancy, only to +find that it was playing with speculations as to whether her yellowish +complexion was due to that tea-drinking or came to her as a legacy of +Southern blood. + +He knew that she was born in the South because she said so. From the +same source he learned that her father had been a wealthy planter, who +was ruined by the war, and sank into a premature grave under the weight +of his accumulated losses. The large dark rings around her eyes +grew deeper still in their shadows when she told about this, and her +ordinarily sharp voice took on a mellow cadence, with a soft, drawling +accent, turning U's into O's, and having no R's to speak of. Theron had +imbibed somewhere in early days the conviction that the South was the +land of romance, of cavaliers and gallants and black eyes flashing +behind mantillas and outspread fans, and somehow when Sister Soulsby +used this intonation she suggested all these things. + +But almost all her talk was in another key--a brisk, direct, idiomatic +manner of speech, with an intonation hinting at no section in +particular. It was merely that of the city-dweller as distinguished from +the rustic. She was of about Alice's height, perhaps a shade taller. +It did not escape the attention of the Wares that she wore clothes of a +more stylish cut and a livelier arrangement of hues than any Alice had +ever dared own, even in lax-minded Tyre. The two talked of this in their +room on Friday night; and Theron explained that congregations would +tolerate things of this sort with a stranger which would be sharply +resented in the case of local folk whom they controlled. It was on this +occasion that Alice in turn told Theron she was sure Mrs. Soulsby had +false teeth--a confidence which she immediately regretted as an act of +treachery to her sex. + +On Saturday afternoon, toward evening, Brother Soulsby arrived, and was +guided to the parsonage by his wife, who had gone to the depot to meet +him. They must have talked over the situation pretty thoroughly on the +way, for by the time the new-comer had washed his face and hands and +put on a clean collar, Sister Soulsby was ready to announce her plan of +campaign in detail. + +Her husband was a man of small stature and, like herself, of uncertain +age. He had a gentle, if rather dry, clean-shaven face, and wore his +dust-colored hair long behind. His little figure was clad in black +clothes of a distinctively clerical fashion, and he had a white +neck-cloth neatly tied under his collar. The Wares noted that he looked +clean and amiable rather than intellectually or spiritually powerful, as +he took the vacant seat between theirs, and joined them in concentrating +attention upon Mrs. Soulsby. + +This lady, holding herself erect and alert on the edge of the low, big +easy-chair had the air of presiding over a meeting. + +“My idea is,” she began, with an easy implication that no one else's +idea was needed, “that your Quarterly Conference, when it meets on +Monday, must be adjourned to Tuesday. We will have the people all out +tomorrow morning to love-feast, and announcement can be made there, and +at the morning service afterward, that a series of revival meetings are +to be begun that same evening. Mr. Soulsby and I can take charge in the +evening, and we'll see to it that THAT packs the house--fills the church +to overflowing Monday evening. Then we'll quietly turn the meeting into +a debt-raising convention, before they know where they are, and we'll +wipe off the best part of the load. Now, don't you see,” she turned her +eyes full upon Theron as she spoke, “you want to hold your Quarterly +Conference AFTER this money's been raised, not before.” + +“I see what you mean,” Mr. Ware responded gravely. “But--” + +“But what!” Sister Soulsby interjected, with vivacity. + +“Well,” said Theron, picking his words, “in the first place, it rests +with the Presiding Elder to say whether an adjournment can be made until +Tuesday, not with me.” + +“That's all right. Leave that to me,” said the lady. + +“In the second place,” Theron went on, still more hesitatingly, “there +seems a certain--what shall I say?--indirection in--in--” + +“In getting them together for a revival, and springing a debt-raising on +them?” Sister Soulsby put in. “Why, man alive, that's the best part of +it. You ought to be getting some notion by this time what these Octavius +folks of yours are like. I've only been here two days, but I've got +their measure down to an allspice. Supposing you were to announce +tomorrow that the debt was to be raised Monday. How many men with +bank-accounts would turn up, do you think? You could put them all in +your eye, sir--all in your eye!” + +“Very possibly you're right,” faltered the young minister. + +“Right? Why, of course I'm right,” she said, with placid confidence. +“You've got to take folks as you find them; and you've got to find them +the best way you can. One place can be worked, managed, in one way, +and another needs quite a different way, and both ways would be dead +frosts--complete failures--in a third.” + +Brother Soulsby coughed softly here, and shuffled his feet for an +instant on the carpet. His wife resumed her remarks with slightly abated +animation, and at a slower pace. + +“My experience,” she said, “has shown me that the Apostle was right. +To properly serve the cause, one must be all things to all men. I have +known very queer things indeed turn out to be means of grace. You +simply CAN'T get along without some of the wisdom of the serpent. We are +commanded to have it, for that matter. And now, speaking of that, do +you know when the Presiding Elder arrives in town today, and where he is +going to eat supper and sleep?” + +Theron shook his head. “All I know is he isn't likely to come here,” he +said, and added sadly, “I'm afraid he's not an admirer of mine.” + +“Perhaps that's not all his fault,” commented Sister Soulsby. “I'll tell +you something. He came in on the same train as my husband, and that old +trustee Pierce of yours was waiting for him with his buggy, and I saw +like a flash what was in the wind, and the minute the train stopped I +caught the Presiding Elder, and invited him in your name to come +right here and stay; told him you and Alice were just set on his +coming--wouldn't take no for an answer. Of course he couldn't come--I +knew well enough he had promised old Pierce--but we got in our +invitation anyway, and it won't do you any harm. Now, that's what I call +having some gumption--wisdom of the serpent, and so on.” + +“I'm sure,” remarked Alice, “I should have been mortified to death if he +had come. We lost the extension-leaf to our table in moving, and four is +all it'll seat decently.” + +Sister Soulsby smiled winningly into the wife's honest face. “Don't you +see, dear,” she explained patiently, “I only asked him because I knew +he couldn't come. A little butter spreads a long way, if it's only +intelligently warmed.” + +“It was certainly very ingenious of you,” Theron began almost stiffly. +Then he yielded to the humanities, and with a kindling smile added, +“And it was as kind as kind could be. I'm afraid you're wrong about +it's doing me any good, but I can see how well you meant it, and I'm +grateful.” + +“We COULD have sneaked in the kitchen table, perhaps, while he was out +in the garden, and put on the extra long tablecloth,” interjected Alice, +musingly. + +Sister Soulsby smiled again at Sister Ware, but without any words this +time; and Alice on the instant rose, with the remark that she must be +going out to see about supper. + +“I'm going to insist on coming out to help you,” Mrs. Soulsby declared, +“as soon as I've talked over one little matter with your husband. Oh, +yes, you must let me this time. I insist!” + +As the kitchen door closed behind Mrs. Ware, a swift and apparently +significant glance shot its way across from Sister Soulsby's roving, +eloquent eyes to the calmer and smaller gray orbs of her husband. He +rose to his feet, made some little explanation about being a gardener +himself, and desiring to inspect more closely some rhododendrons he had +noticed in the garden, and forthwith moved decorously out by the other +door into the front hall. They heard his footsteps on the gravel beneath +the window before Mrs. Soulsby spoke again. + +“You're right about the Presiding Elder, and you're wrong,” she said. +“He isn't what one might call precisely in love with you. Oh, I know the +story--how you got into debt at Tyre, and he stepped in and insisted on +your being denied Tecumseh and sent here instead.” + +“HE was responsible for that, then, was he?” broke in Theron, with +contracted brows. + +“Why, don't you make any effort to find out anything at ALL?” she asked +pertly enough, but with such obvious good-nature that he could not but +have pleasure in her speech. “Why, of course he did it! Who else did you +suppose?” + +“Well,” said the young minister, despondently, “if he's as much against +me as all that, I might as well hang up my fiddle and go home.” + +Sister Soulsby gave a little involuntary groan of impatience. She +bent forward, and, lifting her eyes, rolled them at him in a curve of +downward motion which suggested to his fancy the image of two eagles in +a concerted pounce upon a lamb. + +“My friend,” she began, with a new note of impressiveness in her voice, +“if you'll pardon my saying it, you haven't got the spunk of a mouse. +If you're going to lay down, and let everybody trample over you just as +they please, you're right! You MIGHT as well go home. But now here, this +is what I wanted to say to you: Do you just keep your hands off these +next few days, and leave this whole thing to me. I'll pull it into +shipshape for you. No--wait a minute--don't interrupt now. I have taken +a liking to you. You've got brains, and you've got human nature in you, +and heart. What you lack is SABE--common-sense. You'll get that, too, in +time, and meanwhile I'm not going to stand by and see you cut up and fed +to the dogs for want of it. I'll get you through this scrape, and put +you on your feet again, right-side-up-with care, because, as I said, I +like you. I like your wife, too, mind. She's a good, honest little soul, +and she worships the very ground you tread on. Of course, as long as +people WILL marry in their teens, the wrong people will get yoked up +together. But that's neither here nor there. She's a kind sweet little +body, and she's devoted to you, and it isn't every intellectual man +that gets even that much. But now it's a go, is it? You promise to keep +quiet, do you, and leave the whole show absolutely to me? Shake hands on +it.” + +Sister Soulsby had risen, and stood now holding out her hand in a frank, +manly fashion. Theron looked at the hand, and made mental notes that +there were a good many veins discernible on the small wrist, and that +the forearm seemed to swell out more than would have been expected in a +woman producing such a general effect of leanness. He caught the +shine of a thin bracelet-band of gold under the sleeve. A delicate, +significant odor just hinted its presence in the air about this +outstretched arm--something which was not a perfume, yet deserved as +gracious a name. + +He rose to his feet, and took the proffered hand with a deliberate +gesture, as if he had been cautiously weighing all the possible +arguments for and against this momentous compact. + +“I promise,” he said gravely, and the two palms squeezed themselves +together in an earnest clasp. + +“Right you are,” exclaimed the lady, once more with cheery vivacity. +“Mind, when it's all over, I'm going to give you a good, serious, +downright talking to--a regular hoeing-over. I'm not sure I shan't give +you a sound shaking into the bargain. You need it. And now I'm going out +to help Alice.” + +The Reverend Mr. Ware remained standing after his new friend had +left the room, and his meditative face wore an even unusual air of +abstraction. He strolled aimlessly over, after a time, to the desk by +the window, and stood there looking out at the slight figure of Brother +Soulsby, who was bending over and attentively regarding some pink +blossoms on a shrub through what seemed to be a pocket magnifying-glass. + +What remained uppermost in his mind was not this interesting woman's +confident pledge of championship in his material difficulties. He found +himself dwelling instead upon her remark about the incongruous results +of early marriages. He wondered idly if the little man in the white +tie, fussing out there over that rhododendron-bush, had figured in her +thoughts as an example of these evils. Then he reflected that they had +been mentioned in clear relation to talk about Alice. + +Now that he faced this question, it was as if he had been consciously +ignoring and putting it aside for a long time. How was it, he asked +himself now, that Alice, who had once seemed so bright and keen-witted, +who had in truth started out immeasurably his superior in swiftness of +apprehension and readiness in humorous quips and conceits, should +have grown so dull? For she was undoubtedly slow to understand things +nowadays. Her absurd lugging in of the extension-table problem, when +the great strategic point of that invitation foisted upon the +Presiding Elder came up, was only the latest sample of a score of these +heavy-minded exhibitions that recalled themselves to him. And outsiders +were apparently beginning to notice it. He knew by intuition what +those phrases, “good, honest little soul” and “kind, sweet little body” + signified, when another woman used them to a husband about his wife. The +very employment of that word “little” was enough, considering that there +was scarcely more than a hair's difference between Mrs. Soulsby and +Alice, and that they were both rather tall than otherwise, as the +stature of women went. + +What she had said about the chronic misfortunes of intellectual men in +such matters gave added point to those meaning phrases. Nobody could +deny that geniuses and men of conspicuous talent had as a rule, all +through history, contracted unfortunate marriages. In almost every case +where their wives were remembered at all, it was on account of their +abnormal stupidity, or bad temper, or something of that sort. Take +Xantippe, for example, and Shakespeare's wife, and--and--well, there was +Byron, and Bulwer-Lytton, and ever so many others. + +Of course there was nothing to be done about it. These things happened, +and one could only put the best possible face on them, and live one's +appointed life as patiently and contentedly as might be. And Alice +undoubtedly merited all the praise which had been so generously bestowed +upon her. She was good and honest and kindly, and there could be no +doubt whatever as to her utter devotion to him. These were tangible, +solid qualities, which must always secure respect for her. It was true +that she no longer seemed to be very popular among people. He questioned +whether men, for instance, like Father Forbes and Dr. Ledsmar would care +much about her. Visions of the wifeless and academic calm in which +these men spent their lives--an existence consecrated to literature and +knowledge and familiarity with all the loftiest and noblest thoughts of +the past--rose and enveloped him in a cloud of depression. No such +lot would be his! He must labor along among ignorant and spiteful +narrow-minded people to the end of his days, pocketing their insults and +fawning upon the harsh hands of jealous nonentities who happened to +be his official masters, just to keep a roof over his head--or rather +Alice's. He must sacrifice everything to this, his ambitions, his +passionate desires to do real good in the world on a large scale, +his mental freedom, yes, even his chance of having truly elevating, +intellectual friendships. For it was plain enough that the men whose +friendship would be of genuine and stimulating profit to him would not +like her. Now that he thought of it, she seemed latterly to make no +friends at all. + +Suddenly, as he watched in a blank sort of way Brother Soulsby take +out a penknife, and lop an offending twig from a rose-bush against the +fence, something occurred to him. There was a curious exception to +that rule of Alice's isolation. She had made at least one friend. Levi +Gorringe seemed to like her extremely. + +As if his mind had been a camera, Theron snapped a shutter down upon +this odd, unbidden idea, and turned away from the window. + +The sounds of an active, almost strenuous conversation in female voices +came from the kitchen. Theron opened the door noiselessly, and put in +his head, conscious of something furtive in his intention. + +“You must dreen every drop of water off the spinach, mind, before you +put it over, or else--” + +It was Sister Soulsby's sharp and penetrating tones which came to him. +Theron closed the door again, and surrendered himself once more to the +circling whirl of his thoughts. + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +A love-feast at nine in the morning opened the public services of a +Sunday still memorable in the annals of Octavius Methodism. + +This ceremony, which four times a year preceded the sessions of the +Quarterly Conference, was not necessarily an event of importance. It +was an occasion upon which the brethren and sisters who clung to the +old-fashioned, primitive ways of the itinerant circuit-riders, let +themselves go with emphasized independence, putting up more vehement +prayers than usual, and adding a special fervor of noise to their +“Amens!” and other interjections--and that was all. + +It was Theron's first love-feast in Octavius, and as the big class-room +in the church basement began to fill up, and he noted how the men with +ultra radical views and the women clad in the most ostentatious drabs +and grays were crowding into the front seats, he felt his spirits +sinking. He had literally to force himself from sentence to sentence, +when the time came for him to rise and open the proceedings with an +exhortation. He had eagerly offered this function to the Presiding +Elder, the Rev. Aziel P. Larrabee, who sat in severe silence on the +little platform behind him, but had been informed that the dignitary +would lead off in giving testimony later on. So Theron, feeling all the +while the hostile eyes of the Elder burning holes in his back, dragged +himself somehow through the task. He had never known any such difficulty +of speech before. The relief was almost overwhelming when he came to +the customary part where all are adjured to be as brief as possible in +witnessing for the Lord, because the time belongs to all the people, and +the Discipline forbids the feast to last more than ninety minutes. He +delivered this injunction to brevity with marked earnestness, and then +sat down abruptly. + +There was some rather boisterous singing, during which the stewards, +beginning with the platform, passed plates of bread cut in small +cubes, and water in big plated pitchers and tumblers, about among +the congregation, threading their way between the long wooden benches +ordinarily occupied at this hour by the children of the Sunday-school, +and helping each brother and sister in turn. They held by the old +custom, here in Octavius, and all along the seats the sexes alternated, +as they do at a polite dinner-table. + +Theron impassively watched the familiar scene. The early nervousness had +passed away. He felt now that he was not in the least afraid of these +people, even with the Presiding Elder thrown in. Folks who sang with +such unintelligence, and who threw themselves with such undignified +fervor into this childish business of the bread and water, could not +be formidable antagonists for a man of intellect. He had never realized +before what a spectacle the Methodist love-feast probably presented to +outsiders. What must they think of it! + +He had noticed that the Soulsbys sat together, in the centre and toward +the front. Next to Brother Soulsby sat Alice. He thought she looked pale +and preoccupied, and set it down in passing to her innate distaste for +the somber garments she was wearing, and for the company she perforce +found herself in. Another head was in the way, and for a time Theron did +not observe who sat beside Alice on the other side. When at last he saw +that it was Levi Gorringe, his instinct was to wonder what the lawyer +must be saying to himself about these noisy and shallow enthusiasts. A +recurring emotion of loyalty to the simple people among whom, after all, +he had lived his whole life, prompted him to feel that it wasn't wholly +nice of Gorringe to come and enjoy this revelation of their foolish +side, as if it were a circus. There was some vague memory in his mind +which associated Gorringe with other love-feasts, and with a cynical +attitude toward them. Oh, yes! he had told how he went to one just for +the sake of sitting beside the girl he admired--and was pursuing. + +The stewards had completed their round, and the loud, discordant singing +came to an end. There ensued a little pause, during which Theron turned +to the Presiding Elder with a gesture of invitation to take charge +of the further proceedings. The Elder responded with another gesture, +calling his attention to something going on in front. + +Brother and Sister Soulsby, to the considerable surprise of everybody, +had risen to their feet, and were standing in their places, quite +motionless, and with an air of professional self-assurance dimly +discernible under a large show of humility. They stood thus until +complete silence had been secured. Then the woman, lifting her head, +began to sing. The words were “Rock of Ages,” but no one present had +heard the tune to which she wedded them. Her voice was full and very +sweet, and had in it tender cadences which all her hearers found +touching. She knew how to sing, and she put forth the words so that each +was distinctly intelligible. There came a part where Brother Soulsby, +lifting his head in turn, took up a tuneful second to her air. Although +the two did not, as one could hear by listening closely, sing the same +words at the same time, they produced none the less most moving and +delightful harmonies of sound. + +The experience was so novel and charming that listeners ran ahead in +their minds to fix the number of verses there were in the hymn, and +to hope that none would be left out. Toward the end, when some of the +intolerably self-conceited local singers, fancying they had caught the +tune, started to join in, they were stopped by an indignant “sh-h!” + which rose from all parts of the class-room; and the Soulsbys, with a +patient and pensive kindliness written on their uplifted faces, gave +that verse over again. + +What followed seemed obviously restrained and modified by the effect of +this unlooked-for and tranquillizing overture. The Presiding Elder +was known to enjoy visits to old-fashioned congregations like that +of Octavius, where he could indulge to the full his inner passion for +high-pitched passionate invocations and violent spiritual demeanor, but +this time he spoke temperately, almost soothingly. The most tempestuous +of the local witnesses for the Lord gave in their testimony in +relatively pacific tones, under the influence of the spell which good +music had laid upon the gathering. There was the deepest interest as to +what the two visitors would do in this way. Brother Soulsby spoke first, +very briefly and in well rounded and well-chosen, if conventional, +phrases. His wife, following him, delivered in a melodious monotone some +equally hackneyed remarks. The assemblage, listening in rapt attention, +felt the suggestion of reserved power in every sentence she uttered, and +burst forth, as she dropped into her seat, in a loud chorus of approving +ejaculations. The Soulsbys had captured Octavius with their first outer +skirmish line. + +Everything seemed to move forward now with a new zest and spontaneity. +Theron had picked out for the occasion the best of those sermons which +he had prepared in Tyre, at the time when he was justifying his ambition +to be accounted a pulpit orator. It was orthodox enough, but had been +planned as the framework for picturesque and emotional rhetoric rather +than doctrinal edification. He had never dreamed of trying it on +Octavius before, and only on the yesterday had quavered at his own +daring in choosing it now. Nothing but the desire to show Sister Soulsby +what was in him had held him to the selection. + +Something of this same desire no doubt swayed and steadied him now in +the pulpit. The labored slowness of his beginning seemed to him to be +due to nervous timidity, until suddenly, looking down into those big +eyes of Sister Soulsby's, which were bent gravely upon him from where +she sat beside Alice in the minister's pew, he remembered that it was +instead the studied deliberation which art had taught him. He went on, +feeling more and more that the skill and histrionic power of his best +days were returning to him, were as marked as ever--nay, had never +triumphed before as they were triumphing now. The congregation watched +and listened with open, steadfast eyes and parted lips. For the first +time in all that weary quarter, their faces shone. The sustaining +sparkle of their gaze lifted him to a peroration unrivalled in his own +recollection of himself. + +He sat down, and bent his head forward upon the open Bible, breathing +hard, but suffused with a glow of satisfaction. His ears caught the +music of that sighing rustle through the audience which bespeaks a +profound impression. He could scarcely keep the fingers of his hands, +covering his bowed face in a devotional posture as they were, from +drumming a jubilant tattoo. His pulses did this in every vein, throbbing +with excited exultation. The insistent whim seized him, as he still +bent thus before his people, to whisper to his own heart, “At last!--The +dogs!” + +The announcement that in the evening a series of revival meetings was to +be inaugurated, had been made at the love-feast, and it was repeated +now from the pulpit, with the added statement that for the once +the class-meetings usually following this morning service would be +suspended. Then Theron came down the steps, conscious after a fashion +that the Presiding Elder had laid a propitiatory hand on his shoulder +and spoken amiably about the sermon, and that several groups of more or +less important parishioners were waiting in the aisle and the vestibule +to shake hands and tell him how much they had enjoyed the sermon. His +mind perversely kept hold of the thought that all this came too late. He +politely smiled his way along out, and, overtaking the Soulsbys and his +wife near the parsonage gate, went in with them. + +At the cold, picked-up noonday meal which was the Sunday rule of the +house, Theron rather expected that his guests would talk about the +sermon, or at any rate about the events of the morning. A Sabbath chill +seemed to have settled upon both their tongues. They ate almost in +silence, and their sparse remarks touched upon topics far removed from +church affairs. Alice too, seemed strangely disinclined to conversation. +The husband knew her face and its varying moods so well that he could +see she was laboring under some very powerful and deep emotion. No doubt +it was the sermon, the oratorical swing of which still tingled in his +own blood, that had so affected her. If she had said so, it would have +pleased him, but she said nothing. + +After dinner, Brother Soulsby disappeared in his bedroom, with the +remark that he guessed he would lie down awhile. Sister Soulsby put +on her bonnet, and, explaining that she always prepared herself for an +evening's work by a long solitary walk, quitted the house. Alice, after +she had put the dinner things away, went upstairs, and stayed there. +Left to himself, Theron spent the afternoon in the easy-chair, and, +in the intervals of confused introspection, read “Recollections of my +Youth” through again from cover to cover. + +He went through the remarkable experiences attending the opening of the +revival, when evening came, as one in a dream. Long before the hour for +the service arrived, the sexton came in to tell him that the church was +already nearly full, and that it was going to be impossible to present +any distinction in the matter of pews. When the party from the parsonage +went over--after another cold and mostly silent meal--it was to find the +interior of the church densely packed, and people being turned away from +the doors. + +Theron was supposed to preside over what followed, and he did sit on +the central chair in the pulpit, between the Presiding Elder and Brother +Soulsby, and on the several needful occasions did rise and perfunctorily +make the formal remarks required of him. The Elder preached a short, +but vigorously phrased sermon. The Soulsbys sang three or four times--on +each occasion with familiar hymnal words set to novel, concerted +music--and then separately exhorted the assemblage. The husband's part +seemed well done. If his speech lacked some of the fire of the divine +girdings which older Methodists recalled, it still led straight, and +with kindling fervency, up to a season of power. The wife took up the +word as he sat down. She had risen from one of the side-seats; and, +speaking as she walked, she moved forward till she stood within the +altar-rail, immediately under the pulpit, and from this place, facing +the listening throng, she delivered her harangue. Those who watched +her words most intently got the least sense of meaning from them. +The phrases were all familiar enough--“Jesus a very present help,” + “Sprinkled by the Blood,” “Comforted by the Word,” “Sanctified by the +Spirit,” “Born into the Kingdom,” and a hundred others--but it was as in +the case of her singing: the words were old; the music was new. + +What Sister Soulsby said did not matter. The way she said it--the +splendid, searching sweep of her great eyes; the vibrating roll of +her voice, now full of tears, now scornful, now boldly, jubilantly +triumphant; the sympathetic swaying of her willowy figure under the +stress of her eloquence--was all wonderful. When she had finished, and +stood, flushed and panting, beneath the shadow of the pulpit, she +held up a hand deprecatingly as the resounding “Amens!” and “Bless the +Lords!” began to well up about her. + +“You have heard us sing,” she said, smiling to apologize for her +shortness of breath. “Now we want to hear you sing!” + +Her husband had risen as she spoke, and on the instant, with a far +greater volume of voice than they had hitherto disclosed, the two began +“From Greenland's Icy Mountains,” in the old, familiar tune. It did +not need Sister Soulsby's urgent and dramatic gesture to lift people to +their feet. The whole assemblage sprang up, and, under the guidance of +these two powerful leading voices, thundered the hymn out as Octavius +had never heard it before. + +While its echoes were still alive, the woman began speaking again. +“Don't sit down!” she cried. “You would stand up if the President of the +United States was going by, even if he was only going fishing. How much +more should you stand up in honor of living souls passing forward to +find their Saviour!” + +The psychological moment was upon them. Groans and cries arose, and +a palpable ferment stirred the throng. The exhortation to sinners +to declare themselves, to come to the altar, was not only on the +revivalist's lips: it seemed to quiver in the very air, to be borne on +every inarticulate exclamation in the clamor of the brethren. A young +woman, with a dazed and startled look in her eyes, rose in the body of +the church tremblingly hesitated for a moment, and then, with bowed head +and blushing cheeks, pressed her way out from the end of a crowded +pew and down the aisle to the rail. A triumphant outburst of welcoming +ejaculations swelled to the roof as she knelt there, and under its +impetus others followed her example. With interspersed snatches of song +and shouted encouragements the excitement reached its height only when +twoscore people, mostly young, were tightly clustered upon their knees +about the rail, and in the space opening upon the aisle. Above the +confusion of penitential sobs and moans, and the hysterical murmurings +of members whose conviction of entire sanctity kept them in their seats, +could be heard the voices of the Presiding Elder, the Soulsbys, and +the elderly deacons of the church, who moved about among the kneeling +mourners, bending over them and patting their shoulders, and calling +out to them: “Fasten your thoughts on Jesus!” “Oh, the Precious Blood!” + “Blessed be His Name!” “Seek Him, and you shall find Him!” “Cling to +Jesus, and Him Crucified!” + +The Rev. Theron Ware did not, with the others, descend from the pulpit. +Seated where he could not see Sister Soulsby, he had failed utterly to +be moved by the wave of enthusiasm she had evoked. What he heard her say +disappointed him. He had expected from her more originality, more spice +of her own idiomatic, individual sort. He viewed with a cold sense of +aloofness the evidences of her success when they began to come forward +and abase themselves at the altar. The instant resolve that, come what +might, he would not go down there among them, sprang up ready-made in +his mind. He saw his two companions pass him and descend the pulpit +stairs, and their action only hardened his resolution. If an excuse were +needed, he was presiding, and the place to preside in was the pulpit. +But he waived in his mind the whole question of an excuse. + +After a little, he put his hand over his face, leaning the elbow forward +on the reading-desk. The scene below would have thrilled him to the +marrow six months--yes, three months ago. He put a finger across his +eyes now, to half shut it out. The spectacle of these silly young +“mourners”--kneeling they knew not why, trembling at they could not tell +what, pledging themselves frantically to dogmas and mysteries they knew +nothing of, under the influence of a hubbub of outcries as meaningless +in their way, and inspiring in much the same way, as the racket of a +fife and drum corps--the spectacle saddened and humiliated him now. +He was conscious of a dawning sense of shame at being even tacitly +responsible for such a thing. His fancy conjured up the idea of Dr. +Ledsmar coming in and beholding this maudlin and unseemly scene, and he +felt his face grow hot at the bare thought. + +Looking through his fingers, Theron all at once saw something which +caught at his breath with a sharp clutch. Alice had risen from the +minister's pew--the most conspicuous one in the church--and was moving +down the aisle toward the rail, her uplifted face chalk-like in its +whiteness, and her eyes wide-open, looking straight ahead. + +The young pastor could scarcely credit his sight. He thrust aside his +hand, and bent forward, only to see his wife sink upon her knees among +the rest, and to hear this notable accession to the “mourners” hailed +by a tumult of approving shouts. Then, remembering himself, he drew back +and put up his hand, shutting out the strange scene altogether. To see +nothing at all was a relief, and under cover he closed his eyes, and bit +his teeth together. + +A fresh outburst of thanksgivings, spreading noisily through the +congregation, prompted him to peer through his fingers again. Levi +Gorringe was making his way down the aisle--was at the moment quite in +front. Theron found himself watching this man with the stern composure +of a fatalist. The clamant brethren down below were stirred to new +excitement by the thought that the sceptical lawyer, so long with them, +yet not of them, had been humbled and won by the outpourings of the +Spirit. Theron's perceptions were keener. He knew that Gorringe was +coming forward to kneel beside Alice; The knowledge left him curiously +undisturbed. He saw the lawyer advance, gently insinuate himself past +the form of some kneeling mourner who was in his way, and drop on his +knees close beside the bowed figure of Alice. The two touched shoulders +as they bent forward beneath Sister Soulsby's outstretched hands, held +over them as in a blessing. Theron looked fixedly at them, and professed +to himself that he was barely interested. + +A little afterward, he was standing up in his place, and reading aloud +a list of names which one of the stewards had given him. They were the +names of those who had asked that evening to be taken into the church +as members on probation. The sounds of the recent excitement were all +hushed now, save as two or three enthusiasts in a corner raised their +voices in abrupt greeting of each name in its turn, but Theron felt +somehow that this noise had been transferred to the inside of his head. +A continuous buzzing went on there, so that the sound of his voice was +far-off and unfamiliar in his ears. + +He read through the list--comprising some fifteen items--and pronounced +the names with great distinctness. It was necessary to take pains with +this, because the only name his blurred eyes seemed to see anywhere on +the foolscap sheet was that of Levi Gorringe. When he had finished and +was taking his seat, some one began speaking to him from the body of the +church. He saw that this was the steward, who was explaining to him that +the most important name of the lot--that of Brother Gorringe--had not +been read out. + +Theron smiled and shook his head. Then, when the Presiding Elder touched +him on the arm, and assured him that he had not mentioned the name in +question, he replied quite simply, and with another smile, “I thought it +was the only name I did read out.” + +Then he sat down abruptly, and let his head fall to one side. There +were hurried movements inside the pulpit, and people in the audience had +begun to stand up wonderingly, when the Presiding Elder, with uplifted +hands, confronted them. + +“We will omit the Doxology, and depart quietly after the benediction,” + he said. “Brother Ware seems to have been overcome by the heat.” + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +When Theron woke next morning, Alice seemed to have dressed and left the +room--a thing which had never happened before. + +This fact connected itself at once in his brain with the recollection +of her having made an exhibition of herself the previous evening--going +forward before all eyes to join the unconverted and penitent sinners, as +if she were some tramp or shady female, instead of an educated lady, a +professing member from her girlhood, and a minister's wife. It crossed +his mind that probably she had risen and got away noiselessly, for very +shame at looking him in the face, after such absurd behavior. + +Then he remembered more, and grasped the situation. He had fainted in +church, and had been brought home and helped to bed. Dim memories of +unaccustomed faces in the bedroom, of nauseous drugs and hushed voices, +came to him out of the night-time. Now that he thought of it, he was a +sick man. Having settled this, he went off to sleep again, a feverish +and broken sleep, and remained in this state most of the time for the +following twenty-four hours. In the brief though numerous intervals of +waking, he found certain things clear in his mind. One was that he was +annoyed with Alice, but would dissemble his feelings. Another was that +it was much pleasanter to be ill than to be forced to attend and take +part in those revival meetings. These two ideas came and went in a lazy, +drowsy fashion, mixing themselves up with other vagrant fancies, yet +always remaining on top. + +In the evening the singing from the church next door filled his room. +The Soulsbys' part of it was worth keeping awake for. He turned over and +deliberately dozed when the congregation sang. + +Alice came up a number of times during the day to ask how he felt, and +to bring him broth or toast-water. On several occasions, when he heard +her step, the perverse inclination mastered him to shut his eyes, and +pretend to be asleep, so that she might tip-toe out again. She had a +depressed and thoughtful air, and spoke to him like one whose mind was +on something else. Neither of them alluded to what had happened the +previous evening. Toward the close of the long day, she came to ask him +whether he would prefer her to remain in the house, instead of attending +the meeting. + +“Go, by all means,” he said almost curtly. + +The Presiding Elder and the Sunday-school superintendent called early +Tuesday morning at the parsonage to make brotherly inquiries, and +Theron was feeling so much better that he himself suggested their +coming upstairs to see him. The Elder was in good spirits; he +smiled approvingly, and even put in a jocose word or two while the +superintendent sketched for the invalid in a cheerful way the leading +incidents of the previous evening. + +There had been an enormous crowd, even greater than that of Sunday +night, and everybody had been looking forward to another notable and +exciting season of grace. These expectations were especially heightened +when Sister Soulsby ascended the pulpit stairs and took charge of the +proceedings. She deferred to Paul's views about women preachers on +Sundays, she said; but on weekdays she had just as much right to snatch +brands from the burning as Paul, or Peter, or any other man. She went +on like that, in a breezy, off-hand fashion which tickled the audience +immensely, and led to the liveliest anticipations of what would happen +when she began upon the evening's harvest of souls. + +But it was something else that happened. At a signal from Sister Soulsby +the steward got up, and, in an unconcerned sort of way, went through the +throng to the rear of the church, locked the doors, and put the keys +in their pockets. The sister dryly explained now to the surprised +congregation that there was a season for all things, and that on the +present occasion they would suspend the glorious work of redeeming +fallen human nature, and take up instead the equally noble task of +raising some fifteen hundred dollars which the church needed in its +business. The doors would only be opened again when this had been +accomplished. + +The brethren were much taken aback by this trick, and they permitted +themselves to exchange a good many scowling and indignant glances, the +while their professional visitors sang another of their delightfully +novel sacred duets. Its charm of harmony for once fell upon +unsympathetic ears. But then Sister Soulsby began another monologue, +defending this way of collecting money, chaffing the assemblage with +bright-eyed impudence on their having been trapped, and scoring, +one after another, neat and jocose little personal points on local +characteristics, at which everybody but the individual touched grinned +broadly. She was so droll and cheeky, and withal effective in her talk, +that she quite won the crowd over. She told a story about a woodchuck +which fairly brought down the house. + +“A man,” she began, with a quizzical twinkle in her eye, “told me once +about hunting a woodchuck with a pack of dogs, and they chased it so +hard that it finally escaped only by climbing a butternut-tree. 'But, my +friend,' I said to him, 'woodchucks can't climb trees--butternut-trees +or any other kind--and you know it!' All he said in reply to me was: +'This woodchuck had to climb a tree!' And that's the way with this +congregation. You think you can't raise $1,500, but you've GOT to.” + +So it went on. She set them all laughing; and then, with a twist of the +eyes and a change of voice, lo, and behold, she had them nearly crying +in the same breath. Under the pressure of these jumbled emotions, +brethren began to rise up in their pews and say what they would give. +The wonderful woman had something smart and apt to say about each fresh +contribution, and used it to screw up the general interest a notch +further toward benevolent hysteria. With songs and jokes and impromptu +exhortations and prayers she kept the thing whirling, until a sort of +duel of generosity began between two of the most unlikely men--Erastus +Winch and Levi Gorringe. Everybody had been surprised when Winch gave +his first $50; but when he rose again, half an hour afterward, and said +that, owing to the high public position of some of the new members on +probation, he foresaw a great future for the church, and so felt moved +to give another $25, there was general amazement. Moved by a common +instinct, all eyes were turned upon Levi Gorringe, and he, without the +slightest hesitation, stood up and said he would give $100. There was +something in his tone which must have annoyed Brother Winch, for he shot +up like a dart, and called out, “Put me down for fifty more;” and that +brought Gorringe to his feet with an added $50, and then the two went +on raising each other till the assemblage was agape with admiring +stupefaction. + +This gladiatorial combat might have been going on till now, the +Sunday-school superintendent concluded, if Winch hadn't subsided. The +amount of the contributions hadn't been figured up yet, for Sister +Soulsby kept the list; but there had been a tremendous lot of money +raised. Of that there could be no doubt. + +The Presiding Elder now told Theron that the Quarterly Conference had +been adjourned yesterday till today. He and Brother Davis were even now +on their way to attend the session in the church next door. The Elder +added, with an obvious kindly significance, that though Theron was too +ill to attend it, he guessed his absence would do him no harm. Then the +two men left the room, and Theron went to sleep again. + +Another almost blank period ensued, this time lasting for forty-eight +hours. The young minister was enfolded in the coils of a fever of some +sort, which Brother Soulsby, who had dabbled considerably in medicine, +admitted that he was puzzled about. Sometimes he thought that it was +typhoid, and then again there were symptoms which looked suspiciously +like brain fever. The Methodists of Octavius counted no physician among +their numbers, and when, on the second day, Alice grew scared, and +decided, with Brother Soulsby's assent, to call in professional advice, +the only doctor's name she could recall was that of Ledsmar. She was +conscious of an instinctive dislike for the vague image of him her fancy +had conjured up, but the reflection that he was Theron's friend, and so +probably would be more moderate in his charges, decided her. + +Brother Soulsby showed a most comforting tact and swiftness of +apprehension when Alice, in mentioning Dr. Ledsmar's name, disclosed by +her manner a fear that his being sent for would create talk among the +church people. He volunteered at once to act as messenger himself, and, +with no better guide than her dim hints at direction, found the doctor +and brought him back to the parsonage. + +Dr. Ledsmar expressly disclaimed to Soulsby all pretence of professional +skill, and made him understand that he went along solely because +he liked Mr. Ware, and was interested in him, and in any case would +probably be of as much use as the wisest of strange physicians--a view +which the little revivalist received with comprehending nods of tacit +acquiescence. Ledsmar came, and was taken up to the sick-room. He sat +on the bedside and talked with Theron awhile, and then went downstairs +again. To Alice's anxious inquiries, he replied that it seemed to him +merely a case of over-work and over-worry, about which there was not the +slightest occasion for alarm. + +“But he says the strangest things,” the wife put in. “He has been quite +delirious at times.” + +“That means only that his brain is taking a rest as well as his body,” + remarked Ledsmar. “That is Nature's way of securing an equilibrium of +repose--of recuperation. He will come out of it with his mind all the +fresher and clearer.” + +“I don't believe he knows shucks!” was Alice's comment when she closed +the street door upon Dr. Ledsmar. “Anybody could have come in and looked +at a sick man and said, 'Leave him alone.' You expect something more +from a doctor. It's his business to say what to do. And I suppose he'll +charge two dollars for just telling me that my husband was resting!” + +“No,” said Brother Soulsby, “he said he never practised, and that he +would come only as a friend.” + +“Well, it isn't my idea of a friend--not to prescribe a single thing,” + protested Alice. + +Yet it seemed that no prescription was needed, after all. The next +morning Theron woke to find himself feeling quite restored in spirits +and nerves. He sat up in bed, and after an instant of weakly giddiness, +recognized that he was all right again. Greatly pleased, he got up, +and proceeded to dress himself. There were little recurring hints of +faintness and vertigo, while he was shaving, but he had the sense +to refer these to the fact that he was very, very hungry. He went +downstairs, and smiled with the pleased pride of a child at the surprise +which his appearance at the door created. Alice and the Soulsbys were +at breakfast. He joined them, and ate voraciously, declaring that it was +worth a month's illness to have things taste so good once more. + +“You still look white as a sheet,” said Alice, warningly. “If I were +you, I'd be careful in my diet for a spell yet.” + +For answer, Theron let Sister Soulsby help him again to ham and eggs. +He talked exclusively to Sister Soulsby, or rather invited her by +his manner to talk to him, and listened and watched her with indolent +content. There was a sort of happy and purified languor in his physical +and mental being, which needed and appreciated just this--to sit next a +bright and attractive woman at a good breakfast, and be ministered to by +her sprightly conversation, by the flash of her informing and inspiring +eyes, and the nameless sense of support and repose which her near +proximity exhaled. He felt himself figuratively leaning against Sister +Soulsby's buoyant personality, and resting. + +Brother Soulsby, like the intelligent creature he was, ate his breakfast +in peace; but Alice would interpose remarks from time to time. Theron +was conscious of a certain annoyance at this, and knew that he was +showing it by an exaggerated display of interest in everything Sister +Soulsby said, and persisted in it. There trembled in the background of +his thoughts ever and again the recollection of a grievance against +his wife--an offence which she had committed--but he put it aside as +something to be grappled and dealt with when he felt again like taking +up the serious and disagreeable things of life. For the moment, he +desired only to be amused by Sister Soulsby. Her casual mention of the +fact that she and her husband were taking their departure that very day, +appealed to him as an added reason for devoting his entire attention to +her. + +“You mustn't forget that famous talking-to you threatened me with--that +'regular hoeing-over,' you know,” he reminded her, when he found +himself alone with her after breakfast. He smiled as he spoke, in frank +enjoyment of the prospect. + +Sister Soulsby nodded, and aided with a roll of her eyes the effect of +mock-menace in her uplifted forefinger. “Oh, never fear,” she cried. +“You'll catch it hot and strong. But that'll keep till afternoon. +Tell me, do you feel strong enough to go in next door and attend the +trustees' meeting this forenoon? It's rather important that you should +be there, if you can spur yourself up to it. By the way, you haven't +asked what happened at the Quarterly Conference yesterday.” + +Theron sighed, and made a little grimace of repugnance. “If you knew how +little I cared!” he said. “I did hope you'd forget all about mentioning +that--and everything else connected with--the next door. You talk so +much more interestingly about other things.” + +“Here's gratitude for you!” exclaimed Sister Soulsby, with a gay +simulation of despair. “Why, man alive, do you know what I've done for +you? I got around on the Presiding Elder's blind side, I captured old +Pierce, I wound Winch right around my little finger, I worked two or +three of the class-leaders--all on your account. The result was you +went through as if you'd had your ears pinned back, and been greased all +over. You've got an extra hundred dollars added to your salary; do you +hear? On the sixth question of the order of business the Elder ruled +that the recommendation of the last conference's estimating committee +could be revised (between ourselves he was wrong, but that doesn't +matter), and so you're in clover. And very friendly things were said +about you, too.” + +“It was very kind of you,” said Theron. “I am really extremely grateful +to you.” He shook her by the hand to make up for what he realized to be +a lack of fervor in his tones. + +“Well, then,” Sister Soulsby replied, “you pull yourself together, and +take your place as chairman of the trustees' meeting, and see to it +that, whatever comes up, you side with old Pierce and Winch.” + +“Oh, THEY'RE my friends now, are they?” asked Theron, with a faint play +of irony about his lips. + +“Yes, that's your ticket this election,” she answered briskly, “and mind +you vote it straight. Don't bother about reasons now. Just take it from +me, as the song says, 'that things have changed since Willie died.' +That's all. And then come back here, and this afternoon we'll have a +good old-fashioned jaw.” + +The Rev. Mr. Ware, walking with ostentatious feebleness, and forcing +a conventional smile upon his wan face, duly made his unexpected +appearance at the trustees' meeting in one of the smaller classrooms. He +received their congratulations gravely, and shook hands with all three. +It required an effort to do this impartially, because, upon sight of +Levi Gorringe, there rose up suddenly within him an emotion of fierce +dislike and enmity. In some enigmatic way his thoughts had kept +themselves away from Gorringe ever since Sunday evening. Now they +concentrated with furious energy and swiftness upon him. Theron +seemed able in a flash of time to coordinate many recollections of +Gorringe--the early liking Alice had professed for him, the mystery of +those purchased plants in her garden, the story of the girl he had lost +in church, his offer to lend him money, the way in which he had sat +beside Alice at the love-feast and followed her to the altar-rail in +the evening. These raced abreast through the young minister's brain, yet +with each its own image, and its relation to the others clearly defined. + +He found the nerve, all the same, to take this third trustee by the +hand, and to thank him for his congratulations, and even to say, with a +surface smile of welcome, “It is BROTHER Gorringe, now, I remember.” + +The work before the meeting was chiefly of a routine kind. In most +places this would have been transacted by the stewards; but in Octavius +these minor officials had degenerated into mere ceremonial abstractions, +who humbly ratified, or by arrangement anticipated, the will of the +powerful, mortgage-owning trustees. Theron sat languidly at the head +of the table while these common-place matters passed in their course, +noting the intonations of Gorringe's voice as he read from his +secretary's book, and finding his ear displeased by them. No issue arose +upon any of these trivial affairs, and the minister, feeling faint +and weary in the heat, wondered why Sister Soulsby had insisted on his +coming. + +All at once he sat up straight, with an instinctive warning in his +mind that here was the thing. Gorringe had taken up the subject of the +“debt-raising” evening, and read out its essentials as they had been +embodied in a report of the stewards. The gross sum obtained, in cash +and promises, was $1,860. The stewards had collected of this a trifle +less than half, but hoped to get it all in during the ensuing quarter. +There were, also, the bill of Mr. and Mrs. Soulsby for $150, and the +increases of $100 in the pastor's salary and $25 in the apportioned +contribution of the charge toward the Presiding Elder's maintenance, the +two latter items of which the Quarterly Conference had sanctioned. + +“I want to hear the names of the subscribers and their amounts read +out,” put in Brother Pierce. + +When this was done, it became apparent that much more than half of the +entire amount had been offered by two men. Levi Gorringe's $450 and +Erastus Winch's $425 left only $985 to be divided up among some seventy +or eighty other members of the congregation. + +Brother Pierce speedily stopped the reading of these subordinate names. +“They're of no concern whatever,” he said, despite the fact that his +own might have been reached in time. “Those first names are what I was +getting at. Have those two first amounts, the big ones, be'n paid?” + +“One has--the other not,” replied Gorringe. + +“PRE-cisely,” remarked the senior trustee. “And I'm goin' to move that +it needn't be paid, either. When Brother Winch, here, began hollerin' +out those extra twenty-fives and fifties, that evening, it was under a +complete misapprehension. He'd be'n on the Cheese Board that same Monday +afternoon, and he'd done what he thought was a mighty big stroke of +business, and he felt liberal according. I know just what that feelin' +is myself. If I'd be'n makin' a mint o' money, instead o' losin' all the +while, as I do, I'd 'a' done just the same. But the next day, lo, and +behold, Brother Winch found that it was all a mistake--he hadn't made a +single penny.” + +“Fact is, I lost by the whole transaction,” put in Erastus Winch, +defiantly. + +“Just so,” Brother Pierce went on. “He lost money. You have his own word +for it. Well, then, I say it would be a burning shame for us to consent +to touch one penny of what he offered to give, in the fullness of his +heart, while he was laborin' under that delusion. And I move he be not +asked for it. We've got quite as much as we need, without it. I put my +motion.” + +“That is, YOU don't put it,” suggested Winch, correctingly. “You move +it, and Brother Ware, whom we're all so glad to see able to come and +preside--he'll put it.” + +There was a moment's silence. “You've heard the motion,” said Theron, +tentatively, and then paused for possible remarks. He was not going to +meddle in this thing himself, and Gorringe was the only other who might +have an opinion to offer. The necessities of the situation forced him +to glance at the lawyer inquiringly. He did so, and turned his eyes away +again like a shot. Gorringe was looking him squarely in the face, and +the look was freighted with satirical contempt. + +The young minister spoke between clinched teeth. “All those in favor +will say aye.” + +Brothers Pierce and Winch put up a simultaneous and confident “Aye.” + +“No, you don't!” interposed the lawyer, with deliberate, sneering +emphasis. “I decidedly protest against Winch's voting. He's directly +interested, and he mustn't vote. Your chairman knows that perfectly +well.” + +“Yes, I think Brother Winch ought not to vote,” decided Theron, with +great calmness. He saw now what was coming, and underneath his surface +composure there were sharp flutterings. + +“Very well, then,” said Gorringe. “I vote no, and it's a tie. It rests +with the chairman now to cast the deciding vote, and say whether this +interesting arrangement shall go through or not.” + +“Me?” said Theron, eying the lawyer with a cool self-control which had +come all at once to him. “Me? Oh, I vote Aye.” + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +“Well, I did what you told me to do,” Theron Ware remarked to Sister +Soulsby, when at last they found themselves alone in the sitting-room +after the midday meal. + +It had taken not a little strategic skirmishing to secure the room to +themselves for the hospitable Alice, much touched by the thought of her +new friend's departure that very evening had gladly proposed to let all +the work stand over until night, and devote herself entirely to Sister +Soulsby. When, finally, Brother Soulsby conceived and deftly executed +the coup of interesting her in the budding of roses, and then leading +her off into the garden to see with her own eyes how it was done, Theron +had a sense of being left alone with a conspirator. The notion impelled +him to plunge at once into the heart of their mystery. + +“I did what you told me to do,” he repeated, looking up from his low +easy-chair to where she sat by the desk; “and I dare say you won't be +surprised when I add that I have no respect for myself for doing it.” + +“And yet you would go and do it right over again, eh?” the woman +said, in bright, pert tones, nodding her head, and smiling at him with +roguish, comprehending eyes. “Yes, that's the way we're built. We spend +our lives doing that sort of thing.” + +“I don't know that you would precisely grasp my meaning,” said the young +minister, with a polite effort in his words to mask the untoward side of +the suggestion. “It is a matter of conscience with me; and I am pained +and shocked at myself.” + +Sister Soulsby drummed for an absent moment with her thin, nervous +fingers on the desk-top. “I guess maybe you'd better go and lie down +again,” she said gently. “You're a sick man, still, and it's no good +your worrying your head just now with things of this sort. You'll see +them differently when you're quite yourself again.” + +“No, no,” pleaded Theron. “Do let us have our talk out! I'm all right. +My mind is clear as a bell. Truly, I've really counted on this talk with +you.” + +“But there's something else to talk about, isn't there, besides--besides +your conscience?” she asked. Her eyes bent upon him a kindly pressure as +she spoke, which took all possible harshness from her meaning. + +Theron answered the glance rather than her words. “I know that you are +my friend,” he said simply. + +Sister Soulsby straightened herself, and looked down upon him with a new +intentness. “Well, then,” she began, “let's thrash this thing out right +now, and be done with it. You say it's hurt your conscience to do +just one little hundredth part of what there was to be done here. Ask +yourself what you mean by that. Mind, I'm not quarrelling, and I'm not +thinking about anything except just your own state of mind. You think +you soiled your hands by doing what you did. That is to say, you wanted +ALL the dirty work done by other people. That's it, isn't it?” + +“The Rev. Mr. Ware sat up, in turn, and looked doubtingly into his +companion's face. + +“Oh, we were going to be frank, you know,” she added, with a pleasant +play of mingled mirth and honest liking in her eyes. + +“No,” he said, picking his words, “my point would rather be that--that +there ought not to have been any of what you yourself call this--this +'dirty work.' THAT is my feeling.” + +“Now we're getting at it,” said Sister Soulsby, briskly. “My dear +friend, you might just as well say that potatoes are unclean and unfit +to eat because manure is put into the ground they grow in. Just look at +the case. Your church here was running behind every year. Your people +had got into a habit of putting in nickels instead of dimes, and letting +you sweat for the difference. That's a habit, like tobacco, or biting +your fingernails, or anything else. Either you were all to come to smash +here, or the people had to be shaken up, stood on their heads, broken +of their habit. It's my business--mine and Soulsby's--to do that sort +of thing. We came here and we did it--did it up brown, too. We not +only raised all the money the church needs, and to spare, but I took a +personal shine to you, and went out of my way to fix up things for +you. It isn't only the extra hundred dollars, but the whole tone of +the congregation is changed toward you now. You'll see that they'll be +asking to have you back here, next spring. And you're solid with your +Presiding Elder, too. Well, now, tell me straight--is that worth while, +or not?” + +“I've told you that I am very grateful,” answered the minister, “and I +say it again, and I shall never be tired of repeating it. But--but it +was the means I had in mind.” + +“Quite so,” rejoined the sister, patiently. “If you saw the way a hotel +dinner was cooked, you wouldn't be able to stomach it. Did you ever see +a play? In a theatre, I mean. I supposed not. But you'll understand when +I say that the performance looks one way from where the audience sit, +and quite a different way when you are behind the scenes. THERE you see +that the trees and houses are cloth, and the moon is tissue paper, +and the flying fairy is a middle-aged woman strung up on a rope. +That doesn't prove that the play, out in front, isn't beautiful and +affecting, and all that. It only shows that everything in this world is +produced by machinery--by organization. The trouble is that you've +been let in on the stage, behind the scenes, so to speak, and you're so +green--if you'll pardon me--that you want to sit down and cry because +the trees ARE cloth, and the moon IS a lantern. And I say, don't be such +a goose!” + +“I see what you mean,” Theron said, with an answering smile. He added, +more gravely, “All the same, the Winch business seems to me--” + +“Now the Winch business is my own affair,” Sister Soulsby broke in +abruptly. “I take all the responsibility for that. You need know nothing +about it. You simply voted as you did on the merits of the case as he +presented them--that's all.” + +“But--” Theron began, and then paused. Something had occurred to him, +and he knitted his brows to follow its course of expansion in his mind. +Suddenly he raised his head. “Then you arranged with Winch to make those +bogus offers--just to lead others on?” he demanded. + +Sister Soulsby's large eyes beamed down upon him in reply, at first in +open merriment, then more soberly, till their regard was almost pensive. + +“Let us talk of something else,” she said. “All that is past and gone. +It has nothing to do with you, anyway. I've got some advice to give you +about keeping up this grip you've got on your people.” + +The young minister had risen to his feet while she spoke. He put his +hands in his pockets, and with rounded shoulders began slowly pacing the +room. After a turn or two he came to the desk, and leaned against it. + +“I doubt if it's worth while going into that,” he said, in the solemn +tone of one who feels that an irrevocable thing is being uttered. She +waited to hear more, apparently. “I think I shall go away--give up the +ministry,” he added. + +Sister Soulsby's eyes revealed no such shock of consternation as he, +unconsciously, had looked for. They remained quite calm; and when she +spoke, they deepened, to fit her speech, with what he read to be a +gaze of affectionate melancholy--one might say pity. She shook her head +slowly. + +“No--don't let any one else hear you say that,” she replied. “My poor +young friend, it's no good to even think it. The real wisdom is to +school yourself to move along smoothly, and not fret, and get the best +of what's going. I've known others who felt as you do--of course there +are times when every young man of brains and high notions feels that +way--but there's no help for it. Those who tried to get out only broke +themselves. Those who stayed in, and made the best of it--well, one of +them will be a bishop in another ten years.” + +Theron had started walking again. “But the moral degradation of it!” + he snapped out at her over his shoulder. “I'd rather earn the meanest +living, at an honest trade, and be free from it.” + +“That may all be,” responded Sister Soulsby. “But it isn't a question of +what you'd rather do. It's what you can do. How could you earn a living? +What trade or business do you suppose you could take up now, and get a +living out of? Not one, my man, not one.” + +Theron stopped and stared at her. This view of his capabilities came +upon him with the force and effect of a blow. + +“I don't discover, myself,” he began stumblingly, “that I'm so +conspicuously inferior to the men I see about me who do make livings, +and very good ones, too.” + +“Of course you're not,” she replied with easy promptness; “you're +greatly the other way, or I shouldn't be taking this trouble with you. +But you're what you are because you're where you are. The moment you try +on being somewhere else, you're done for. In all this world nobody else +comes to such unmerciful and universal grief as the unfrocked priest.” + +The phrase sent Theron's fancy roving. “I know a Catholic priest,” he +said irrelevantly, “who doesn't believe an atom in--in things.” + +“Very likely,” said Sister Soulsby. “Most of us do. But you don't hear +him talking about going and earning his living, I'll bet! Or if he +does, he takes powerful good care not to go, all the same. They've got +horse-sense, those priests. They're artists, too. They know how to allow +for the machinery behind the scenes.” + +“But it's all so different,” urged the young minister; “the same things +are not expected of them. Now I sat the other night and watched those +people you got up around the altar-rail, groaning and shouting and +crying, and the others jumping up and down with excitement, and Sister +Lovejoy--did you see her?--coming out of her pew and regularly waltzing +in the aisle, with her eyes shut, like a whirling dervish--I positively +believe it was all that made me ill. I couldn't stand it. I can't stand +it now. I won't go back to it! Nothing shall make me!” + +“Oh-h, yes, you will,” she rejoined soothingly. “There's nothing else to +do. Just put a good face on it, and make up your mind to get through by +treading on as few corns as possible, and keeping your own toes well in, +and you'll be surprised how easy it'll all come to be. You were +speaking of the revival business. Now that exemplifies just what I was +saying--it's a part of our machinery. Now a church is like everything +else,--it's got to have a boss, a head, an authority of some sort, that +people will listen to and mind. The Catholics are different, as you say. +Their church is chuck-full of authority--all the way from the Pope +down to the priest--and accordingly they do as they're told. But the +Protestants--your Methodists most of all--they say 'No, we won't have +any authority, we won't obey any boss.' Very well, what happens? We +who are responsible for running the thing, and raising the money and +so on--we have to put on a spurt every once in a while, and work up a +general state of excitement; and while it's going, don't you see that +THAT is the authority, the motive power, whatever you like to call it, +by which things are done? Other denominations don't need it. We do, and +that's why we've got it.” + +“But the mean dishonesty of it all!” Theron broke forth. He moved about +again, his bowed face drawn as with bodily suffering. “The low-born +tricks, the hypocrisies! I feel as if I could never so much as look at +these people here again without disgust.” + +“Oh, now that's where you make your mistake,” Sister Soulsby put in +placidly. “These people of yours are not a whit worse than other people. +They've got their good streaks and their bad streaks, just like the rest +of us. Take them by and large, they're quite on a par with other folks +the whole country through.” + +“I don't believe there's another congregation in the Conference +where--where this sort of thing would have been needed, or, I might say, +tolerated,” insisted Theron. + +“Perhaps you're right,” the other assented; “but that only shows that +your people here are different from the others--not that they're worse. +You don't seem to realize: Octavius, so far as the Methodists are +concerned, is twenty or thirty years behind the times. Now that has its +advantages and its disadvantages. The church here is tough and coarse, +and full of grit, like a grindstone; and it does ministers from other +more niminy-piminy places all sorts of good to come here once in a while +and rub themselves up against it. It scours the rust and mildew off from +their piety, and they go back singing and shouting. But of course +it's had a different effect with you. You're razor-steel instead of +scythe-steel, and the grinding's been too rough and violent for you. +But you see what I mean. These people here really take their primitive +Methodism seriously. To them the profession of entire sanctification is +truly a genuine thing. Well, don't you see, when people just know that +they're saved, it doesn't seem to them to matter so much what they +do. They feel that ordinary rules may well be bent and twisted in the +interest of people so supernaturally good as they are. That's pure human +nature. It's always been like that.” + +Theron paused in his walk to look absently at her. “That thought,” + he said, in a vague, slow way, “seems to be springing up in my path, +whichever way I turn. It oppresses me, and yet it fascinates me--this +idea that the dead men have known more than we know, done more than we +do; that there is nothing new anywhere; that--” + +“Never mind the dead men,” interposed Sister Soulsby. “Just you come +and sit down here. I hate to have you straddling about the room when I'm +trying to talk to you.” + +Theron obeyed, and as he sank into the low seat, Sister Soulsby drew up +her chair, and put her hand on his shoulder. Her gaze rested upon his +with impressive steadiness. + +“And now I want to talk seriously to you, as a friend,” she began. “You +mustn't breathe to any living soul the shadow of a hint of this nonsense +about leaving the ministry. I could see how you were feeling--I saw the +book you were reading the first time I entered this room--and that made +me like you; only I expected to find you mixing up more worldly gumption +with your Renan. Well, perhaps I like you all the better for not having +it--for being so delightfully fresh. At any rate, that made me sail in +and straighten your affairs for you. And now, for God's sake, keep them +straight. Just put all notions of anything else out of your head. Watch +your chief men and women, and be friends with them. Keep your eye open +for what they think you ought to do, and do it. Have your own ideas as +much as you like, read what you like, say 'Damn' under your breath as +much as you like, but don't let go of your job. I've knocked about +too much, and I've seen too many promising young fellows cut their own +throats for pure moonshine, not to have a right to say that.” + +Theron could not be insensible to the friendly hand on his shoulder, or +to the strenuous sincerity of the voice which thus adjured him. + +“Well,” he said vaguely, smiling up into her earnest eyes, “if we agree +that it IS moonshine.” + +“See here!” she exclaimed, with renewed animation, patting his shoulder +in a brisk, automatic way, to point the beginnings of her confidences: +“I'll tell you something. It's about myself. I've got a religion of my +own, and it's got just one plank in it, and that is that the time to +separate the sheep from the goats is on Judgment Day, and that it can't +be done a minute before.” + +The young minister took in the thought, and turned it about in his mind, +and smiled upon it. + +“And that brings me to what I'm going to tell you,” Sister Soulsby +continued. She leaned back in her chair, and crossed her knees so +that one well-shaped and artistically shod foot poised itself close to +Theron's hand. Her eyes dwelt upon his face with an engaging candor. + +“I began life,” she said, “as a girl by running away from a stupid home +with a man that I knew was married already. After that, I supported +myself for a good many years--generally, at first, on the stage. I've +been a front-ranker in Amazon ballets, and I've been leading lady in +comic opera companies out West. I've told fortunes in one room of a +mining-camp hotel where the biggest game of faro in the Territory went +on in another. I've been a professional clairvoyant, and I've been a +professional medium, and I've been within one vote of being indicted +by a grand jury, and the money that bought that vote was put up by the +smartest and most famous train-gambler between Omaha and 'Frisco, a +gentleman who died in his boots and took three sheriff's deputies along +with him to Kingdom-Come. Now, that's MY record.” + +Theron looked earnestly at her, and said nothing. + +“And now take Soulsby,” she went on. “Of course I take it for granted +there's a good deal that he has never felt called upon to mention. He +hasn't what you may call a talkative temperament. But there is also a +good deal that I do know. He's been an actor, too, and to this day I'd +back him against Edwin Booth himself to recite 'Clarence's Dream.' And +he's been a medium, and then he was a travelling phrenologist, and for +a long time he was advance agent for a British Blondes show, and when I +first saw him he was lecturing on female diseases--and he had HIS little +turn with a grand jury too. In fact, he was what you may call a regular +bad old rooster.” + +Again Theron suffered the pause to lapse without comment--save for an +amorphous sort of conversation which he felt to be going on between his +eyes and those of Sister Soulsby. + +“Well, then,” she resumed, “so much for us apart. Now about us together. +We liked each other from the start. We compared notes, and we found that +we had both soured on living by fakes, and that we were tired of the +road, and wanted to settle down and be respectable in our old age. We +had a little money--enough to see us through a year or two. Soulsby had +always hungered and longed to own a garden and raise flowers, and had +never been able to stay long enough in one place to see so much as a +bean-pod ripen. So we took a little place in a quiet country village +down on the Southern Tier, and he planted everything three deep all over +the place, and I bought a roomful of cheap good books, and we started +in. We took to it like ducks to water for a while, and I don't say that +we couldn't have stood it out, just doing nothing, to this very day; but +as luck would have it, during the first winter there was a revival at +the local Methodist church, and we went every evening--at first just to +kill time, and then because we found we liked the noise and excitement +and general racket of the thing. After it was all over each of us found +that the other had been mighty near going up to the rail and joining the +mourners. And another thing had occurred to each of us, too--that is, +what tremendous improvements there were possible in the way that amateur +revivalist worked up his business. This stuck in our crops, and we +figured on it all through the winter.--Well, to make a long story short, +we finally went into the thing ourselves.” + +“Tell me one thing,” interposed Theron. “I'm anxious to understand +it all as we go along. Were you and he at any time sincerely +converted?--that is, I mean, genuinely convicted of sin and conscious +of--you know what I mean!” + +“Oh, bless you, yes,” responded Sister Soulsby. “Not only once--dozens +of times--I may say every time. We couldn't do good work if we weren't. +But that's a matter of temperament--of emotions.” + +“Precisely. That was what I was getting at,” explained Theron. + +“Well, then, hear what I was getting at,” she went on. “You were talking +very loudly here about frauds and hypocrisies and so on, a few minutes +ago. Now I say that Soulsby and I do good, and that we're good fellows. +Now take him, for example. There isn't a better citizen in all +Chemung County than he is, or a kindlier neighbor, or a better or more +charitable man. I've known him to stay up a whole winter's night in +a poor Irishman's stinking and freezing stable, trying to save his +cart-horse for him, that had been seized with some sort of fit. The +man's whole livelihood, and his family's, was in that horse; and when it +died, Soulsby bought him another, and never told even ME about it. Now +that I call real piety, if you like.” + +“So do I,” put in Theron, cordially. + +“And this question of fraud,” pursued his companion,--“look at it in +this light. You heard us sing. Well, now, I was a singer, of course, but +Soulsby hardly knew one note from another. I taught him to sing, and he +went at it patiently and diligently, like a little man. And I invented +that scheme of finding tunes which the crowd didn't know, and so +couldn't break in on and smother. I simply took Chopin--he is full of +sixths, you know--and I got all sorts of melodies out of his waltzes +and mazurkas and nocturnes and so on, and I trained Soulsby just to sing +those sixths so as to make the harmony, and there you are. He couldn't +sing by himself any more than a crow, but he's got those sixths of his +down to a hair. Now that's machinery, management, organization. We take +these tunes, written by a devil-may-care Pole who was living with George +Sand openly at the time, and pass 'em off on the brethren for hymns. +It's a fraud, yes; but it's a good fraud. So they are all good frauds. +I say frankly that I'm glad that the change and the chance came to help +Soulsby and me to be good frauds.” + +“And the point is that I'm to be a good fraud, too,” commented the young +minister. + +She had risen, and he got to his feet as well. He instinctively sought +for her hand, and pressed it warmly, and held it in both his, with an +exuberance of gratitude and liking in his manner. + +Sister Soulsby danced her eyes at him with a saucy little shake of the +head. “I'm afraid you'll never make a really GOOD fraud,” she said. “You +haven't got it in you. Your intentions are all right, but your execution +is hopelessly clumsy. I came up to your bedroom there twice while you +were sick, just to say 'howdy,' and you kept your eyes shut, and all the +while a blind horse could have told that you were wide awake.” + +“I must have thought it was my wife,” said Theron. + + + + +PART III + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +When the lingering dusk finally settled down upon this long summer +evening, the train bearing the Soulsbys homeward was already some score +of miles on its way, and the Methodists of Octavius had nearly finished +their weekly prayer-meeting. + +After the stirring events of the revival, it was only to be expected +that this routine, home-made affair should suffer from a reaction. The +attendance was larger than usual, perhaps, but the proceedings were +spiritless and tame. Neither the pastor nor his wife was present at +the beginning, and the class-leader upon whom control devolved made but +feeble headway against the spell of inertia which the hot night-air +laid upon the gathering. Long pauses intervened between the perfunctory +praise-offerings and supplications, and the hymns weariedly raised from +time to time fell again in languor by the wayside. + +Alice came in just as people were beginning to hope that some one +would start the Doxology, and bring matters to a close. Her appearance +apparently suggested this to the class-leader, for in a few moments the +meeting had been dismissed, and some of the members, on their way out, +were shaking hands with their minister's wife, and expressing the polite +hope that he was better. The worried look in her face, and the obvious +stains of recent tears upon her cheeks imparted an added point and +fervor to these inquiries, but she replied to all in tones of +studied tranquillity that, although not feeling well enough to attend +prayer-meeting, Brother Ware was steadily recovering strength, and +confidently expected to be in complete health by Sunday. They left her, +and could hardly wait to get into the vestibule to ask one another in +whispers what on earth she could have been crying about. + +Meanwhile Brother Ware improved his convalescent state by pacing slowly +up and down under the elms on the side of the street opposite the +Catholic church. There were no houses here for a block and more; the +sidewalk was broken in many places, so that passers-by avoided it; the +overhanging boughs shrouded it all in obscurity; it was preeminently a +place to be alone in. + +Theron had driven to the depot with his guests an hour before, and after +a period of pleasant waiting on the platform, had said good-bye to +them as the train moved away. Then he turned to Alice, who had also +accompanied them in the carriage, and was conscious of a certain +annoyance at her having come. That long familiar talk of the afternoon +had given him the feeling that he was entitled to bid farewell to Sister +Soulsby--to both the Soulsbys--by himself. + +“I am afraid folks will think it strange--neither of us attending the +prayer-meeting,” he said, with a suggestion of reproof in his tone, as +they left the station-yard. + +“If we get back in time, I'll run in for a minute,” answered Alice, with +docility. + +“No--no,” he broke in. “I'm not equal to walking so fast. You run on +ahead, and explain matters, and I will come along slowly.” + +“The hack we came in is still there in the yard,” the wife suggested. +“We could drive home in that. I don't believe it would cost more than a +quarter--and if you're feeling badly--” + +“But I am NOT feeling badly,” Theron replied, with frank impatience. +“Only I feel--I feel that being alone with my thoughts would be good for +me.” + +“Oh, certainly--by all means!” Alice had said, and turned sharply on her +heel. + +Being alone with these thoughts, Theron strolled aimlessly about, and +did not think at all. The shadows gathered, and fireflies began to +disclose their tiny gleams among the shrubbery in the gardens. +A lamp-lighter came along, and passed him, leaving in his wake a +straggling double line of lights, glowing radiantly against the +black-green of the trees. This recalled to Theron that he had heard that +the town council lit the street lamps by the almanac, and economized gas +when moonshine was due. The idea struck him as droll, and he dwelt +upon it in various aspects, smiling at some of its comic possibilities. +Looking up in the middle of one of these whimsical conceits, the +sportive impulse died suddenly within him. He realized that it was dark, +and that the massive black bulk reared against the sky on the other side +of the road was the Catholic church. The other fact, that he had been +there walking to and fro for some time, was borne in upon him more +slowly. He turned, and resumed the pacing up and down with a still more +leisurely step, musing upon the curious way in which people's minds all +unconsciously follow about where instincts and intuitions lead. + +No doubt it was what Sister Soulsby had said about Catholics which had +insensibly guided his purposeless stroll in this direction. What a +woman that was! Somehow the purport of her talk--striking, and even +astonishing as he had found it--did not stand out so clearly in his +memory as did the image of the woman herself. She must have +been extremely pretty once. For that matter she still was a most +attractive-looking woman. It had been a genuine pleasure to have her in +the house--to see her intelligent responsive face at the table--to have +it in one's power to make drafts at will upon the fund of sympathy and +appreciation, of facile mirth and ready tenderness in those big eyes of +hers. He liked that phrase she had used about herself--“a good fellow.” + It seemed to fit her to a “t.” And Soulsby was a good fellow too. All at +once it occurred to him to wonder whether they were married or not. + +But really that was no affair of his, he reflected. A citizen of the +intellectual world should be above soiling his thoughts with mean +curiosities of that sort, and he drove the impertinent query down again +under the surface of his mind. He refused to tolerate, as well, sundry +vagrant imaginings which rose to cluster about and literalize the +romance of her youth which Sister Soulsby had so frankly outlined. +He would think upon nothing but her as he knew her,--the kindly, +quick-witted, capable and charming woman who had made such a brilliant +break in the monotony of life at that dull parsonage of his. The +only genuine happiness in life must consist in having bright, smart, +attractive women like that always about. + +The lights were visible now in the upper rooms of Father Forbes' +pastorate across the way. Theron paused for a second to consider whether +he wanted to go over and call on the priest. He decided that mentally he +was too fagged and flat for such an undertaking. He needed another sort +of companionship--some restful, soothing human contact, which should +exact nothing from him in return, but just take charge of him, +with soft, wise words and pleasant plays of fancy, and jokes +and--and--something of the general effect created by Sister Soulsby's +eyes. The thought expanded itself, and he saw that he had never realized +before--nay, never dreamt before--what a mighty part the comradeship of +talented, sweet-natured and beautiful women must play in the development +of genius, the achievement of lofty aims, out in the great world of +great men. To know such women--ah, that would never fall to his hapless +lot. + +The priest's lamps blinked at him through the trees. He remembered that +priests were supposed to be even further removed from the possibilities +of such contact than he was himself. His memory reverted to that +horribly ugly old woman whom Father Forbes had spoken of as his +housekeeper. Life under the same roof with such a hag must be even worse +than--worse than-- + +The young minister did not finish the comparison, even in the privacy +of his inner soul. He stood instead staring over at the pastorate, in a +kind of stupor of arrested thought. The figure of a woman passed in view +at the nearest window--a tall figure with pale summer clothes of some +sort, and a broad summer hat--a flitting effect of diaphanous shadow +between him and the light which streamed from the casement. + +Theron felt a little shiver run over him, as if the delicate coolness of +the changing night-air had got into his blood. The window was open, and +his strained hearing thought it caught the sound of faint laughter. He +continued to gaze at the place where the vision had appeared, the while +a novel and strange perception unfolded itself upon his mind. + +He had come there in the hope of encountering Celia Madden. + +Now that he looked this fact in the face, there was nothing remarkable +about it. In truth, it was simplicity itself. He was still a sick man, +weak in body and dejected in spirits. The thought of how unhappy and +unstrung he was came to him now with an insistent pathos that brought +tears to his eyes. He was only obeying the universal law of nature--the +law which prompts the pallid spindling sprout of the potato in the +cellar to strive feebly toward the light. + +From where he stood in the darkness he stretched out his hands in the +direction of that open window. The gesture was his confession to the +overhanging boughs, to the soft night-breeze, to the stars above--and +it bore back to him something of the confessional's vague and wistful +solace. He seemed already to have drawn down into his soul a taste +of the refreshment it craved. He sighed deeply, and the hot moisture +smarted again upon his eyelids, but this time not all in grief. With +his tender compassion for himself there mingled now a flutter of buoyant +prescience, of exquisite expectancy. + +Fate walked abroad this summer night. The street door of the pastorate +opened, and in the flood of illumination which spread suddenly forth +over the steps and sidewalk, Theron saw again the tall form, with the +indefinitely light-hued flowing garments and the wide straw hat. He +heard a tuneful woman's voice call out “Good-night, Maggie,” and caught +no response save the abrupt closing of the door, which turned everything +black again with a bang. He listened acutely for another instant, and +then with long, noiseless strides made his way down his deserted side of +the street. He moderated his pace as he turned to cross the road at the +corner, and then, still masked by the trees, halted altogether, in a +momentary tumult of apprehension. No--yes--it was all right. The girl +sauntered out from the total darkness into the dim starlight of the open +corner. + +“Why, bless me, is that you, Miss Madden?” + +Celia seemed to discern readily enough, through the accents of surprise, +the identity of the tall, slim man who addressed her from the shadows. + +“Good-evening, Mr. Ware,” she said, with prompt affability. “I'm so glad +to find you out again. We heard you were ill.” + +“I have been very ill,” responded Theron, as they shook hands and walked +on together. He added, with a quaver in his voice, “I am still far +from strong. I really ought not to be out at all. But--but the longing +for--for--well, I COULDN'T stay in any longer. Even if it kills me, I +shall be glad I came out tonight.” + +“Oh, we won't talk of killing,” said Celia. “I don't believe in +illnesses myself.” + +“But you believe in collapses of the nerves,” put in Theron, with gentle +sadness, “in moral and spiritual and mental breakdowns. I remember how I +was touched by the way you told me YOU suffered from them. I had to take +what you said then for granted. I had had no experience of it myself. +But now I know what it is.” He drew a long, pathetic sigh. “Oh, DON'T I +know what it is!” he repeated gloomily. + +“Come, my friend, cheer up,” Celia purred at him, in soothing tones. He +felt that there was a deliciously feminine and sisterly intuition in +her speech, and in the helpful, nurse-like way in which she drew his arm +through hers. He leaned upon this support, and was glad of it in every +fibre of his being. + +“Do you remember? You promised--that last time I saw you--to play for +me,” he reminded her. They were passing the little covered postern door +at the side and rear of the church as he spoke, and he made a half halt +to point the coincidence. + +“Oh, there's no one to blow the organ,” she said, divining his +suggestion. “And I haven't the key--and, besides, the organ is too heavy +and severe for an invalid. It would overwhelm you tonight.” + +“Not as you would know how to play it for me,” urged Theron, pensively. +“I feel as if good music to-night would make me well again. I am really +very ill and weak--and unhappy!” + +The girl seemed moved by the despairing note in his voice. She invited +him by a sympathetic gesture to lean even more directly on her arm. + +“Come home with me, and I'll play Chopin to you,” she said, in +compassionate friendliness. “He is the real medicine for bruised and +wounded nerves. You shall have as much of him as you like.” + +The idea thus unexpectedly thrown forth spread itself like some vast and +inexpressibly alluring vista before Theron's imagination. The spice of +adventure in it fascinated his mind as well, but for a shrinking moment +the flesh was weak. + +“I'm afraid your people would--would think it strange,” he faltered--and +began also to recall that he had some people of his own who would be +even more amazed. + +“Nonsense,” said Celia, in fine, bold confidence, and with a reassuring +pressure on his arm. “I allow none of my people to question what I do. +They never dream of such a preposterous thing. Besides, you will see +none of them. Mrs. Madden is at the seaside, and my father and brother +have their own part of the house. I shan't listen for a minute to your +not coming. Come, I'm your doctor. I'm to make you well again.” + +There was further conversation, and Theron more or less knew that he was +bearing a part in it, but his whole mind seemed concentrated, in a +sort of delicious terror, upon the wonderful experience to which every +footstep brought him nearer. His magnetized fancy pictured a great +spacious parlor, such as a mansion like the Maddens' would of course +contain, and there would be a grand piano, and lace curtains, and +paintings in gold frames, and a chandelier, and velvet easy-chairs, and +he would sit in one of these, surrounded by all the luxury of the rich, +while Celia played to him. There would be servants about, he presumed, +and very likely they would recognize him, and of course they would +talk about it to Tom, Dick and Harry afterward. But he said to himself +defiantly that he didn't care. + +He withdrew his arm from hers as they came upon the well-lighted main +street. He passed no one who seemed to know him. Presently they came +to the Madden place, and Celia, without waiting for the gravelled walk, +struck obliquely across the lawn. Theron, who had been lagging behind +with a certain circumspection, stepped briskly to her side now. Their +progress over the soft, close-cropped turf in the dark together, with +the scent of lilies and perfumed shrubs heavy on the night air, and +the majestic bulk of the big silent house rising among the trees before +them, gave him a thrilling sense of the glory of individual freedom. + +“I feel a new man already,” he declared, as they swung along on the +grass. He breathed a long sigh of content, and drew nearer, so that +their shoulders touched now and again as they walked. In a minute more +they were standing on the doorstep, and Theron heard the significant +jingle of a bunch of keys which his companion was groping for in her +elusive pocket. He was conscious of trembling a little at the sound. + +It seemed that, unlike other people, the Maddens did not have their +parlor on the ground-floor, opening off the front hall. Theron stood in +the complete darkness of this hall, till Celia had lit one of several +candles which were in their hand-sticks on a sort of sideboard next the +hat-rack. She beckoned him with a gesture of her head, and he followed +her up a broad staircase, magnificent in its structural appointments +of inlaid woods, and carpeted with what to his feet felt like down. The +tiny light which his guide bore before her half revealed, as they passed +in their ascent, tall lengths of tapestry, and the dull glint of +armor and brazen discs in shadowed niches on the nearer wall. Over the +stair-rail lay an open space of such stately dimensions, bounded by +terminal lines of decoration so distant in the faint candle-flicker, +that the young country minister could think of no word but “palatial” to +fit it all. + +At the head of the flight, Celia led the way along a wide corridor to +where it ended. Here, stretched from side to side, and suspended from +broad hoops of a copper-like metal, was a thick curtain, of a uniform +color which Theron at first thought was green, and then decided must be +blue. She pushed its heavy folds aside, and unlocked another door. He +passed under the curtain behind her, and closed the door. + +The room into which he had made his way was not at all after the fashion +of any parlor he had ever seen. In the obscure light it was difficult +to tell what it resembled. He made out what he took to be a painter's +easel, standing forth independently in the centre of things. There were +rows of books on rude, low shelves. Against one of the two windows was +a big, flat writing-table--or was it a drawing-table?--littered with +papers. Under the other window was a carpenter's bench, with a large +mound of something at one end covered with a white cloth. On a table +behind the easel rose a tall mechanical contrivance, the chief feature +of which was a thick upright spiral screw. The floor was of bare +wood stained brown. The walls of this queer room had photographs and +pictures, taken apparently from illustrated papers, pinned up at random +for their only ornament. + +Celia had lighted three or four other candles on the mantel. She +caught the dumfounded expression with which her guest was surveying his +surroundings, and gave a merry little laugh. + +“This is my workshop,” she explained. “I keep this for the things I do +badly--things I fool with. If I want to paint, or model in clay, or bind +books, or write, or draw, or turn on the lathe, or do some carpentering, +here's where I do it. All the things that make a mess which has to +be cleaned up--they are kept out here--because this is as far as the +servants are allowed to come.” + +She unlocked still another door as she spoke--a door which was also +concealed behind a curtain. + +“Now,” she said, holding up the candle so that its reddish flare rounded +with warmth the creamy fulness of her chin and throat, and glowed upon +her hair in a flame of orange light--“now I will show you what is my +very own.” + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Theron Ware looked about him with frankly undisguised astonishment. + +The room in which he found himself was so dark at first that it +yielded little to the eye, and that little seemed altogether beyond his +comprehension. His gaze helplessly followed Celia and her candle +about as she busied herself in the work of illumination. When she had +finished, and pinched out the taper, there were seven lights in the +apartment--lights beaming softly through half-opaque alternating +rectangles of blue and yellow glass. They must be set in some sort of +lanterns around against the wall, he thought, but the shape of these he +could hardly make out. + +Gradually his sight adapted itself to this subdued light, and he began +to see other things. These queer lamps were placed, apparently, so as to +shed a special radiance upon some statues which stood in the corners of +the chamber, and upon some pictures which were embedded in the walls. +Theron noted that the statues, the marble of which lost its aggressive +whiteness under the tinted lights, were mostly of naked men and women; +the pictures, four or five in number, were all variations of a single +theme--the Virgin Mary and the Child. + +A less untutored vision than his would have caught more swiftly the +scheme of color and line in which these works of art bore their share. +The walls of the room were in part of flat upright wooden columns, +terminating high above in simple capitals, and they were all painted in +pale amber and straw and primrose hues, irregularly wavering here and +there toward suggestions of white. Between these pilasters were broader +panels of stamped leather, in gently varying shades of peacock blue. +These contrasted colors vaguely interwove and mingled in what he +could see of the shadowed ceiling far above. They were repeated in the +draperies and huge cushions and pillows of the low, wide divan which ran +about three sides of the room. Even the floor, where it revealed itself +among the scattered rugs, was laid in a mosaic pattern of matched woods, +which, like the rugs, gave back these same shifting blues and uncertain +yellows. + +The fourth side of the apartment was broken in outline at one end by the +door through which they had entered, and at the other by a broad, square +opening, hung with looped-back curtains of a thin silken stuff. Between +the two apertures rose against the wall what Theron took at first glance +to be an altar. There were pyramidal rows of tall candles here on either +side, each masked with a little silken hood; below, in the centre, a +shelf-like projection supported what seemed a massive, carved casket, +and in the beautiful intricacies of this, and the receding canopy of +delicate ornamentation which depended above it, the dominant color was +white, deepening away in its shadows, by tenderly minute gradations, to +the tints which ruled the rest of the room. + +Celia lighted some of the high, thick tapers in these candelabra, and +opened the top of the casket. Theron saw with surprise that she had +uncovered the keyboard of a piano. He viewed with much greater amazement +her next proceeding--which was to put a cigarette between her lips, and, +bending over one of the candles with it for an instant, turn to him with +a filmy, opalescent veil of smoke above her head. + +“Make yourself comfortable anywhere,” she said, with a gesture which +comprehended all the divans and pillows in the place. “Will you smoke?” + +“I have never tried since I was a little boy,” said Theron, “but I think +I could. If you don't mind, I should like to see.” + +Lounging at his ease on the oriental couch, Theron experimented +cautiously upon the unaccustomed tobacco, and looked at Celia with what +he felt to be the confident quiet of a man of the world. She had thrown +aside her hat, and in doing so had half released some of the heavy +strands of hair coiled at the back of her head. His glance instinctively +rested upon this wonderful hair of hers. There was no mistaking the +sudden fascination its disorder had for his eye. + +She stood before him with the cigarette poised daintily between thumb +and finger of a shapely hand, and smiled comprehendingly down on her +guest. + +“I suffered the horrors of the damned with this hair of mine when I was +a child,” she said. “I daresay all children have a taste for persecuting +red-heads; but it's a specialty with Irish children. They get hold +somehow of an ancient national superstition, or legend, that red hair +was brought into Ireland by the Danes. It's been a term of reproach with +us since Brian Boru's time to call a child a Dane. I used to be pursued +and baited with it every day of my life, until the one dream of my +ambition was to get old enough to be a Sister of Charity, so that I +might hide my hair under one of their big beastly white linen caps. I've +got rather away from that ideal since, I'm afraid,” she added, with a +droll downward curl of her lip. + +“Your hair is very beautiful,” said Theron, in the calm tone of a +connoisseur. + +“I like it myself,” Celia admitted, and blew a little smoke-ring toward +him. “I've made this whole room to match it. The colors, I mean,” she +explained, in deference to his uplifted brows. “Between us, we make up +what Whistler would call a symphony. That reminds me--I was going to +play for you. Let me finish the cigarette first.” + +Theron felt grateful for her reticence about the fact that he had laid +his own aside. “I have never seen a room at all like this,” he remarked. +“You are right; it does fit you perfectly.” + +She nodded her sense of his appreciation. “It is what I like,” she +said. “It expresses ME. I will not have anything about me--or anybody +either--that I don't like. I suppose if an old Greek could see it, it +would make him sick, but it represents what I mean by being a Greek. It +is as near as an Irishman can get to it.” + +“I remember your puzzling me by saying that you were a Greek.” + +Celia laughed, and tossed the cigarette-end away. “I'd puzzle you more, +I'm afraid, if I tried to explain to you what I really meant by it. I +divide people up into two classes, you know--Greeks and Jews. Once you +get hold of that principle, all other divisions and classifications, +such as by race or language or nationality, seem pure foolishness. It +is the only true division there is. It is just as true among negroes +or wild Indians who never heard of Greece or Jerusalem, as it is among +white folks. That is the beauty of it. It works everywhere, always.” + +“Try it on me,” urged Theron, with a twinkling eye. “Which am I?” + +“Both,” said the girl, with a merry nod of the head. “But now I'll play. +I told you you were to hear Chopin. I prescribe him for you. He is the +Greekiest of the Greeks. THERE was a nation where all the people were +artists, where everybody was an intellectual aristocrat, where the +Philistine was as unknown, as extinct, as the dodo. Chopin might have +written his music for them.” + +“I am interested in Shopang,” put in Theron, suddenly recalling +Sister Soulsby's confidences as to the source of her tunes. “He lived +with--what's his name--George something. We were speaking about him only +this afternoon.” + +Celia looked down into her visitor's face at first inquiringly, then +with a latent grin about her lips. “Yes--George something,” she said, in +a tone which mystified him. + +The Rev. Mr. Ware was sitting up, a minute afterward, in a ferment of +awakened consciousness that he had never heard the piano played before. +After a little, he noiselessly rearranged the cushions, and settled +himself again in a recumbent posture. It was beyond his strength to +follow that first impulse, and keep his mind abreast with what his ears +took in. He sighed and lay back, and surrendered his senses to the mere +unthinking charm of it all. + +It was the Fourth Prelude that was singing in the air about him--a +simple, plaintive strain wandering at will over a surface of steady +rhythmic movement underneath, always creeping upward through mysteries +of sweetness, always sinking again in cadences of semi-tones. With only +a moment's pause, there came the Seventh Waltz--a rich, bold confusion +which yet was not confused. Theron's ears dwelt with eager delight upon +the chasing medley of swift, tinkling sounds, but it left his thoughts +free. + +From where he reclined, he turned his head to scrutinize, one by one, +the statues in the corners. No doubt they were beautiful--for this was a +department in which he was all humility--and one of them, the figure of +a broad-browed, stately, though thick-waisted woman, bending slightly +forward and with both arms broken off, was decently robed from the hips +downward. The others were not robed at all. Theron stared at them with +the erratic, rippling jangle of the waltz in his ears, and felt that he +possessed a new and disturbing conception of what female emancipation +meant in these later days. Roving along the wall, his glance rested +again upon the largest of the Virgin pictures--a full-length figure +in sweeping draperies, its radiant, aureoled head upturned in rapt +adoration, its feet resting on a crescent moon which shone forth in +bluish silver through festooned clouds of cherubs. The incongruity +between the unashamed statues and this serene incarnation of holy +womanhood jarred upon him for the instant. Then his mind went to the +piano. + +Without a break the waltz had slowed and expanded into a passage of what +might be church music, an exquisitely modulated and gently solemn chant, +through which a soft, lingering song roved capriciously, forcing the +listener to wonder where it was coming out, even while it caressed and +soothed to repose. + +He looked from the Madonna to Celia. Beyond the carelessly drooping +braids and coils of hair which blazed between the candles, he could see +the outline of her brow and cheek, the noble contour of her lifted chin +and full, modelled throat, all pink as the most delicate rose leaf +is pink, against the cool lights of the altar-like wall. The sight +convicted him in the court of his own soul as a prurient and mean-minded +rustic. In the presence of such a face, of such music, there ceased to +be any such thing as nudity, and statues no more needed clothes than +did those slow, deep, magnificent chords which came now, gravely +accumulating their spell upon him. + +“It is all singing!” the player called out to him over her shoulder, in +a minute of rest. “That is what Chopin does--he sings!” + +She began, with an effect of thinking of something else, the Sixth +Nocturne, and Theron at first thought she was not playing anything in +particular, so deliberately, haltingly, did the chain of charm unwind +itself into sequence. Then it came closer to him than the others had +done. The dreamy, wistful, meditative beauty of it all at once oppressed +and inspired him. He saw Celia's shoulders sway under the impulse of the +RUBATO license--the privilege to invest each measure with the stress of +the whole, to loiter, to weep, to run and laugh at will--and the music +she made spoke to him as with a human voice. There was the wooing sense +of roses and moonlight, of perfumes, white skins, alluring languorous +eyes, and then-- + +“You know this part, of course,” he heard her say. + +On the instant they had stepped from the dark, scented, starlit garden, +where the nightingale sang, into a great cathedral. A sombre and lofty +anthem arose, and filled the place with the splendor of such dignified +pomp of harmony and such suggestions of measureless choral power and +authority that Theron sat abruptly up, then was drawn resistlessly to +his feet. He stood motionless in the strange room, feeling most of all +that one should kneel to hear such music. + +“This you'll know too--the funeral march from the Second Sonata,” she +was saying, before he realized that the end of the other had come. He +sank upon the divan again, bending forward and clasping his hands tight +around his knees. His heart beat furiously as he listened to the weird, +mediaeval processional, with its wild, clashing chords held down in +the bondage of an orderly sadness. There was a propelling motion in +the thing--a sense of being borne bodily along--which affected him +like dizziness. He breathed hard through the robust portions of stern, +vigorous noise, and rocked himself to and fro when, as rosy morn +breaks upon a storm-swept night, the drums are silenced for the sweet, +comforting strain of solitary melody. The clanging minor harmonies into +which the march relapses came to their abrupt end. Theron rose once +more, and moved with a hesitating step to the piano. + +“I want to rest a little,” he said, with his hand on her shoulder. + +“Whew! so do I,” exclaimed Celia, letting her hands fall with an +exaggerated gesture of weariness. “The sonatas take it out of one! They +are hideously difficult, you know. They are rarely played.” + +“I didn't know,” remarked Theron. She seemed not to mind his hand upon +her shoulder, and he kept it there. “I didn't know anything about music +at all. What I do know now is that--that this evening is an event in my +life.” + +She looked up at him and smiled. He read unsuspected tendernesses and +tolerances of friendship in the depths of her eyes, which emboldened +him to stir the fingers of that audacious hand in a lingering, caressing +trill upon her shoulder. The movement was of the faintest, but having +ventured it, he drew his hand abruptly away. + +“You are getting on,” she said to him. There was an enigmatic twinkle +in the smile with which she continued to regard him. “We are Hellenizing +you at a great rate.” + +A sudden thought seemed to strike her. She shifted her eyes toward +vacancy with a swift, abstracted glance, reflected for a moment, then +let a sparkling half-wink and the dimpling beginnings of an almost +roguish smile mark her assent to the conceit, whatever it might be. + +“I will be with you in a moment,” he heard her say; and while the words +were still in his ears she had risen and passed out of sight through +the broad, open doorway to the right. The looped curtains fell together +behind her. Presently a mellow light spread over their delicately +translucent surface--a creamy, undulating radiance which gave the effect +of moving about among the myriad folds of the silk. + +Theron gazed at these curtains for a little, then straightened his +shoulders with a gesture of decision, and, turning on his heel, went +over and examined the statues in the further corners minutely. + +“If you would like some more, I will play you the Berceuse now.” + +Her voice came to him with a delicious shock. He wheeled round and +beheld her standing at the piano, with one hand resting, palm upward, +on the keys. She was facing him. Her tall form was robed now in some +shapeless, clinging drapery, lustrous and creamy and exquisitely soft, +like the curtains. The wonderful hair hung free and luxuriant about her +neck and shoulders, and glowed with an intensity of fiery color which +made all the other hues of the room pale and vague. A fillet of faint, +sky-like blue drew a gracious span through the flame of red above her +temples, and from this there rose the gleam of jewels. Her head inclined +gently, gravely, toward him--with the posture of that armless woman in +marble he had been studying--and her brown eyes, regarding him from the +shadows, emitted light. + +“It is a lullaby--the only one he wrote,” she said, as Theron, +pale-faced and with tightened lips, approached her. “No--you mustn't +stand there,” she added, sinking into the seat before the instrument; +“go back and sit where you were.” + +The most perfect of lullabies, with its swaying abandonment to cooing +rhythm, ever and again rising in ripples to the point of insisting on +something, one knows not what, and then rocking, melting away once +more, passed, so to speak, over Theron's head. He leaned back upon the +cushions, and watched the white, rounded forearm which the falling folds +of this strange, statue-like drapery made bare. + +There was more that appealed to his mood in the Third Ballade. It +seemed to him that there were words going along with it--incoherent and +impulsive yet very earnest words, appealing to him in strenuous argument +and persuasion. Each time he almost knew what they said, and strained +after their meaning with a passionate desire, and then there would come +a kind of cuckoo call, and everything would swing dancing off again into +a mockery of inconsequence. + +Upon the silence there fell the pure, liquid, mellifluous melody of a +soft-throated woman singing to her lover. + +“It is like Heine--simply a love-poem,” said the girl, over her +shoulder. + +Theron followed now with all his senses, as she carried the Ninth +Nocturne onward. The stormy passage, which she banged finely forth, +was in truth a lover's quarrel; and then the mild, placid flow of sweet +harmonies into which the furore sank, dying languorously away upon a +silence all alive with tender memories of sound--was that not also a +part of love? + +They sat motionless through a minute--the man on the divan, the girl +at the piano--and Theron listened for what he felt must be the audible +thumping of his heart. + +Then, throwing back her head, with upturned face, Celia began what she +had withheld for the last--the Sixteenth Mazurka. This strange foreign +thing she played with her eyes closed, her head tilted obliquely so that +Theron could see the rose-tinted, beautiful countenance, framed as if +asleep in the billowing luxuriance of unloosed auburn hair. He fancied +her beholding visions as she wrought the music--visions full of barbaric +color and romantic forms. As his mind swam along with the gliding, +tricksy phantom of a tune, it seemed as if he too could see these +visions--as if he gazed at them through her eyes. + +It could not be helped. He lifted himself noiselessly to his feet, and +stole with caution toward her. He would hear the rest of this weird, +voluptuous fantasy standing thus, so close behind her that he could look +down upon her full, uplifted lace--so close that, if she moved, that +glowing nimbus of hair would touch him. + +There had been some curious and awkward pauses in this last piece, which +Theron, by some side cerebration, had put down to her not watching +what her fingers did. There came another of these pauses now--an odd, +unaccountable halt in what seemed the middle of everything. He stared +intently down upon her statuesque, dreaming face during the hush, and +caught his breath as he waited. There fell at last a few faltering +ascending notes, making a half-finished strain, and then again there was +silence. + +Celia opened her eyes, and poured a direct, deep gaze into the face +above hers. Its pale lips were parted in suspense, and the color had +faded from its cheeks. + +“That is the end,” she said, and, with a turn of her lithe body, stood +swiftly up, even while the echoes of the broken melody seemed panting in +the air about her for completion. + +Theron put his hands to his face, and pressed them tightly against eyes +and brow for an instant. Then, throwing them aside with an expansive +downward sweep of the arms, and holding them clenched, he returned +Celia's glance. It was as if he had never looked into a woman's eyes +before. + +“It CAN'T be the end!” he heard himself saying, in a low voice charged +with deep significance. He held her gaze in the grasp of his with +implacable tenacity. There was a trouble about breathing, and the mosaic +floor seemed to stir under his feet. He clung defiantly to the one idea +of not releasing her eyes. + +“How COULD it be the end?” he demanded, lifting an uncertain hand to +his breast as he spoke, and spreading it there as if to control the +tumultuous fluttering of his heart. “Things don't end that way!” + +A sharp, blinding spasm of giddiness closed upon and shook him, while +the brave words were on his lips. He blinked and tottered under it, as +it passed, and then backed humbly to his divan and sat down, gasping a +little, and patting his hand on his heart. There was fright written all +over his whitened face. + +“We--we forgot that I am a sick man,” he said feebly, answering Celia's +look of surprised inquiry with a forced, wan smile. “I was afraid my +heart had gone wrong.” + +She scrutinized him for a further moment, with growing reassurance +in her air. Then, piling up the pillows and cushions behind him for +support, for all the world like a big sister again, she stepped into the +inner room, and returned with a flagon of quaint shape and a tiny glass. +She poured this latter full to the brim of a thick yellowish, aromatic +liquid, and gave it him to drink. + +“This Benedictine is all I happen to have,” she said. “Swallow it down. +It will do you good.” + +Theron obeyed her. It brought tears to his eyes; but, upon reflection, +it was grateful and warming. He did feel better almost immediately. A +great wave of comfort seemed to enfold him as he settled himself back +on the divan. For that one flashing instant he had thought that he was +dying. He drew a long grateful breath of relief, and smiled his content. + +Celia had seated herself beside him, a little away. She sat with her +head against the wall, and one foot curled under her, and almost faced +him. + +“I dare say we forced the pace a little,” she remarked, after a pause, +looking down at the floor, with the puckers of a ruminating amusement +playing in the corners of her mouth. “It doesn't do for a man to get to +be a Greek all of a sudden. He must work along up to it gradually.” + +He remembered the music. “Oh, if I only knew how to tell you,” he +murmured ecstatically, “what a revelation your playing has been to me! +I had never imagined anything like it. I shall think of it to my dying +day.” + +He began to remember as well the spirit that was in the air when the +music ended. The details of what he had felt and said rose vaguely in +his mind. Pondering them, his eye roved past Celia's white-robed figure +to the broad, open doorway beyond. The curtains behind which she had +disappeared were again parted and fastened back. A dim light was burning +within, out of sight, and its faint illumination disclosed a room filled +with white marbles, white silks, white draperies of varying sorts, which +shaped themselves, as he looked, into the canopy and trappings of an +extravagantly over-sized and sumptuous bed. He looked away again. + +“I wish you would tell me what you really mean by that Greek idea of +yours,” he said with the abruptness of confusion. + +Celia did not display much enthusiasm in the tone of her answer. “Oh,” + she said almost indifferently, “lots of things. Absolute freedom from +moral bugbears, for one thing. The recognition that beauty is the only +thing in life that is worth while. The courage to kick out of one's life +everything that isn't worth while; and so on.” + +“But,” said Theron, watching the mingled delicacy and power of the bared +arm and the shapely grace of the hand which she had lifted to her +face, “I am going to get you to teach it ALL to me.” The memories began +crowding in upon him now, and the baffling note upon which the mazurka +had stopped short chimed like a tuning-fork in his ears. “I want to be +a Greek myself, if you're one. I want to get as close to you--to your +ideal, that is, as I can. You open up to me a whole world that I had not +even dreamed existed. We swore our friendship long ago, you know: and +now, after tonight--you and the music have decided me. I am going to put +the things out of MY life that are not worthwhile. Only you must help +me; you must tell me how to begin.” + +He looked up as he spoke, to enforce the almost tender entreaty of his +words. The spectacle of a yawn, only fractionally concealed behind those +talented fingers, chilled his soft speech, and sent a flush over his +face. He rose on the instant. + +Celia was nothing abashed at his discovery. She laughed gayly in +confession of her fault, and held her hand out to let him help her +disentangle her foot from her draperies, and get off the divan. It +seemed to be her meaning that he should continue holding her hand after +she was also standing. + +“You forgive me, don't you?” she urged smilingly. “Chopin always first +excites me, then sends me to sleep. You see how YOU sleep tonight!” + +The brown, velvety eyes rested upon him, from under their heavy lids, +with a languorous kindliness. Her warm, large palm clasped his in frank +liking. + +“I don't want to sleep at all,” Mr. Ware was impelled to say. “I want to +lie awake and think about--about everything all over again.” + +She smiled drowsily. “And you're sure you feel strong enough to walk +home?” + +“Yes,” he replied, with a lingering dilatory note, which deepened upon +reflection into a sigh. “Oh, yes.” + +He followed her and her candle down the magnificent stairway again. She +blew the light out in the hall, and, opening the front door, stood with +him for a silent moment on the threshold. Then they shook hands once +more, and with a whispered good-night, parted. + +Celia, returning to the blue and yellow room, lighted a cigarette and +helped herself to some Benedictine in the glass which Theron had used. +She looked meditatively at this little glass for a moment, turning it +about in her fingers with a smile. The smile warmed itself suddenly into +a joyous laugh. She tossed the glass aside, and, holding out her flowing +skirts with both hands, executed a swinging pirouette in front of the +gravely beautiful statue of the armless woman. + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +It was apparent to the Rev. Theron Ware, from the very first moment of +waking next morning, that both he and the world had changed over night. +The metamorphosis, in the harsh toils of which he had been laboring +blindly so long, was accomplished. He stood forth, so to speak, in a new +skin, and looked about him, with perceptions of quite an altered kind, +upon what seemed in every way a fresh existence. He lacked even the +impulse to turn round and inspect the cocoon from which he had emerged. +Let the past bury the past. He had no vestige of interest in it. + +The change was not premature. He found himself not in the least confused +by it, or frightened. Before he had finished shaving, he knew himself +to be easily and comfortably at home in his new state, and master of all +its requirements. + +It seemed as if Alice, too, recognized that he had become another man, +when he went down and took his chair at the breakfast table. They had +exchanged no words since their parting in the depot-yard the previous +evening--an event now faded off into remote vagueness in Theron's +mind. He smiled brilliantly in answer to the furtive, half-sullen, +half-curious glance she stole at him, as she brought the dishes in. + +“Ah! potatoes warmed up in cream!” he said, with hearty pleasure in his +tone. “What a mind-reader you are, to be sure!” + +“I'm glad you're feeling so much better,” she said briefly, taking her +seat. + +“Better?” he returned. “I'm a new being!” + +She ventured to look him over more freely, upon this assurance. He +perceived and catalogued, one by one, the emotions which the small brain +was expressing through those shallow blue eyes of hers. She was +turning over this, that, and the other hostile thought and childish +grievance--most of all she was dallying with the idea of asking him +where he had been till after midnight. He smiled affably in the face of +this scattering fire of peevish glances, and did not dream of resenting +any phase of them all. + +“I am going down to Thurston's this morning, and order that piano sent +up today,” he announced presently, in a casual way. + +“Why, Theron, can we afford it?” the wife asked, regarding him with +surprise. + +“Oh, easily enough,” he replied light-heartedly. “You know they've +increased my salary.” + +She shook her head. “No, I didn't. How should I? You don't realize it,” + she went on, dolefully, “but you're getting so you don't tell me the +least thing about your affairs nowadays.” + +Theron laughed aloud. “You ought to be grateful--such melancholy affairs +as mine have been till now,” he declared--“that is, if it weren't absurd +to think such a thing.” Then, more soberly, he explained: “No, my girl, +it is you who don't realize. I am carrying big projects in my mind--big, +ambitious thoughts and plans upon which great things depend. They no +doubt make me seem preoccupied and absent-minded; but it is a wife's +part to understand, and make allowances, and not intrude trifles which +may throw everything out of gear. Don't think I'm scolding, my girl. I +only speak to reassure you and--and help you to comprehend. Of course I +know that you wouldn't willingly embarrass my--my career.” + +“Of course not,” responded Alice, dubiously; “but--but--” + +“But what? Theron felt compelled by civility to say, though on the +instant he reproached himself for the weakness of it. + +“Well--I hardly know how to say it,” she faltered, “but it was nicer in +the old days, before you bothered your head about big projects, and +your career, as you call it, and were just a good, earnest, simple young +servant of the Lord. Oh, Theron!” she broke forth suddenly, with tearful +zeal, “I get sometimes lately almost scared lest you should turn out to +be a--a BACKSLIDER!” + +The husband sat upright, and hardened his countenance. But yesterday the +word would have had in it all sorts of inherited terrors for him. This +morning's dawn of a new existence revealed it as merely an empty and +stupid epithet. + +“These are things not to be said,” he admonished her, after a moment's +pause, and speaking with carefully measured austerity. “Least of all are +they to be said to a clergyman--by his wife.” + +It was on the tip of Alice's tongue to retort, “Better by his wife than +by outsiders!” but she bit her lips, and kept the gibe back. A rebuke of +this form and gravity was a novelty in their relations. The fear that it +had been merited troubled, even while it did not convince, her mind, and +the puzzled apprehension was to be read plainly enough on her face. + +Theron, noting it, saw a good deal more behind. Really, it was amazing +how much wiser he had grown all at once. He had been married for years, +and it was only this morning that he suddenly discovered how a wife +ought to be handled. He continued to look sternly away into space for a +little. Then his brows relaxed slowly and under the visible influence of +melting considerations. He nodded his head, turned toward her abruptly, +and broke the silence with labored amiability. + +“Come, come--the day began so pleasantly--it was so good to feel well +again--let us talk about the piano instead. That is,” he added, with an +obvious overture to playfulness, “if the thought of having a piano is +not too distasteful to you.” + +Alice yielded almost effusively to his altered mood. They went together +into the sitting-room, to measure and decide between the two available +spaces which were at their disposal, and he insisted with resolute +magnanimity on her settling this question entirely by herself. When at +last he mentioned the fact that it was Friday, and he would look over +some sermon memoranda before he went out, Alice retired to the kitchen +in openly cheerful spirits. + +Theron spread some old manuscript sermons before him on his desk, +and took down his scribbling-book as well. But there his application +flagged, and he surrendered himself instead, chin on hand, to staring +out at the rhododendron in the yard. He recalled how he had seen Soulsby +patiently studying this identical bush. The notion of Soulsby, not +knowing at all how to sing, yet diligently learning those sixths, +brought a smile to his mind; and then he seemed to hear Celia calling +out over her shoulder, “That's what Chopin does--he sings!” The spirit +of that wonderful music came back to him, enfolded him in its wings. It +seemed to raise itself up--a palpable barrier between him and all that +he had known and felt and done before. That was his new birth--that +marvellous night with the piano. The conceit pleased him--not the less +because there flashed along with it the thought that it was a poet that +had been born. Yes; the former country lout, the narrow zealot, the +untutored slave groping about in the dark after silly superstitions, +cringing at the scowl of mean Pierces and Winches, was dead. There was +an end of him, and good riddance. In his place there had been born a +Poet--he spelled the word out now unabashed--a child of light, a +lover of beauty and sweet sounds, a recognizable brother to Renan and +Chopin--and Celia! + +Out of the soothing, tenderly grateful revery, a practical suggestion +suddenly took shape. He acted upon it without a moment's delay, getting +out his letter-pad, and writing hurriedly-- + +“Dear Miss Madden,--Life will be more tolerable to me if before +nightfall I can know that there is a piano under my roof. Even if it +remains dumb, it will be some comfort to have it here and look at it, +and imagine how a great master might make it speak. + +“Would it be too much to beg you to look in at Thurston's, say at eleven +this forenoon, and give me the inestimable benefit of your judgment in +selecting an instrument? + +“Do not trouble to answer this, for I am leaving home now, but shall +call at Thurston's at eleven, and wait. + +“Thanking you in anticipation, + +“I am--” + +Here Theron's fluency came to a sharp halt. There were adverbs enough +and to spare on the point of his pen, but the right one was not easy to +come at. “Gratefully,” “faithfully,” “sincerely,” “truly”--each in turn +struck a false note. He felt himself not quite any of these things. At +last he decided to write just the simple word “yours,” and then wavered +between satisfaction at his boldness, dread lest he had been over-bold, +and, worst of the lot, fear that she would not notice it one way or +the other--all the while he sealed and addressed the letter, put it +carefully in an inner pocket, and got his hat. + +There was a moment's hesitation as to notifying the kitchen of his +departure. The interests of domestic discipline seemed to point the +other way. He walked softly through the hall, and let himself out by the +front door without a sound. + +Down by the canal bridge he picked out an idle boy to his mind--a lad +whose aspect appeared to promise intelligence as a messenger, combined +with large impartiality in sectarian matters. He was to have ten +cents on his return; and he might report himself to his patron at the +bookstore yonder. + +Theron was grateful to the old bookseller for remaining at his desk in +the rear. There was a tacit compliment in the suggestion that he was +not a mere customer, demanding instant attention. Besides, there was no +keeping “Thurston's” out of conversations in this place. + +Loitering along the shelves, the young minister's eye suddenly found +itself arrested by a name on a cover. There were a dozen narrow volumes +in uniform binding, huddled together under a cardboard label of “Eminent +Women Series.” Oddly enough, one of these bore the title “George Sand.” + Theron saw there must be some mistake, as he took the book down, and +opened it. His glance hit by accident upon the name of Chopin. Then he +read attentively until almost the stroke of eleven. + +“We have to make ourselves acquainted with all sorts of queer phases of +life,” he explained in self-defence to the old bookseller, then counting +out the money for the book from his lean purse. He smiled as he added, +“There seems something almost wrong about taking advantage of the +clergyman's discount for a life of George Sand.” + +“I don't know,” answered the other, pleasantly. “Guess she wasn't +so much different from the rest of 'em--except that she didn't mind +appearances. We know about her. We don't know about the others.” + +“I must hurry,” said Theron, turning on his heel. The haste with which +he strode out of the store, crossed the street, and made his way toward +Thurston's, did not prevent his thinking much upon the astonishing +things he had encountered in this book. Their relation to Celia forced +itself more and more upon his mind. He could recall the twinkle in +her eye, the sub-mockery in her tone, as she commented with that +half-contemptuous “Yes--George something!” upon his blundering +ignorance. His mortification at having thus exposed his dull rusticity +was swallowed up in conjectures as to just what her tolerant familiarity +with such things involved. He had never before met a young unmarried +woman who would have confessed to him any such knowledge. But then, of +course, he had never known a girl who resembled Celia in any other way. +He recognized vaguely that he must provide himself with an entire new +set of standards by which to measure and comprehend her. But it was for +the moment more interesting to wonder what her standards were. Did she +object to George Sand's behavior? Or did she sympathize with that sort +of thing? Did those statues, and the loose-flowing diaphonous toga +and unbound hair, the cigarettes, the fiery liqueur, the deliberately +sensuous music--was he to believe that they signified--? + +“Good-morning, Mr. Ware. You have managed by a miracle to hit on one of +my punctual days,” said Celia. + +She was standing on the doorstep, at the entrance to the musical +department of Thurston's. He had not noticed before the fact that the +sun was shining. The full glare of its strong light, enveloping her +figure as she stood, and drawing the dazzled eye for relief to the bower +of softened color, close beneath her parasol of creamy silk and lace, +was what struck him now first of all. It was as if Celia had brought the +sun with her. + +Theron shook hands with her, and found joy in the perception, that his +own hand trembled. He put boldly into words the thought that came to +him. + +“It was generous of you,” he said, “to wait for me out here, where all +might delight in the sight of you, instead of squandering the privilege +on a handful of clerks inside.” + +Miss Madden beamed upon him, and nodded approval. + +“Alcibiades never turned a prettier compliment,” she remarked. They went +in together at this, and Theron made a note of the name. + +During the ensuing half-hour, the young minister followed about even +more humbly than the clerks in Celia's commanding wake. There were a +good many pianos in the big show-room overhead, and Theron found himself +almost awed by their size and brilliancy of polish, and the thought of +the tremendous sum of money they represented altogether. Not so with the +organist. She ordered them rolled around this way or that, as if they +had been so many checkers on a draught-board. She threw back their +covers with the scant ceremony of a dispensary dentist opening paupers' +mouths. She exploited their several capacities with masterful hands, +not deigning to seat herself, but just slightly bending forward, and +sweeping her fingers up and down their keyboards--able, domineering +fingers which pounded, tinkled, meditated, assented, condemned, all in +a flash, and amid what affected the layman's ears as a hopelessly +discordant hubbub. + +Theron moved about in the group, nursing her parasol in his arms, and +watching her. The exaggerated deference which the clerks and salesmen +showed to her as the rich Miss Madden, seemed to him to be mixed with a +certain assertion of the claims of good-fellowship on the score of her +being a musician. There undoubtedly was a sense of freemasonry between +them. They alluded continually in technical terms to matters of which he +knew nothing, and were amused at remarks of hers which to him carried no +meaning whatever. It was evident that the young men liked her, and that +their liking pleased her. It thrilled him to think that she knew he +liked her, too, and to recall what abundant proofs she had given that +here, also, she had pleasure in the fact. He clung insistently to the +memory of these evidences. They helped him to resist a disagreeable +tendency to feel himself an intruder, an outsider, among these +pianoforte experts. + +When it was all over, Celia waved the others aside, and talked with +Theron. “I suppose you want me to tell you the truth,” she said. +“There's nothing here really good. It is always much better to buy of +the makers direct.” + +“Do they sell on the instalment plan?” he asked. There was a wistful +effect in his voice which caught her attention. + +She looked away--out through the window on the street below--for +a moment. Then her eyes returned to his, and regarded him with a +comforting, friendly, half-motherly glance, recalling for all the world +the way Sister Soulsby had looked at him at odd times. + +“Oh, you want it at once--I see,” she remarked softly. “Well, this +Adelberger is the best value for the money.” + +Mr. Ware followed her finger, and beheld with dismay that it pointed +toward the largest instrument in the room--a veritable leviathan among +pianos. The price of this had been mentioned as $600. He turned over the +fact that this was two-thirds his yearly salary, and found the courage +to shake his head. + +“It would be too large--much too large--for the room,” he explained. +“And, besides, it is more than I like to pay--or CAN pay, for that +matter.” It was pitiful to be explaining such details, but there was no +help for it. + +They picked out a smaller one, which Celia said was at least of fair +quality. “Now leave all the bargaining to me,” she adjured him. “These +prices that they talk about in the piano trade are all in the air. There +are tremendous discounts, if one knows how to insist upon them. All +you have to do is to tell them to send it to your house--you wanted it +today, you said?” + +“Yes--in memory of yesterday,” he murmured. + +She herself gave the directions, and Thurston's people, now all salesmen +again, bowed grateful acquiescence. Then she sailed regally across the +room and down the stairs, drawing Theron in her train. The hirelings +made salaams to him as well; it would have been impossible to interpose +anything so trivial and squalid as talk about terms and dates of +payment. + +“I am ever so much obliged to you,” he said fervently, in the +comparative solitude of the lower floor. She had paused to look at +something in the book-department. + +“Of course I was entirely at your service; don't mention it,” she +replied, reaching forth her hand in an absent way for her parasol. + +He held up instead the volume he had purchased. “Guess what that is! You +never would guess in this wide world!” His manner was surcharged with a +sense of the surreptitious. + +“Well, then, there's no good trying, IS there?” commented Celia, her +glance roving again toward the shelves. + +“It is a life of George Sand,” whispered Theron. “I've been reading it +this morning--all the Chopin part--while I was waiting for you.” + +To his surprise, there was an apparently displeased contraction of her +brows as he made this revelation. For the instant, a dreadful fear of +having offended her seized upon and sickened him. But then her face +cleared, as by magic. She smiled, and let her eyes twinkle in laughter +at him, and lifted a forefinger in the most winning mockery of +admonition. + +“Naughty! naughty!” she murmured back, with a roguishly solemn wink. + +He had no response ready for this, but mutely handed her the parasol. +The situation had suddenly grown too confused for words, or even sequent +thoughts. Uppermost across the hurly-burly of his mind there scudded the +singular reflection that he should never hear her play on that new piano +of his. Even as it flashed by out of sight, he recognized it for one of +the griefs of his life; and the darkness which followed seemed nothing +but a revolt against the idea of having a piano at all. He would +countermand the order. He would--but she was speaking again. + +They had strolled toward the door, and her voice was as placidly +conventional as if the talk had never strayed from the subject of +pianos. Theron with an effort pulled himself together, and laid hold of +her words. + +“I suppose you will be going the other way,” she was saying. “I shall +have to be at the church all day. We have just got a new Mass over from +Vienna, and I'm head over heels in work at it. I can have Father Forbes +to myself today, too. That bear of a doctor has got the rheumatism, and +can't come out of his cave, thank Heaven!” + +And then she was receding from view, up the sunlit, busy sidewalk, and +Theron, standing on the doorstep, ruefully rubbed his chin. She had said +he was going the other way, and, after a little pause, he made her words +good, though each step he took seemed all in despite of his personal +inclinations. Some of the passers-by bowed to him, and one or two +paused as if to shake hands and exchange greetings. He nodded responses +mechanically, but did not stop. It was as if he feared to interrupt the +process of lifting his reluctant feet and propelling them forward, lest +they should wheel and scuttle off in the opposite direction. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Deliberate as his progress was, the diminishing number of store-fronts +along the sidewalk, and the increasing proportion of picket-fences +enclosing domestic lawns, forced upon Theron's attention the fact that +he was nearing home. It was a trifle past the hour for his midday meal. +He was not in the least hungry; still less did he feel any desire just +now to sit about in that library living-room of his. Why should he go +home at all? There was no reason whatever--save that Alice would be +expecting him. Upon reflection, that hardly amounted to a reason. Wives, +with their limited grasp of the realities of life, were always expecting +their husbands to do things which it turned out not to be feasible for +them to do. The customary male animal spent a considerable part of his +life in explaining to his mate why it had been necessary to disappoint +or upset her little plans for his comings and goings. It was in the very +nature of things that it should be so. + +Sustained by these considerations, Mr. Ware slackened his steps, then +halted irresolutely, and after a minute's hesitation, entered the small +temperance restaurant before which, as by intuition, he had paused. The +elderly woman who placed on the tiny table before him the tea and rolls +he ordered, was entirely unknown to him, he felt sure, yet none the less +she smiled at him, and spoke almost familiarly--“I suppose Mrs. Ware is +at the seaside, and you are keeping bachelor's hall?” + +“Not quite that,” he responded stiffly, and hurried through the meagre +and distasteful repast, to avoid any further conversation. + +There was an idea underlying her remark, however, which recurred to him +when he had paid his ten cents and got out on the street again. There +was something interesting in the thought of Alice at the seaside. +Neither of them had ever laid eyes on salt water, but Theron took for +granted the most extravagant landsman's conception of its curative and +invigorating powers. It was apparent to him that he was going to pay +much greater attention to Alice's happiness and well-being in the future +than he had latterly done. He had bought her, this very day, a superb +new piano. He was going to simply insist on her having a hired girl. And +this seaside notion--why, that was best of all. + +His fancy built up pleasant visions of her feasting her delighted eyes +upon the marvel of a great ocean storm, or roaming along a beach strewn +with wonderful marine shells, exhibiting an innocent joy in their +beauty. The fresh sea-breeze blew through her hair, as he saw her in +mind's eye, and brought the hardy flush of health back upon her rather +pallid cheeks. He was prepared already hardly to know her, so robust and +revivified would she have become, by the time he went down to the depot +to meet her on her return. + +For his imagination stopped short of seeing himself at the seaside. +It sketched instead pictures of whole weeks of solitary academic calm, +alone with his books and his thoughts. The facts that he had no books, +and that nobody dreamed of interfering with his thoughts, subordinated +themselves humbly to his mood. The prospect, as he mused fondly upon +it, expanded to embrace the priest's and the doctor's libraries; the +thoughts which he longed to be alone with involved close communion +with their thoughts. It could not but prove a season of immense mental +stimulation and ethical broadening. It would have its lofty poetic and +artistic side as well; the languorous melodies of Chopin stole over his +revery, as he dwelt upon these things, and soft azure and golden lights +modelled forth the exquisite outlines of tall marble forms. + +He opened the gate leading to Dr. Ledsmar's house. His walk had brought +him quite out of the town, and up, by a broad main highway which +yet took on all sorts of sylvan charms, to a commanding site on the +hillside. Below, in the valley, lay Octavius, at one end half-hidden in +factory smoke, at the other, where narrow bands of water gleamed upon +the surface of a broad plain piled symmetrically with lumber, presenting +an oddly incongruous suggestion of forest odors and the simplicity of +the wilderness. In the middle distance, on gradually rising ground, +stretched a wide belt of dense, artificial foliage, peeping through +which tiled turrets and ornamented chimneys marked the polite residences +of those who, though they neither stoked the furnace fires to the west, +nor sawed the lumber on the east, lived in purple and fine linen from +the profits of this toil. Nearer at hand, pastures with grazing cows on +the one side of the road, and the nigh, weather-stained board fence +of the race-course on the other, completed the jumble of primitive +rusticity and urban complications characterizing the whole picture. + +Dr. Ledsmar's house, toward which Theron's impulses had been secretly +leading him ever since Celia's parting remark about the rheumatism, was +of that spacious and satisfying order of old-fashioned houses which men +of leisure and means built for themselves while the early traditions of +a sparse and contented homogeneous population were still strong in the +Republic. There was a hospitable look about its wide veranda, its broad, +low bulk, and its big, double front door, which did not fit at all with +the sketch of a man-hating recluse that the doctor had drawn of himself. + +Theron had prepared his mind for the effect of being admitted by a +Chinaman, and was taken somewhat aback when the door was opened by the +doctor himself. His reception was pleasant enough, almost cordial, but +the sense of awkwardness followed him into his host's inner room and +rested heavily upon his opening speech. + +“I heard, quite by accident, that you were ill,” he said, laying aside +his hat. + +“It's nothing at all,” replied Ledsmar. “Merely a stiff shoulder that I +wear from time to time in memory of my father. It ought to be quite gone +by nightfall. It was good of you to come, all the same. Sit down if you +can find a chair. As usual, we are littered up to our eyes here. That's +it--throw those things on the floor.” + +Mr. Ware carefully deposited an armful of pamphlets on the rug at his +feet, and sat down. Litter was indeed the word for what he saw about +him. Bookcases, chairs, tables, the corners of the floor, were all +buried deep under disorderly strata of papers, diagrams, and opened +books. One could hardly walk about without treading on them. The dust +which danced up into the bar of sunshine streaming in from the window, +as the doctor stepped across to another chair, gave Theron new ideas +about the value of Chinese servants. + +“I must thank you, first of all, doctor,” he began, “for your kindness +in coming when I was ill. 'I was sick, and ye visited me.'” + +“You mustn't think of it that way,” said Ledsmar; “your friend came for +me, and of course I went; and gladly too. There was nothing that I +could do, or that anybody could do. Very interesting man, that friend +of yours. And his wife, too--both quite out of the common. I don't know +when I've seen two such really genuine people. I should like to have +known more of them. Are they still here?” + +“They went yesterday,” Theron replied. His earlier shyness had worn off, +and he felt comfortably at his ease. “I don't know,” he went on, “that +the word 'genuine' is just what would have occurred to me to describe +the Soulsbys. They are very interesting people, as you say--MOST +interesting--and there was a time, I dare say, when I should have +believed in their sincerity. But of course I saw them and their +performance from the inside--like one on the stage of a theatre, you +know, instead of in the audience, and--well, I understand things better +than I used to.” + +The doctor looked over his spectacles at him with a suggestion of +inquiry in his glance, and Theron continued: “I had several long talks +with her; she told me very frankly the whole story of her life--and and +it was decidedly queer, I can assure you! I may say to you--you will +understand what I mean--that since my talk with you, and the books you +lent me, I see many things differently. Indeed, when I think upon it +sometimes my old state of mind seems quite incredible to me. I can use +no word for my new state short of illumination.” + +Dr. Ledsmar continued to regard his guest with that calm, interrogatory +scrutiny of his. He did not seem disposed to take up the great issue of +illumination. “I suppose,” he said after a little, “no woman can come +in contact with a priest for any length of time WITHOUT telling him the +'story of her life,' as you call it. They all do it. The thing amounts +to a law.” + +The young minister's veins responded with a pleasurable thrill to the +use of the word “priest” in obvious allusion to himself. “Perhaps in +fairness I ought to explain,” he said, “that in her case it was only +done in the course of a long talk about myself. I might say that it was +by way of kindly warning to me. She saw how I had become unsettled in +many--many of my former views--and she was nervous lest this should lead +me to--to--” + +“To throw up the priesthood,” the doctor interposed upon his hesitation. +“Yes, I know the tribe. Why, my dear sir, your entire profession would +have perished from the memory of mankind, if it hadn't been for women. +It is a very curious subject. Lots of thinkers have dipped into it, +but no one has gone resolutely in with a search-light and exploited the +whole thing. Our boys, for instance, traverse in their younger years all +the stages of the childhood of the race. They have terrifying dreams +of awful monsters and giant animals of which they have never so much +as heard in their waking hours; they pass through the lust for digging +caves, building fires, sleeping out in the woods, hunting with bows +and arrows--all remote ancestral impulses; they play games with stones, +marbles, and so on at regular stated periods of the year which they +instinctively know, just as they were played in the Bronze Age, and +heaven only knows how much earlier. But the boy goes through all this, +and leaves it behind him--so completely that the grown man feels himself +more a stranger among boys of his own place who are thinking and doing +precisely the things he thought and did a few years before, than he +would among Kurds or Esquimaux. But the woman is totally different. She +is infinitely more precocious as a girl. At an age when her slow brother +is still stubbing along somewhere in the neolithic period, she has flown +way ahead to a kind of mediaeval stage, or dawn of mediaevalism, which +is peculiarly her own. Having got there, she stays there; she dies +there. The boy passes her, as the tortoise did the hare. He goes on, +if he is a philosopher, and lets her remain in the dark ages, where she +belongs. If he happens to be a fool, which is customary, he stops and +hangs around in her vicinity.” + +Theron smiled. “We priests,” he said, and paused again to enjoy the +words--“I suppose I oughtn't to inquire too closely just where we belong +in the procession.” + +“We are considering the question impersonally,” said the doctor. “First +of all, what you regard as religion is especially calculated to attract +women. They remain as superstitious today, down in the marrow of their +bones, as they were ten thousand years ago. Even the cleverest of +them are secretly afraid of omens, and respect auguries. Think of the +broadest women you know. One of them will throw salt over her shoulder +if she spills it. Another drinks money from her cup by skimming the +bubbles in a spoon. Another forecasts her future by the arrangement of +tea-grounds. They make the constituency to which an institution based +on mysteries, miracles, and the supernatural generally, would naturally +appeal. Secondly, there is the personality of the priest.” + +“Yes,” assented Ware. There rose up before him, on the instant, the +graceful, portly figure and strong, comely face of Father Forbes. + +“Women are not a metaphysical people. They do not easily follow +abstractions. They want their dogmas and religious sentiments embodied +in a man, just as they do their romantic fancies. Of course you +Protestants, with your married clergy, see less of the effects of this +than celibates do, but even with you there is a great deal in it. +Why, the very institution of celibacy itself was forced upon the early +Christian Church by the scandal of rich Roman ladies loading bishops +and handsome priests with fabulous gifts until the passion for currying +favor with women of wealth, and marrying them or wheedling their +fortunes from them, debauched the whole priesthood. You should read your +Jerome.” + +“I will--certainly,” said the listener, resolving to remember the name +and refer it to the old bookseller. + +“Well, whatever laws one sect or another makes, the woman's attitude +toward the priest survives. She desires to see him surrounded by +flower-pots and candles, to have him smelling of musk. She would like +to curl his hair, and weave garlands in it. Although she is not learned +enough to have ever heard of such things, she intuitively feels in his +presence a sort of backwash of the old pagan sensuality and lascivious +mysticism which enveloped the priesthood in Greek and Roman days. Ugh! +It makes one sick!” + +Dr. Ledsmar rose, as he spoke, and dismissed the topic with a dry little +laugh. “Come, let me show you round a bit,” he said. “My shoulder is +easier walking than sitting.” + +“Have you never written a book yourself?” asked Theron, getting to his +feet. + +“I have a thing on serpent-worship,” the scientist replied--“written +years ago.” + +“I can't tell you how I should enjoy reading it,” urged the other. + +The doctor laughed again. “You'll have to learn German, then, I 'm +afraid. It is still in circulation in Germany, I believe, on its merits +as a serious book. I haven't a copy of the edition in English. THAT was +all exhausted by collectors who bought it for its supposed obscenity, +like Burton's 'Arabian Nights.' Come this way, and I will show you my +laboratory.” + +They moved out of the room, and through a passage, Ledsmar talking as +he led the way. “I took up that subject, when I was at college, by a +curious chance. I kept a young monkey in my rooms, which had been born +in captivity. I brought home from a beer hall--it was in Germany--some +pretzels one night, and tossed one toward the monkey. He jumped toward +it, then screamed and ran back shuddering with fright. I couldn't +understand it at first. Then I saw that the curled pretzel, lying there +on the floor, was very like a little coiled-up snake. The monkey had +never seen a snake, but it was in his blood to be afraid of one. +That incident changed my whole life for me. Up to that evening, I had +intended to be a lawyer.” + +Theron did not feel sure that he had understood the point of the +anecdote. He looked now, without much interest, at some dark little +tanks containing thick water, a row of small glass cases with adders and +other lesser reptiles inside, and a general collection of boxes, jars, +and similar receptacles connected with the doctor's pursuits. Further +on was a smaller chamber, with a big empty furnace, and shelves bearing +bottles and apparatus like a drugstore. + +It was pleasanter in the conservatory--a low, spacious structure with +broad pathways between the plants, and an awning over the sunny side +of the roof. The plants were mostly orchids, he learned. He had read +of them, but never seen any before. No doubt they were curious; but he +discovered nothing to justify the great fuss made about them. The heat +grew oppressive inside, and he was glad to emerge into the garden. He +paused under the grateful shade of a vine-clad trellis, took off his +hat, and looked about him with a sigh of relief. Everything seemed +old-fashioned and natural and delightfully free from pretence in the +big, overgrown field of flowers and shrubs. + +Theron recalled with some surprise Celia's indictment of the doctor as a +man with no poetry in his soul. “You must be extremely fond of flowers,” + he remarked. + +Dr. Ledsmar shrugged his well shoulder. “They have their points,” he +said briefly. “These are all dioecious here. Over beyond are monoecious +species. My work is to test the probabilities for or against Darwin's +theory that hermaphroditism in plants is a late by-product of these +earlier forms.” + +“And is his theory right?” asked Mr. Ware, with a polite show of +interest. + +“We may know in the course of three or four hundred years,” replied +Ledsmar. He looked up into his guest's face with a quizzical half-smile. +“That is a very brief period for observation when such a complicated +question as sex is involved,” he added. “We have been studying the +female of our own species for some hundreds of thousands of years, and +we haven't arrived at the most elementary rules governing her actions.” + +They had moved along to a bed of tall plants, the more forward of which +were beginning to show bloom. “Here another task will begin next month,” + the doctor observed. “These are salvias, pentstemons, and antirrhinums, +or snapdragons, planted very thick for the purpose. Humble-bees bore +holes through their base, to save the labor of climbing in and out of +the flowers, and we don't quite know yet why some hive-bees discover and +utilize these holes at once, while others never do. It may be merely the +old-fogy conservatism of the individual, or there may be a law in it.” + +These seemed very paltry things for a man of such wisdom to bother +his head about. Theron looked, as he was bidden, at the rows of hives +shining in the hot sun on a bench along the wall, but offered no comment +beyond a casual, “My mother was always going to keep bees, but somehow +she never got around to it. They say it pays very well, though.” + +“The discovery of the reason why no bee will touch the nectar of the +EPIPACTIS LATIFOLIA, though it is sweet to our taste, and wasps are +greedy for it, WOULD pay,” commented the doctor. “Not like a blue +rhododendron, in mere money, but in recognition. Lots of men have +achieved a half-column in the 'Encyclopedia Britannica' on a smaller +basis than that.” + +They stood now at the end of the garden, before a small, dilapidated +summer-house. On the bench inside, facing him, Theron saw a strange +recumbent figure stretched at full length, apparently sound asleep, or +it might be dead. Looking closer, with a startled surprise, he made out +the shaven skull and outlandish garb of a Chinaman. He turned toward his +guide in the expectation of a scene. + +The doctor had already taken out a note-book and pencil, and was drawing +his watch from his pocket. He stepped into the summer-house, and, +lifting the Oriental's limp arm, took account of his pulse. Then, with +head bowed low, side-wise, he listened for the heart-action. Finally, he +somewhat brusquely pushed back one of the Chinaman's eyelids, and made +a minute inspection of what the operation disclosed. Returning to the +light, he inscribed some notes in his book, put it back in his pocket, +and came out. In answer to Theron's marvelling stare, he pointed toward +a pipe of odd construction lying on the floor beneath the sleeper. + +“This is one of my regular afternoon duties,” he explained, again with +the whimsical half-smile. “I am increasing his dose monthly by regular +stages, and the results promise to be rather remarkable. Heretofore, +observations have been made mostly on diseased or morbidly deteriorated +subjects. This fellow of mine is strong as an ox, perfectly nourished, +and watched over intelligently. He can assimilate opium enough to kill +you and me and every other vertebrate creature on the premises, without +turning a hair, and he hasn't got even fairly under way yet.” + +The thing was unpleasant, and the young minister turned away. They +walked together up the path toward the house. His mind was full now of +the hostile things which Celia had said about the doctor. He had vaguely +sympathized with her then, upon no special knowledge of his own. Now he +felt that his sentiments were vehemently in accord with hers. The doctor +WAS a beast. + +And yet--as they moved slowly along through the garden the thought took +sudden shape in his mind--it would be only justice for him to get also +the doctor's opinion of Celia. Even while they offended and repelled +him, he could not close his eyes to the fact that the doctor's +experiments and occupations were those of a patient and exact man of +science--a philosopher. And what he had said about women--there was +certainly a great deal of acumen and shrewd observation in that. If +he would only say what he really thought about Celia, and about her +relations with the priest! Yes, Theron recognized now there was nothing +else that he so much needed light upon as those puzzling ties between +Celia and Father Forbes. + +He paused, with a simulated curiosity, about one of the flower-beds. +“Speaking of women and religion”--he began, in as casual a tone as he +could command--“I notice curiously enough in my own case, that as I +develop in what you may call the--the other direction, my wife, who +formerly was not especially devote, is being strongly attracted by the +most unthinking and hysterical side of--of our church system.” + +The doctor looked at him, nodded, and stooped to nip some buds from a +stalk in the bed. + +“And another case,” Theron went on--“of course it was all so new and +strange to me--but the position which Miss Madden seems to occupy about +the Catholic Church here--I suppose you had her in mind when you spoke.” + +Ledsmar stood up. “My mind has better things to busy itself with than +mad asses of that description,” he replied. “She is not worth talking +about--a mere bundle of egotism, ignorance, and red-headed lewdness. If +she were even a type, she might be worth considering; but she is simply +an abnormal sport, with a little brain addled by notions that she is +like Hypatia, and a large impudence rendered intolerable by the fact +that she has money. Her father is a decent man. He ought to have her +whipped.” + +Mr. Ware drew himself erect, as he listened to these outrageous words. +It would be unmanly, he felt, to allow such comments upon an absent +friend to pass unrebuked. Yet there was the courtesy due to a host to +be considered. His mind, fluttering between these two extremes, +alighted abruptly upon a compromise. He would speak so as to show his +disapproval, yet not so as to prevent his finding out what he wanted to +know. The desire to hear Ledsmar talk about Celia and the priest +seemed now to have possessed him for a long time, to have dictated his +unpremeditated visit out here, to have been growing in intensity all the +while he pretended to be interested in orchids and bees and the drugged +Chinaman. It tugged passionately at his self-control as he spoke. + +“I cannot in the least assent to your characterization of the lady,” he +began with rhetorical dignity. + +“Bless me!” interposed the doctor, with deceptive cheerfulness, “that is +not required of you at all. It is a strictly personal opinion, offered +merely as a contribution to the general sum of hypotheses.” + +“But,” Theron went on, feeling his way, “of course, I gathered that +evening that you had prejudices in the matter; but these are rather +apart from the point I had in view. We were speaking, you will remember, +of the traditional attitude of women toward priests--wanting to curl +their hair and put flowers in it, you know, and that suggested to me +some individual illustrations, and it occurred to me to wonder just what +were the relations between Miss Madden and--and Father Forbes. She +said this morning, for instance--I happened to meet her, quite by +accident--that she was going to the church to practise a new piece, and +that she could have Father Forbes to herself all day. Now that would +be quite an impossible remark in our--that is, in any Protestant +circles--and purely as a matter of comparison, I was curious to ask you +just how much there was in it. I ask you, because going there so much +you have had exceptional opportunities for--” + +A sharp exclamation from his companion interrupted the clergyman's +hesitating monologue. It began like a high-pitched, violent word, but +dwindled suddenly into a groan of pain. The doctor's face, too, which +had on the flash of Theron's turning seemed given over to unmixed anger, +took on an expression of bodily suffering instead. + +“My shoulder has grown all at once excessively painful,” he said +hastily. “I'm afraid I must ask you to excuse me, Mr. Ware.” + +Carrying the afflicted side with ostentatious caution, he led the way +without ado round the house to the front gate on the road. He had put +his left hand under his coat to press it against his aching shoulder, +and his right hung palpably helpless. This rendered it impossible for +him to shake hands with his guest in parting. + +“You're sure there's nothing I can do,” said Theron, lingering on the +outer side of the gate. “I used to rub my father's shoulders and back; +I'd gladly--” + +“Oh, not for worlds!” groaned the doctor. His anguish was so impressive +that Theron, as he walked down the road, quite missed the fact that +there had been no invitation to come again. + +Dr. Ledsmar stood for a minute or two, his gaze meditatively following +the retreating figure. Then he went in, opening the front door with +his right hand, and carrying himself once more as if there were no such +thing as rheumatism in the world. He wandered on through the hall into +the laboratory, and stopped in front of the row of little tanks full of +water. + +Some deliberation was involved in whatever his purpose might be, for he +looked from one tank to another with a pondering, dilatory gaze. At last +he plunged his hand into the opaque fluid and drew forth a long, slim, +yellowish-green lizard, with a coiling, sinuous tail and a pointed, evil +head. The reptile squirmed and doubled itself backward around his wrist, +darting out and in with dizzy swiftness its tiny forked tongue. + +The doctor held the thing up to the light, and, scrutinizing it through +his spectacles, nodded his head in sedate approval. A grim smile curled +in his beard. + +“Yes, you are the type,” he murmured to it, with evident enjoyment in +the conceit. “Your name isn't Johnny any more. It's the Rev. Theron +Ware.” + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +The annual camp-meeting of the combined Methodist districts of Octavius +and Thessaly was held this year in the second half of September, a +little later than usual. Of the nine days devoted to this curious +survival of primitive Wesleyanism, the fifth fell upon a Saturday. On +the noon of that day the Rev. Theron Ware escaped for some hours from +the burden of work and incessant observation which he shared with twenty +other preachers, and walked alone in the woods. + +The scene upon which he turned his back was one worth looking at. A +spacious, irregularly defined clearing in the forest lay level as a +tennis-court, under the soft haze of autumn sunlight. In the centre was +a large, roughly constructed frame building, untouched by paint, but +stained and weather-beaten with time. Behind it were some lines of +horse-sheds, and still further on in that direction, where the trees +began, the eye caught fragmentary glimpses of low roofs and the fronts +of tiny cottages, withdrawn from full view among the saplings and +underbrush. At the other side of the clearing, fully fourscore tents +were pitched, some gray and mended, others dazzlingly white in their +newness. The more remote of these tents fell into an orderly arrangement +of semi-circular form, facing that part of the engirdling woods where +the trees were largest, and their canopy of overhanging foliage was +lifted highest from the ground. Inside this half-ring of tents were many +rounded rows of benches, which followed in narrowing lines the idea of +an amphitheatre cut in two. In the centre, just under the edge of the +roof of boughs, rose a wooden pagoda, in form not unlike an open-air +stand for musicians. In front of this, and leading from it on the level +of its floor, there projected a platform, railed round with aggressively +rustic woodwork. The nearest benches came close about this platform. + +At the hour when Theron started away, there were few enough signs of +life about this encampment. The four or five hundred people who were in +constant residence were eating their dinners in the big boarding-house, +or the cottages or the tents. It was not the time of day for strangers. +Even when services were in progress by daylight, the regular attendants +did not make much of a show, huddled in a gray-black mass at the front +of the auditorium, by comparison with the great green and blue expanses +of nature about them. + +The real spectacle was in the evening when, as the shadows gathered, big +clusters of kerosene torches, hung on the trees facing the audience were +lighted. The falling darkness magnified the glow of the lights, and +the size and importance of what they illumined. The preacher, bending +forward over the rails of the platform, and fastening his eyes upon the +abashed faces of those on the “anxious seat” beneath him, borrowed an +effect of druidical mystery from the wall of blackness about him, from +the flickering reflections on the branches far above, from the cool +night air which stirred across the clearing. The change was in the blood +of those who saw and heard him, too. The decorum and half-heartedness +of their devotions by day deepened under the glare of the torches into a +fervent enthusiasm, even before the services began. And if there was in +the rustic pulpit a man whose prayers or exhortations could stir their +pulses, they sang and groaned and bellowed out their praises with an +almost barbarous license, such as befitted the wilderness. + +But in the evening not all were worshippers. For a dozen miles round +on the country-side, young farm-workers and their girls regarded the +camp-meeting as perhaps the chief event of the year--no more to be +missed than the country fair or the circus, and offering, from many +points of view, more opportunities for genuine enjoyment than either. +Their behavior when they came was pretty bad--not the less so because +all the rules established by the Presiding Elders for the regulation of +strangers took it for granted that they would act as viciously as +they knew how. These sight-seers sometimes ventured to occupy the back +benches where the light was dim. More often they stood outside, in the +circular space between the tents and the benches, and mingled cat-calls, +drovers' yelps, and all sorts of mocking cries and noises with the +“Amens” of the earnest congregation. Their rough horse-play on the +fringe of the sanctified gathering was grievous enough; everybody knew +that much worse things went on further out in the surrounding darkness. +Indeed, popular report gave to these external phases of the +camp-meeting an even more evil fame than attached to the later moonlight +husking-bees, or the least reputable of the midwinter dances at Dave +Randall's low halfway house. + +Cynics said that the Methodists found consolation for this scandal in +the large income they derived from their unruly visitors' gate-money. +This was unfair. No doubt the money played its part, but there was +something else far more important. The pious dwellers in the camp, +intent upon reviving in their poor modern way the character and +environment of the heroic early days, felt the need of just this hostile +and scoffing mob about them to bring out the spirit they sought. Theirs +was pre-eminently a fighting religion, which languished in peaceful +fair weather, but flamed high in the storm. The throng of loafers and +light-minded worldlings of both sexes, with their jeering interruptions +and lewd levity of conduct, brought upon the scene a kind of visible +personal devil, with whom the chosen could do battle face to face. The +daylight services became more and more perfunctory, as the sojourn in +the woods ran its course, and interest concentrated itself upon the +night meetings, for the reason that THEN came the fierce wrestle with +a Beelzebub of flesh and blood. And it was not so one-sided a contest, +either! + +No evening passed without its victories for the pulpit. Careless or +mischievous young people who were pushed into the foremost ranks of the +mockers, and stood grinning and grimacing under the lights, would of +a sudden feel a spell clamped upon them. They would hear a strange, +quavering note in the preacher's voice, catch the sense of a piercing, +soul-commanding gleam in his eye--not at all to be resisted. These +occult forces would take control of them, drag them forward as in a +dream to the benches under the pulpit, and abase them there like +worms in the dust. And then the preacher would descend, and the elders +advance, and the torch-fires would sway and dip before the wind of the +mighty roar that went up in triumph from the brethren. + +These combats with Satan at close quarters, if they made the week-day +evenings exciting, reacted with an effect of crushing dulness upon the +Sunday services. The rule was to admit no strangers to the grounds +from Saturday night to Monday morning. Every year attempts were made to +rescind or modify this rule, and this season at least three-fourths of +the laymen in attendance had signed a petition in favor of opening +the gates. The two Presiding Elders, supported by a dozen of the older +preachers, resisted the change, and they had the backing of the more +bigoted section of the congregation from Octavius. The controversy +reached a point where Theron's Presiding Elder threatened to quit the +grounds, and the leaders of the open-Sunday movement spoke freely of the +ridiculous figure which its cranks and fanatics made poor Methodism cut +in the eyes of modern go-ahead American civilization. Then Theron Ware +saw his opportunity, and preached an impromptu sermon upon the sanctity +of the Sabbath, which ended all discussion. Sometimes its arguments +seemed to be on one side, sometimes on the other, but always they were +clothed with so serene a beauty of imagery, and moved in such a lofty +and rarefied atmosphere of spiritual exaltation, that it was impossible +to link them to so sordid a thing as this question of gate-money. When +he had finished, nobody wanted the gates opened. The two factions found +that the difference between them had melted out of existence. They sat +entranced by the charm of the sermon; then, glancing around at the empty +benches, glaringly numerous in the afternoon sunlight, they whispered +regrets that ten thousand people had not been there to hear that +marvellous discourse. Theron's conquest was of exceptional dimensions. +The majority, whose project he had defeated, were strangers who +appreciated and admired his effort most. The little minority of his own +flock, though less susceptible to the influence of graceful diction +and delicately balanced rhetoric, were proud of the distinction he had +reflected upon them, and delighted with him for having won their +fight. The Presiding Elders wrung his hand with a significant grip. The +extremists of his own charge beamed friendship upon him for the first +time. He was the veritable hero of the week. + +The prestige of this achievement made it the easier for Theron to get +away by himself next day, and walk in the woods. A man of such power +had a right to solitude. Those who noted his departure from the camp +remembered with pleasure that he was to preach again on the morrow. +He was going to commune with God in the depths of the forest, that the +Message next day might be clearer and more luminous still. + +Theron strolled for a little, with an air of aimlessness, until he was +well outside the more or less frequented neighborhood of the camp. +Then he looked at the sun and the lay of the land with that informing +scrutiny of which the farm-bred boy never loses the trick, turned, and +strode at a rattling pace down the hillside. He knew nothing personally +of this piece of woodland--a spur of the great Adirondack wilderness +thrust southward into the region of homesteads and dairies and +hop-fields--but he had prepared himself by a study of the map, and +he knew where he wanted to go. Very Soon he hit upon the path he had +counted upon finding, and at this he quickened his gait. + +Three months of the new life had wrought changes in Theron. He bore +himself more erectly, for one thing; his shoulders were thrown back, and +seemed thicker. The alteration was even more obvious in his face. The +effect of lank, wistful, sallow juvenility had vanished. It was the +countenance of a mature, well-fed, and confident man, firmer and more +rounded in its outlines, and with a glow of health on its whole surface. +Under the chin were the suggestions of fulness which bespeak an easy +mind. His clothes were new; the frock-coat fitted him, and the thin, +dark-colored autumn overcoat, with its silk lining exposed at the +breast, gave a masculine bulk and shape to his figure. He wore a shining +tall hat, and, in haste though he was, took pains not to knock it +against low-hanging branches. + +All had gone well--more than well--with him. The second Quarterly +Conference had passed without a ripple. Both the attendance and the +collections at his church were larger than ever before, and the tone of +the congregation toward him was altered distinctly for the better. As +for himself, he viewed with astonished delight the progress he had made +in his own estimation. He had taken Sister Soulsby's advice, and the +results were already wonderful. He had put aside, once and for all, the +thousand foolish trifles and childish perplexities which formerly had +racked his brain, and worried him out of sleep and strength. He borrowed +all sorts of books boldly now from the Octavius public library, and +could swim with a calm mastery and enjoyment upon the deep waters into +which Draper and Lecky and Laing and the rest had hurled him. He dallied +pleasurably, a little languorously, with a dozen aspects of the case +against revealed religion, ranging from the mild heterodoxy of Andover's +qualms to the rude Ingersoll's rollicking negation of God himself, as a +woman of coquetry might play with as many would-be lovers. They amused +him; they were all before him to choose; and he was free to postpone +indefinitely the act of selection. There was a sense of the luxurious in +this position which softened bodily as well as mental fibres. He ceased +to grow indignant at things below or outside his standards, and he +bought a small book which treated of the care of the hand and finger +nails. + +Alice had accepted with deference his explanation that shapely hands +played so important a part in pulpit oratory. For that matter, she now +accepted whatever he said or did with admirable docility. It was months +since he could remember her venturing upon a critical attitude toward +him. + +She had not wished to leave home, for the seaside or any other resort, +during the summer, but had worked outside in her garden more than usual. +This was inexpensive, and it seemed to do her as much good as a holiday +could have done. Her new devotional zeal was now quite an odd thing; it +had not slackened at all from the revival pitch. At the outset she had +tried several times to talk with her husband upon this subject. He +had discouraged conversation about her soul and its welfare, at first +obliquely, then, under compulsion, with some directness. His thoughts +were absorbed, he said, by the contemplation of vast, abstract schemes +of creation and the government of the universe, and it only diverted and +embarrassed his mind to try to fasten it upon the details of personal +salvation. Thereafter the topic was not broached between them. + +She bestowed a good deal of attention, too, upon her piano. The knack of +a girlish nimbleness of touch had returned to her after a few weeks, and +she made music which Theron supposed was very good--for her. It pleased +him, at all events, when he sat and listened to it; but he had a far +greater pleasure, as he listened, in dwelling upon the memories of the +yellow and blue room which the sounds always brought up. Although three +months had passed, Thurston's had never asked for the first payment +on the piano, or even sent in a bill. This impressed him as being +peculiarly graceful behavior on his part, and he recognized its delicacy +by not going near Thurston's at all. + +An hour's sharp walk, occasionally broken by short cuts across open +pastures, but for the most part on forest paths, brought Theron to the +brow of a small knoll, free from underbrush, and covered sparsely with +beech-trees. The ground was soft with moss and the powdered remains of +last year's foliage; the leaves above him were showing the first yellow +stains of autumn. A sweet smell of ripening nuts was thick upon the +air, and busy rustlings and chirpings through the stillness told how the +chipmunks and squirrels were attending to their harvest. + +Theron had no ears for these noises of the woodland. He had halted, and +was searching through the little vistas offered between the stout gray +trunks of the beeches for some sign of a more sophisticated sort. Yes! +there were certainly voices to be heard, down in the hollow. And +now, beyond all possibility of mistake, there came up to him the low, +rhythmic throb of music. It was the merest faint murmur of music, made +up almost wholly of groaning bass notes, but it was enough. He moved +down the slope, swiftly at first, then with increasing caution. The +sounds grew louder as he advanced, until he could hear the harmony of +the other strings in its place beside the uproar of the big fiddles, and +distinguish from both the measured noise of many feet moving as one. + +He reached a place from which, himself unobserved, he could overlook +much of what he had come to see. + +The bottom of the glade below him lay out in the full sunshine, as flat +and as velvety in its fresh greenness as a garden lawn. Its open expanse +was big enough to accommodate several distinct crowds, and here the +crowds were--one massed about an enclosure in which young men were +playing at football, another gathered further off in a horse-shoe curve +at the end of a baseball diamond, and a third thronging at a point where +the shade of overhanging woods began, focussed upon a centre of interest +which Theron could not make out. Closer at hand, where a shallow stream +rippled along over its black-slate bed, some little boys, with legs +bared to the thighs, were paddling about, under the charge of two men +clad in long black gowns. There were others of these frocked monitors +scattered here and there upon the scene--pallid, close-shaven, monkish +figures, who none the less wore modern hats, and superintended with +knowledge the games of the period. Theron remembered that these were the +Christian Brothers, the semi-monastic teachers of the Catholic school. + +And this was the picnic of the Catholics of Octavius. He gazed in +mingled amazement and exhilaration upon the spectacle. There seemed +to be literally thousands of people on the open fields before him, and +apparently there were still other thousands in the fringes of the woods +round about. The noises which arose from this multitude--the shouts of +the lads in the water, the playful squeals of the girls in the swings, +the fused uproar of the more distant crowds, and above all the diligent, +ordered strains of the dance-music proceeding from some invisible +distance in the greenwood--charmed his ears with their suggestion of +universal merriment. He drew a long breath--half pleasure, half wistful +regret--as he remembered that other gathering in the forest which he had +left behind. + +At any rate, it should be well behind him today, whatever the morrow +might bring! Evidently he was on the wrong side of the circle for the +headquarters of the festivities. He turned and walked to the right +through the beeches, making a detour, under cover, of the crowds at +play. At last he rounded the long oval of the clearing, and found +himself at the very edge of that largest throng of all, which had been +too far away for comprehension at the beginning. There was no mystery +now. A rough, narrow shed, fully fifty feet in length, imposed itself +in an arbitrary line across the face of this crowd, dividing it into two +compact halves. Inside this shed, protected all round by a waist-high +barrier of boards, on top of which ran a flat, table-like covering, were +twenty men in their shirt-sleeves, toiling ceaselessly to keep abreast +of the crowd's thirst for beer. The actions of these bartenders greatly +impressed Theron. They moved like so many machines, using one +hand, apparently, to take money and give change, and with the other +incessantly sweeping off rows of empty glasses, and tossing forward in +their place fresh, foaming glasses five at a time. Hundreds of arms and +hands were continually stretched out, on both sides of the shed, toward +this streaming bar, and through the babel of eager cries rose without +pause the racket of mallets tapping new kegs. + +Theron had never seen any considerable number of his fellow-citizens +engaged in drinking lager beer before. His surprise at the facility of +those behind the bar began to yield, upon observation, to a profound +amazement at the thirst of those before it. The same people seemed to +be always in front, emptying the glasses faster than the busy men inside +could replenish them, and clamoring tirelessly for more. Newcomers had +to force their way to the bar by violent efforts, and once there they +stayed until pushed bodily aside. There were actually women to be seen +here and there in the throng, elbowing and shoving like the rest for a +place at the front. Some of the more gallant young men fought their +way outward, from time to time, carrying for safety above their heads +glasses of beer which they gave to young and pretty girls standing on +the fringe of the crowd, among the trees. + +Everywhere a remarkable good-humor prevailed. Once a sharp fight broke +out, just at the end of the bar nearest Theron, and one young man was +knocked down. A rush of the onlookers confused everything before the +minister's eyes for a minute, and then he saw the aggrieved combatant up +on his legs again, consenting under the kindly pressure of the crowd to +shake hands with his antagonist, and join him in more beer. The incident +caught his fancy. There was something very pleasingly human, he thought, +in this primitive readiness to resort to fisticuffs, and this frank and +genial reconciliation. + +Perhaps there was something contagious in this wholesale display of +thirst, for the Rev. Mr. Ware became conscious of a notion that he +should like to try a glass of beer. He recalled having heard that +lager was really a most harmless beverage. Of course it was out of the +question that he should show himself at the bar. Perhaps some one would +bring him out a glass, as if he were a pretty girl. He looked about for +a possible messenger. Turning, he found himself face to face with two +smiling people, into whose eyes he stared for an instant in dumfounded +blankness. Then his countenance flashed with joy, and he held out both +hands in greeting. It was Father Forbes and Celia. + +“We stole down upon you unawares,” said the priest, in his cheeriest +manner. He wore a brown straw hat, and loose clothes hardly at all +clerical in form, and had Miss Madden's arm drawn lightly within his +own. “We could barely believe our eyes--that it could be you whom we +saw, here among the sinners!” + +“I am in love with your sinners,” responded Theron, as he shook hands +with Celia, and trusted himself to look fully into her eyes. “I've had +five days of the saints, over in another part of the woods, and they've +bored the head off me.” + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +At the command of Father Forbes, a lad who was loitering near them went +down through the throng to the bar, and returned with three glasses of +beer. It pleased the Rev. Mr. Ware that the priest should have taken +it for granted that he would do as the others did. He knocked his glass +against theirs in compliance with a custom strange to him, but which +they seemed to understand very well. The beer itself was not so +agreeable to the taste as he had expected, but it was cold and +refreshing. + +When the boy had returned with the glasses, the three stood for a moment +in silence, meditatively watching the curious scene spread below them. +Beyond the bar, Theron could catch now through the trees regularly +recurring glimpses of four or five swings in motion. These were nearest +him, and clearest to the vision as well, at the instant when they +reached their highest forward point. The seats were filled with girls, +some of them quite grown young women, and their curving upward sweep +through the air was disclosing at its climax a remarkable profusion of +white skirts and black stockings. The sight struck him as indecorous in +the extreme, and he turned his eyes away. They met Celia's; and there +was something latent in their brown depths which prompted him, after a +brief dalliance of interchanging glances, to look again at the swings. + +“That old maid Curran is really too ridiculous, with those white +stockings of hers,” remarked Celia; “some friend ought to tell her to +dye them.” + +“Or pad them,” suggested Father Forbes, with a gay little chuckle. “I +daresay the question of swings and ladies' stockings hardly arises with +you, over at the camp-meeting, Mr. Ware?” + +Theron laughed aloud at the conceit. “I should say not!” he replied. + +“I'm just dying to see a camp-meeting!” said Celia. “You hear such racy +accounts of what goes on at them.” + +“Don't go, I beg of you!” urged Theron, with doleful emphasis. “Don't +let's even talk about them. I should like to feel this afternoon as if +there was no such thing within a thousand miles of me as a camp-meeting. +Do you know, all this interests me enormously. It is a revelation to me +to see these thousands of good, decent, ordinary people, just frankly +enjoying themselves like human beings. I suppose that in this whole huge +crowd there isn't a single person who will mention the subject of his +soul to any other person all day long.” + +“I should think the assumption was a safe one,” said the priest, +smilingly, “unless,” he added on afterthought, “it be by way of a genial +profanity. There used to be some old Clare men who said 'Hell to my +soul!' when they missed at quoits, but I haven't heard it for a long +time. I daresay they're all dead.” + +“I shall never forget that death-bed--where I saw you first,” remarked +Theron, musingly. “I date from that experience a whole new life. I have +been greatly struck lately, in reading our 'Northern Christian Advocate' +to see in the obituary notices of prominent Methodists how over and over +again it is recorded that they got religion in their youth through being +frightened by some illness of their own, or some epidemic about them. +The cholera year of 1832 seems to have made Methodists hand over +fist. Even to this day our most successful revivalists, those who work +conversions wholesale wherever they go, do it more by frightful pictures +of hell-fire surrounding the sinner's death-bed than anything else. +You could hear the same thing at our camp-meeting tonight, if you were +there.” + +“There isn't so much difference as you think,” said Father Forbes, +dispassionately. “Your people keep examining their souls, just as +children keep pulling up the bulbs they have planted to see are there +any roots yet. Our people are more satisfied to leave their souls alone, +once they have been planted, so to speak, by baptism. But fear of hell +governs them both, pretty much alike. As I remember saying to you once +before, there is really nothing new under the sun. Even the saying isn't +new. Though there seem to have been the most tremendous changes in +races and civilizations and religions, stretching over many thousands +of years, yet nothing is in fact altered very much. Where religions are +concerned, the human race are still very like savages in a dangerous +wood in the dark, telling one another ghost stories around a camp-fire. +They have always been like that.” + +“What nonsense!” cried Celia. “I have no patience with such gloomy +rubbish. The Greeks had a religion full of beauty and happiness and +light-heartedness, and they weren't frightened of death at all. They +made the image of death a beautiful boy, with a torch turned down. Their +greatest philosophers openly preached and practised the doctrine of +suicide when one was tired of life. Our own early Church was full of +these broad and beautiful Greek ideas. You know that yourself! And it +was only when your miserable Jeromes and Augustines and Cyrils brought +in the abominable meannesses and cruelties of the Jewish Old Testament, +and stamped out the sane and lovely Greek elements in the Church, +that Christians became the poor, whining, cowardly egotists they are, +troubling about their little tin-pot souls, and scaring themselves in +their churches by skulls and crossbones.” + +“My dear Celia,” interposed the priest, patting her shoulder gently, “we +will have no Greek debate today. Mr. Ware has been permitted to taboo +camp-meetings, and I claim the privilege to cry off on Greeks. Look at +those fellows down there, trampling over one another to get more beer. +What have they to do with Athens, or Athens with them? I take it, Mr. +Ware,” he went on, with a grave face but a twinkling eye, “that what we +are observing here in front of us is symbolical of a great ethical +and theological revolution, which in time will modify and control the +destiny of the entire American people. You see those young Irishmen +there, struggling like pigs at a trough to get their fill of German +beer. That signifies a conquest of Teuton over Kelt more important and +far-reaching in its results than the landing of Hengist and Horsa. +The Kelt has come to grief heretofore--or at least been forced to play +second fiddle to other races--because he lacked the right sort of a +drink. He has in his blood an excess of impulsive, imaginative, even +fantastic qualities. It is much easier for him to make a fool of +himself, to begin with, than it is for people of slower wits and more +sluggish temperaments. When you add whiskey to that, or that essence of +melancholia which in Ireland they call 'porther,' you get the Kelt at +his very weakest and worst. These young men down there are changing all +that. They have discovered lager. Already many of them can outdrink +the Germans at their own beverage. The lager-drinking Irishman in a few +generations will be a new type of humanity--the Kelt at his best. He +will dominate America. He will be THE American. And his church--with +the Italian element thrown clean out of it, and its Pope living, say, in +Baltimore or Georgetown--will be the Church of America.” + +“Let us have some more lager at once,” put in Celia. “This revolution +can't be hurried forward too rapidly.” + +Theron could not feel sure how much of the priest's discourse was in +jest, how much in earnest. “It seems to me,” he said, “that as things +are going, it doesn't look much as if the America of the future will +trouble itself about any kind of a church. The march of science must +very soon produce a universal scepticism. It is in the nature of human +progress. What all intelligent men recognize today, the masses must +surely come to see in time.” + +Father Forbes laughed outright this time. “My dear Mr. Ware,” he said, +as they touched glasses again, and sipped the fresh beer that had been +brought them, “of all our fictions there is none so utterly baseless +and empty as this idea that humanity progresses. The savage's natural +impression is that the world he sees about him was made for him, and +that the rest of the universe is subordinated to him and his world, and +that all the spirits and demons and gods occupy themselves exclusively +with him and his affairs. That idea was the basis of every pagan +religion, and it is the basis of the Christian religion, simply because +it is the foundation of human nature. That foundation is just as firm +and unshaken today as it was in the Stone Age. It will always +remain, and upon it will always be built some kind of a religious +superstructure. 'Intelligent men,' as you call them, really have very +little influence, even when they all pull one way. The people as a whole +soon get tired of them. They give too much trouble. The most powerful +forces in human nature are self-protection and inertia. The middle-aged +man has found out that the chief wisdom in life is to bend to the +pressures about him, to shut up and do as others do. Even when he thinks +he has rid his own mind of superstitions, he sees that he will best +enjoy a peaceful life by leaving other peoples' superstitions alone. +That is always the ultimate view of the crowd.” + +“But I don't see,” observed Theron, “granting that all this is true, how +you think the Catholic Church will come out on top. I could understand +it of Unitarianism, or Universalism, or the Episcopal Church, where +nobody seems to have to believe particularly in anything except the +beauty of its burial service, but I should think the very rigidity of +the Catholic creed would make it impossible. There everything is hard +and fast; nothing is elastic; there is no room for compromise.” + +“The Church is always compromising,” explained the priest, “only it does +it so slowly that no one man lives long enough to quite catch it at the +trick. No; the great secret of the Catholic Church is that it doesn't +debate with sceptics. No matter what points you make against it, it +is never betrayed into answering back. It simply says these things are +sacred mysteries, which you are quite free to accept and be saved, or +reject and be damned. There is something intelligible and fine about +an attitude like that. When people have grown tired of their absurd and +fruitless wrangling over texts and creeds which, humanly speaking, are +all barbaric nonsense, they will come back to repose pleasantly under +the Catholic roof, in that restful house where things are taken for +granted. There the manners are charming, the service excellent, the +decoration and upholstery most acceptable to the eye, and the music”--he +made a little mock bow here to Celia--“the music at least is divine. +There you have nothing to do but be agreeable, and avoid scandal, and +observe the convenances. You are no more expected to express doubts +about the Immaculate Conception than you are to ask the lady whom you +take down to dinner how old she is. Now that is, as I have said, +an intelligent and rational church for people to have. As the Irish +civilize themselves--you observe them diligently engaged in the process +down below there--and the social roughness of their church becomes +softened and ameliorated, Americans will inevitably be attracted toward +it. In the end, it will embrace them all, and be modified by them, and +in turn influence their development, till you will have a new nation and +a new national church, each representative of the other.” + +“And all this is to be done by lager beer!” Theron ventured to comment, +jokingly. He was conscious of a novel perspiration around the bridge of +his nose, which was obviously another effect of the drink. + +The priest passed the pleasantry by. “No,” he said seriously; “what you +must see is that there must always be a church. If one did not exist, it +would be necessary to invent it. It is needed, first and foremost, as a +police force. It is needed, secondly, so to speak, as a fire insurance. +It provides the most even temperature and pure atmosphere for the growth +of young children. It furnishes the best obtainable social machinery for +marrying off one's daughters, getting to know the right people, patching +up quarrels, and so on. The priesthood earn their salaries as the agents +for these valuable social arrangements. Their theology is thrown in as +a sort of intellectual diversion, like the ritual of a benevolent +organization. There are some who get excited about this part of it, just +as one hears of Free-Masons who believe that the sun rises and sets to +exemplify their ceremonies. Others take their duties more quietly, and, +understanding just what it all amounts to, make the best of it, like you +and me.” + +Theron assented to the philosophy and the compliment by a grave bow. +“Yes, that is the idea--to make the best of it,” he said, and fastened +his regard boldly this time upon the swings. + +“We were both ordained by our bishops,” continued the priest, “at an +age when those worthy old gentlemen would not have trusted our combined +wisdom to buy a horse for them.” + +“And I was married,” broke in Theron, with an eagerness almost vehement, +“when I had only just been ordained! At the worst, YOU had only the +Church fastened upon your back, before you were old enough to know +what you wanted. It is easy enough to make the best of THAT, but it is +different with me.” + +A marked silence followed this outburst. The Rev. Mr. Ware had never +spoken of his marriage to either of these friends before; and something +in their manner seemed to suggest that they did not find the subject +inviting, now that it had been broached. He himself was filled with a +desire to say more about it. He had never clearly realized before what +a genuine grievance it was. The moisture at the top of his nose merged +itself into tears in the corners of his eyes, as the cruel enormity of +the sacrifice he had made in his youth rose before him. His whole life +had been fettered and darkened by it. He turned his gaze from the swings +toward Celia, to claim the sympathy he knew she would feel for him. + +But Celia was otherwise engaged. A young man had come up to her--a tall +and extremely thin young man, soberly dressed, and with a long, gaunt, +hollow-eyed face, the skin of which seemed at once florid and pale. He +had sandy hair and the rough hands of a workman; but he was speaking to +Miss Madden in the confidential tones of an equal. + +“I can do nothing at all with him,” this newcomer said to her. “He'll +not be said by me. Perhaps he'd listen to you!” + +“It's likely I'll go down there!” said Celia. “He may do what he likes +for all me! Take my advice, Michael, and just go your way, and leave +him to himself. There was a time when I would have taken out my eyes +for him, but it was love wasted and thrown away. After the warnings he's +had, if he WILL bring trouble on himself, let's make it no affair of +ours.” + +Theron had found himself exchanging glances of inquiry with this young +man. “Mr. Ware,” said Celia, here, “let me introduce you to my brother +Michael--my full brother.” + +Mr. Ware remembered him now, and began, in response to the other's +formal bow, to say something about their having met in the dark, inside +the church. But Celia held up her hand. “I'm afraid, Mr. Ware,” she said +hurriedly, “that you are in for a glimpse of the family skeleton. I will +apologize for the infliction in advance.” + +Wonderingly, Theron followed her look, and saw another young man who +had come up the path from the crowd below, and was close upon them. The +minister recognized in him a figure which had seemed to be the centre of +almost every group about the bar that he had studied in detail. He was +a small, dapper, elegantly attired youth, with dark hair, and the +handsome, regularly carved face of an actor. He advanced with a smiling +countenance and unsteady step--his silk hat thrust back upon his head, +his frock-coat and vest unbuttoned, and his neckwear disarranged--and +saluted the company with amiability. + +“I saw you up here, Father Forbes,” he said, with a thickened and +erratic utterance. “Whyn't you come down and join us? I'm setting 'em up +for everybody. You got to take care of the boys, you know. I'll blow in +the last cent I've got in the world for the boys, every time, and they +know it. They're solider for me than they ever were for anybody. That's +how it is. If you stand by the boys, the boys'll stand by you. I'm going +to the Assembly for this district, and they ain't nobody can stop me. +The boys are just red hot for me. Wish you'd come down, Father Forbes, +and address a few words to the meeting--just mention that I'm a +candidate, and say I'm bound to win, hands down. That'll make you solid +with the boys, and we'll be all good fellows together. Come on down!” + +The priest affably disengaged his arm from the clutch which the speaker +had laid upon it, and shook his head in gentle deprecation. “No, no; you +must excuse me, Theodore,” he said. “We mustn't meddle in politics, you +know.” + +“Politics be damned!” urged Theodore, grabbing the priest's other arm, +and tugging at it stoutly to pull him down the path. “I say, boys” he +shouted to those below, “here's Father Forbes, and he's going to come +down and address the meeting. Come on, Father! Come down, and have a +drink with the boys!” + +It was Celia who sharply pulled his hand away from the priest's arm +this time. “Go away with you!” she snapped in low, angry tones at the +intruder. “You should be ashamed of yourself! If you can't keep sober +yourself, you can at least keep your hands off the priest. I should +think you'd have more decency, when you're in such a state as this, than +to come where I am. If you've no respect for yourself, you might have +that much respect for me! And before strangers, too! + +“Oh, I mustn't come where YOU are, eh?” remarked the peccant Theodore, +straightening himself with an elaborate effort. “You've bought these +woods, have you? I've got a hundred friends here, all the same, for +every one you'll ever have in your life, Red-head, and don't you forget +it.” + +“Go and spend your money with them, then, and don't come insulting +decent people,” said Celia. + +“Before strangers, too!” the young man called out, with beery sarcasm. +“Oh, we'll take care of the strangers all right.” He had not seemed to +be aware of Theron's presence, much less his identity, before; but he +turned to him now with a knowing grin. “I'm running for the Assembly, +Mr. Ware,” he said, speaking loudly and with deliberate effort to avoid +the drunken elisions and comminglings to which his speech tended, “and I +want you to fix up the Methodists solid for me. I'm going to drive over +to the camp-meeting tonight, me and some of the boys in a barouche, and +I'll put a twenty-dollar bill on their plate. Here it is now, if you +want to see it.” + +As the young man began fumbling in a vest-pocket, Theron gathered his +wits together. + +“You'd better not go this evening,” he said, as convincingly as he +knew how; “because the gates will be closed very early, and the +Saturday-evening services are of a particularly special nature, quite +reserved for those living on the grounds.” + +“Rats!” said Theodore, raising his head, and abandoning the search for +the bill. “Why don't you speak out like a man, and say you think I'm too +drunk?” + +“I don't think that is a question which need arise between us, Mr. +Madden,” murmured Theron, confusedly. + +“Oh, don't you make any mistake! A hell of a lot of questions arise +between us, Mr. Ware,” cried Theodore, with a sudden accession of vigor +in tone and mien. “And one of 'em is--go away from me, Michael!--one of +'em is, I say, why don't you leave our girls alone? They've got their +own priests to make fools of themselves over, without any sneak of a +Protestant parson coming meddling round them. You're a married man into +the bargain; and you've got in your house this minute a piano that my +sister bought and paid for. Oh, I've seen the entry in Thurston's books! +You have the cheek to talk to me about being drunk--why--” + +These remarks were never concluded, for Father Forbes here clapped a +hand abruptly over the offending mouth, and flung his free arm in a +tight grip around the young man's waist. “Come with me, Michael!” he +said, and the two men led the reluctant and resisting Theodore at a +sharp pace off into the woods. + +Theron and Celia stood and watched them disappear among the undergrowth. +“It's the dirty Foley blood that's in him,” he heard her say, as if +between clenched teeth. + +The girl's big brown eyes, when Theron looked into them again, were +still fixed upon the screen of foliage, and dilated like those of a +Medusa mask. The blood had gone away, and left the fair face and neck +as white, it seemed to him, as marble. Even her lips, fiercely bitten +together, appeared colorless. The picture of consuming and powerless +rage which she presented, and the shuddering tremor which ran over her +form, as visible as the quivering track of a gust of wind across a pond, +awed and frightened him. + +Tenderness toward her helpless state came too, and uppermost. He drew +her arm into his, and turned their backs upon the picnic scene. + +“Let us walk a little up the path into the woods,” he said, “and get +away from all this.” + +“The further away the better,” she answered bitterly, and he felt the +shiver run through her again as she spoke. + +The methodical waltz-music from that unseen dancing platform rose again +above all other sounds. They moved up the woodland path, their steps +insensibly falling into the rhythm of its strains, and vanished from +sight among the trees. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Theron and Celia walked in silence for some minutes, until the noises +of the throng they had left behind were lost. The path they followed had +grown indefinite among the grass and creepers of the forest carpet; +now it seemed to end altogether in a little copse of young birches, the +delicately graceful stems of which were clustered about a parent stump, +long since decayed and overgrown with lichens and layers of thick moss. + +As the two paused, the girl suddenly sank upon her knees, then threw +herself face forward upon the soft green bark which had formed itself +above the roots of the ancient mother-tree. Her companion looked down +in pained amazement at what he saw. Her body shook with the violence +of recurring sobs, or rather gasps of wrath and grief Her hands, with +stiffened, claw-like fingers, dug into the moss and tangle of tiny +vines, and tore them by the roots. The half-stifled sounds of weeping +that arose from where her face grovelled in the leaves were terrible +to his ears. He knew not what to say or do, but gazed in resourceless +suspense at the strange figure she made. It seemed a cruelly long time +that she lay there, almost at his feet, struggling fiercely with the +fury that was in her. + +All at once the paroxysms passed away, the sounds of wild weeping +ceased. Celia sat up, and with her handkerchief wiped the tears and +leafy fragments from her face. She rearranged her hat and the braids of +her hair with swift, instinctive touches, brushed the woodland debris +from her front, and sprang to her feet. + +“I'm all right now,” she said briskly. There was palpable effort in her +light tone, and in the stormy sort of smile which she forced upon her +blotched and perturbed countenance, but they were only too welcome to +Theron's anxious mood. + +“Thank God!” he blurted out, all radiant with relief. “I feared you were +going to have a fit--or something.” + +Celia laughed, a little artificially at first, then with a genuine +surrender to the comic side of his visible fright. The mirth came back +into the brown depths of her eyes again, and her face cleared itself of +tear-stains and the marks of agitation. “I AM a nice quiet party for +a Methodist minister to go walking in the woods with, am I not?” she +cried, shaking her skirts and smiling at him. + +“I am not a Methodist minister--please!” answered Theron--“at least not +today--and here--with you! I am just a man--nothing more--a man who has +escaped from lifelong imprisonment, and feels for the first time what it +is to be free!” + +“Ah, my friend,” Celia said, shaking her head slowly, “I'm afraid you +deceive yourself. You are not by any means free. You are only looking +out of the window of your prison, as you call it. The doors are locked, +just the same.” + +“I will smash them!” he declared, with confidence. “Or for that matter, +I HAVE smashed them--battered them to pieces. You don't realize what +progress I have made, what changes there have been in me since that +night, you remember that wonderful night! I am quite another being, I +assure you! And really it dates from way beyond that--why, from the very +first evening, when I came to you in the church. The window in Father +Forbes' room was open, and I stood by it listening to the music next +door, and I could just faintly see on the dark window across the +alley-way a stained-glass picture of a woman. I suppose it was the +Virgin Mary. She had hair like yours, and your face, too; and that is +why I went into the church and found you. Yes, that is why.” + +Celia regarded him with gravity. “You will get yourself into great +trouble, my friend,” she said. + +“That's where you're wrong,” put in Theron. “Not that I'd mind any +trouble in this wide world, so long as you called me 'my friend,' but +I'm not going to get into any at all. I know a trick worth two of that. +I've learned to be a showman. I can preach now far better than I used +to, and I can get through my work in half the time, and keep on the +right side of my people, and get along with perfect smoothness. I +was too green before. I took the thing seriously, and I let every +mean-fisted curmudgeon and crazy fanatic worry me, and keep me on pins +and needles. I don't do that any more. I've taken a new measure of life. +I see now what life is really worth, and I'm going to have my share of +it. Why should I deliberately deny myself all possible happiness for the +rest of my days, simply because I made a fool of myself when I was in my +teens? Other men are not eternally punished like that, for what they +did as boys, and I won't submit to it either. I will be as free to enjoy +myself as--as Father Forbes.” + +Celia smiled softly, and shook her head again. “Poor man, to call HIM +free!” she said: “why, he is bound hand and foot. You don't in the least +realize how he is hedged about, the work he has to do, the thousand +suspicious eyes that watch his every movement, eager to bring the Bishop +down upon him. And then think of his sacrifice--the great sacrifice of +all--to never know what love means, to forswear his manhood, to live +a forlorn, celibate life--you have no idea how sadly that appeals to a +woman.” + +“Let us sit down here for a little,” said Theron; “we seem at the end of +the path.” She seated herself on the root-based mound, and he reclined +at her side, with an arm carelessly extended behind her on the moss. + +“I can see what you mean,” he went on, after a pause. “But to me, do you +know, there is an enormous fascination in celibacy. You forget that I +know the reverse of the medal. I know how the mind can be cramped, the +nerves harassed, the ambitions spoiled and rotted, the whole existence +darkened and belittled, by--by the other thing. I have never talked to +you before about my marriage.” + +“I don't think we'd better talk about it now,” observed Celia. “There +must be many more amusing topics.” + +He missed the spirit of her remark. “You are right,” he said slowly. “It +is too sad a thing to talk about. But there! it is my load, and I bear +it, and there's nothing more to be said.” + +Theron drew a heavy sigh, and let his fingers toy abstractedly with a +ribbon on the outer edge of Celia's penumbra of apparel. + +“No,” she said. “We mustn't snivel, and we mustn't sulk. When I get into +a rage it makes me ill, and I storm my way through it and tear things, +but it doesn't last long, and I come out of it feeling all the better. +I don't know that I've ever seen your wife. I suppose she hasn't got red +hair?” + +“I think it's a kind of light brown,” answered Theron, with an effect of +exerting his memory. + +“It seems that you only take notice of hair in stained-glass windows,” + was Celia's comment. + +“Oh-h!” he murmured reproachfully, “as if--as if--but I won't say what I +was going to.” + +“That's not fair!” she said. The little touch of whimsical mockery which +she gave to the serious declaration was delicious to him. “You have me +at such a disadvantage! Here am I rattling out whatever comes into my +head, exposing all my lightest emotions, and laying bare my very heart +in candor, and you meditate, you turn things over cautiously in your +mind, like a second Machiavelli. I grow afraid of you; you are so subtle +and mysterious in your reserves.” + +Theron gave a tug at the ribbon, to show the joy he had in her delicate +chaff. “No, it is you who are secretive,” he said. “You never told me +about--about the piano.” + +The word was out! A minute before it had seemed incredible to him that +he should ever have the courage to utter it--but here it was. He laid +firm hold upon the ribbon, which it appeared hung from her waist, and +drew himself a trifle nearer to her. “I could never have consented to +take it, I'm afraid,” he went on in a low voice, “if I had known. And +even as it is, I fear it won't be possible.” + +“What are you afraid of?” asked Celia. “Why shouldn't you take it? +People in your profession never do get anything unless it's given to +them, do they? I've always understood it was like that. I've often +read of donation parties--that's what they're called, isn't it?--where +everybody is supposed to bring some gift to the minister. Very well, +then, I've simply had a donation party of my own, that's all. Unless +you mean that my being a Catholic makes a difference. I had supposed you +were quite free from that kind of prejudice.” + +“So I am! Believe me, I am!” urged Theron. “When I'm with you, it seems +impossible to realize that there are people so narrow and contracted +in their natures as to take account of such things. It is another +atmosphere that I breathe near you. How could you imagine that such a +thought--about our difference of creed--would enter my head? In +fact,” he concluded with a nervous half-laugh, “there isn't any such +difference. Whatever your religion is, it's mine too. You remember--you +adopted me as a Greek.” + +“Did I?” she rejoined. “Well, if that's the case, it leaves you without +a leg to stand on. I challenge you to find any instance where a Greek +made any difficulties about accepting a piano from a friend. But +seriously--while we are talking about it--you introduced the subject: +I didn't--I might as well explain to you that I had no such intention, +when I picked the instrument out. It was later, when I was talking to +Thurston's people about the price, that the whim seized me. Now it is +the one fixed rule of my life to obey my whims. Whatever occurs to me as +a possibly pleasant thing to do, straight like a hash, I go and do it. +It is the only way that a person with means, with plenty of money, can +preserve any freshness of character. If they stop to think what it would +be prudent to do, they get crusted over immediately. That is the curse +of rich people--they teach themselves to distrust and restrain every +impulse toward unusual actions. They get to feel that it is more +necessary for them to be cautious and conventional than it is for +others. I would rather work at a wash-tub than occupy that attitude +toward my bank account. I fight against any sign of it that I detect +rising in my mind. The instant a wish occurs to me, I rush to gratify +it. That is my theory of life. That accounts for the piano; and I don't +see that you've anything to say about it at all.” + +It seemed very convincing, this theory of life. Somehow, the thought +of Miss Madden's riches had never before assumed prominence in Theron's +mind. Of course her father was very wealthy, but it had not occurred +to him that the daughter's emancipation might run to the length of a +personal fortune. He knew so little of rich people and their ways! + +He lifted his head, and looked up at Celia with an awakened humility and +awe in his glance. The glamour of a separate banking-account shone upon +her. Where the soft woodland light played in among the strands of her +disordered hair, he saw the veritable gleam of gold. A mysterious new +suggestion of power blended itself with the beauty of her face, was +exhaled in the faint perfume of her garments. He maintained a timorous +hold upon the ribbon, wondering at his hardihood in touching it, or +being near her at all. + +“What surprises me,” he heard himself saying, “is that you are +contented to stay in Octavius. I should think that you would travel--go +abroad--see the beautiful things of the world, surround yourself with +the luxuries of big cities--and that sort of thing.” + +Celia regarded the forest prospect straight in front of her with +a pensive gaze. “Sometime--no doubt I will sometime,” she said +abstractedly. + +“One reads so much nowadays,” he went on, “of American heiresses going +to Europe and marrying dukes and noblemen. I suppose you will do that +too. Princes would fight one another for you.” + +The least touch of a smile softened for an instant the impassivity of +her countenance. Then she stared harder than ever at the vague, leafy +distance. “That is the old-fashioned idea,” she said, in a musing tone, +“that women must belong to somebody, as if they were curios, or statues, +or race-horses. You don't understand, my friend, that I have a different +view. I am myself, and I belong to myself, exactly as much as any man. +The notion that any other human being could conceivably obtain the +slightest property rights in me is as preposterous, as ridiculous, +as--what shall I say?--as the notion of your being taken out with a +chain on your neck and sold by auction as a slave, down on the canal +bridge. I should be ashamed to be alive for another day, if any other +thought were possible to me.” + +“That is not the generally accepted view, I should think,” faltered +Theron. + +“No more is it the accepted view that young married Methodist ministers +should sit out alone in the woods with red-headed Irish girls. No, my +friend, let us find what the generally accepted views are, and as fast +as we find them set our heels on them. There is no other way to live +like real human beings. What on earth is it to me that other women crawl +about on all-fours, and fawn like dogs on any hand that will buckle +a collar onto them, and toss them the leavings of the table? I am not +related to them. I have nothing to do with them. They cannot make any +rules for me. If pride and dignity and independence are dead in them, +why, so much the worse for them! It is no affair of mine. Certainly it +is no reason why I should get down and grovel also. No; I at least stand +erect on my legs.” + +Mr. Ware sat up, and stared confusedly, with round eyes and parted lips, +at his companion. Instinctively his brain dragged forth to the surface +those epithets which the doctor had hurled in bitter contempt at +her--“mad ass, a mere bundle of egotism, ignorance, and red-headed +lewdness.” The words rose in their order on his memory, hard and +sharp-edged, like arrow-heads. But to sit there, quite at her side; to +breathe the same air, and behold the calm loveliness of her profile; to +touch the ribbon of her dress--and all the while to hold these poisoned +darts of abuse levelled in thought at her breast--it was monstrous. He +could have killed the doctor at that moment. With an effort, he drove +the foul things from his mind--scattered them back into the darkness. +He felt that he had grown pale, and wondered if she had heard the groan +that seemed to have been forced from him in the struggle. Or was the +groan imaginary? + +Celia continued to sit unmoved, composedly looking upon vacancy. +Theron's eyes searched her face in vain for any sign of consciousness +that she had astounded and bewildered him. She did not seem to be +thinking of him at all. The proud calm of her thoughtful countenance +suggested instead occupation with lofty and remote abstractions and +noble ideals. Contemplating her, he suddenly perceived that what she had +been saying was great, wonderful, magnificent. An involuntary thrill ran +through his veins at recollection of her words. His fancy likened it to +the sensation he used to feel as a youth, when the Fourth of July reader +bawled forth that opening clause: “When, in the course of human events, +it becomes necessary,” etc. It was nothing less than another Declaration +of Independence he had been listening to. + +He sank again recumbent at her side, and stretched the arm behind her, +nearer than before. “Apparently, then, you will never marry.” His voice +trembled a little. + +“Most certainly not!” said Celia. + +“You spoke so feelingly a little while ago,” he ventured along, with +hesitation, “about how sadly the notion of a priest's sacrificing +himself--never knowing what love meant--appealed to a woman. I should +think that the idea of sacrificing herself would seem to her even sadder +still.” + +“I don't remember that we mentioned THAT,” she replied. “How do you +mean--sacrificing herself?” + +Theron gathered some of the outlying folds of her dress in his hand, and +boldly patted and caressed them. “You, so beautiful and so free, with +such fine talents and abilities,” he murmured; “you, who could have the +whole world at your feet--are you, too, never going to know what love +means? Do you call that no sacrifice? To me it is the most terrible that +my imagination can conceive.” + +Celia laughed--a gentle, amused little laugh, in which Theron's ears +traced elements of tenderness. “You must regulate that imagination of +yours,” she said playfully. “It conceives the thing that is not. Pray, +when”--and here, turning her head, she bent down upon his face a gaze of +arch mock-seriousness--“pray, when did I describe myself in these terms? +When did I say that I should never know what love meant?” + +For answer Theron laid his head down upon his arm, and closed his +eyes, and held his face against the draperies encircling her. “I cannot +think!” he groaned. + +The thing that came uppermost in his mind, as it swayed and rocked in +the tempest of emotion, was the strange reminiscence of early childhood +in it all. It was like being a little boy again, nestling in an +innocent, unthinking transport of affection against his mother's skirts. +The tears he felt scalding his eyes were the spontaneous, unashamed +tears of a child; the tremulous and exquisite joy which spread, +wave-like, over him, at once reposeful and yearning, was full of +infantile purity and sweetness. He had not comprehended at all before +what wellsprings of spiritual beauty, what limpid depths of idealism, +his nature contained. + +“We were speaking of our respective religions,” he heard Celia say, as +imperturbably as if there had been no digression worth mentioning. + +“Yes,” he assented, and moved his head so that he looked up at her back +hair, and the leaves high above, mottled against the sky. The wish +to lie there, where now he could just catch the rose-leaf line of her +under-chin as well, was very strong upon him. “Yes?” he repeated. + +“I cannot talk to you like that,” she said; and he sat up again +shamefacedly. + +“Yes--I think we were speaking of religions--some time ago,” he +faltered, to relieve the situation. The dreadful thought that she might +be annoyed began to oppress him. + +“Well, you said whatever my religion was, it was yours too. That +entitles you at least to be told what the religion is. Now, I am a +Catholic.” + +Theron, much mystified, nodded his head. Could it be possible--was there +coming a deliberate suggestion that he should become a convert? “Yes--I +know,” he murmured. + +“But I should explain that I am only a Catholic in the sense that its +symbolism is pleasant to me. You remember what Schopenhauer said--you +cannot have the water by itself: you must also have the jug that it is +in. Very well; the Catholic religion is my jug. I put into it the things +I like. They were all there long ago, thousands of years ago. The Jews +threw them out; we will put them back again. We will restore art and +poetry and the love of beauty, and the gentle, spiritual, soulful life. +The Greeks had it; and Christianity would have had it too, if it hadn't +been for those brutes they call the Fathers. They loved ugliness and +dirt and the thought of hell-fire. They hated women. In all the earlier +stages of the Church, women were very prominent in it. Jesus himself +appreciated women, and delighted to have them about him, and talk with +them and listen to them. That was the very essence of the Greek spirit; +and it breathed into Christianity at its birth a sweetness and a grace +which twenty generations of cranks and savages like Paul and Jerome +and Tertullian weren't able to extinguish. But the very man, Cyril, who +killed Hypatia, and thus began the dark ages, unwittingly did another +thing which makes one almost forgive him. To please the Egyptians, he +secured the Church's acceptance of the adoration of the Virgin. It is +that idea which has kept the Greek spirit alive, and grown and grown, +till at last it will rule the world. It was only epileptic Jews who +could imagine a religion without sex in it.” + +“I remember the pictures of the Virgin in your room,” said Theron, +feeling more himself again. “I wondered if they quite went with the +statues.” + +The remark won a smile from Celia's lips. + +“They get along together better than you suppose,” she answered. +“Besides, they are not all pictures of Mary. One of them, standing on +the moon, is of Isis with the infant Horus in her arms. Another might as +well be Mahamie, bearing the miraculously born Buddha, or Olympias with +her child Alexander, or even Perictione holding her babe Plato--all +these were similar cases, you know. Almost every religion had its +Immaculate Conception. What does it all come to, except to show us that +man turns naturally toward the worship of the maternal idea? That is the +deepest of all our instincts--love of woman, who is at once daughter and +wife and mother. It is that that makes the world go round.” + +Brave thoughts shaped themselves in Theron's mind, and shone forth in a +confident yet wistful smile on his face. + +“It is a pity you cannot change estates with me for one minute,” he +said, in steady, low tone. “Then you would realize the tremendous truth +of what you have been saying. It is only your intellect that has reached +out and grasped the idea. If you were in my place, you would discover +that your heart was bursting with it as well.” + +Celia turned and looked at him. + +“I myself,” he went on, “would not have known, half an hour ago, what +you meant by the worship of the maternal idea. I am much older than +you. I am a strong, mature man. But when I lay down there, and shut my +eyes--because the charm and marvel of this whole experience had for +the moment overcome me--the strangest sensation seized upon me. It was +absolutely as if I were a boy again, a good, pure-minded, fond little +child, and you were the mother that I idolized.” + +Celia had not taken her eyes from his face. “I find myself liking you +better at this moment,” she said, with gravity, “than I have ever liked +you before.” + +Then, as by a sudden impulse, she sprang to her feet. “Come!” she cried, +her voice and manner all vivacity once more, “we have been here long +enough.” + +Upon the instant, as Theron was more laboriously getting up, it became +apparent to them both that perhaps they had been there too long. + +A boy with a gun under his arm, and two gray squirrels tied by the tails +slung across his shoulder, stood at the entrance to the glade, some +dozen paces away, regarding them with undisguised interest. Upon the +discovery that he was in turn observed, he resumed his interrupted +progress through the woods, whistling softly as he went, and vanished +among the trees. + +“Heavens above!” groaned Theron, shudderingly. + +“Know him?” he went on, in answer to the glance of inquiry on his +companion's face. “I should think I did! He spades my--my wife's garden +for her. He used to bring our milk. He works in the law office of one +of my trustees--the one who isn't friendly to me, but is very friendly +indeed with my--with Mrs. Ware. Oh, what shall I do? It may easily mean +my ruin!” + +Celia looked at him attentively. The color had gone out of his face, and +with it the effect of earnestness and mental elevation which, a minute +before, had caught her fancy. “Somehow, I fear that I do not like you +quite so much just now, my friend,” she remarked. + +“In God's name, don't say that!” urged Theron. He raised his voice in +agitated entreaty. “You don't know what these people are--how they would +leap at the barest hint of a scandal about me. In my position I am a +thousand times more defenceless than any woman. Just a single whisper, +and I am done for!” + +“Let me point out to you, Mr. Ware,” said Celia, slowly, “that to be +seen sitting and talking with me, whatever doubts it may raise as to +a gentleman's intellectual condition, need not necessarily blast his +social reputation beyond all hope whatever.” + +Theron stared at her, as if he had not grasped her meaning. Then he +winced visibly under it, and put out his hands to implore her. “Forgive +me! Forgive me!” he pleaded. “I was beside myself for the moment with +the fright of the thing. Oh, say you do forgive me, Celia!” He made +haste to support this daring use of her name. “I have been so happy +today--so deeply, so vastly happy--like the little child I spoke of--and +that is so new in my lonely life--that--the suddenness of the thing--it +just for the instant unstrung me. Don't be too hard on me for it! And +I had hoped, too--I had had such genuine heartfelt pleasure in the +thought--that, an hour or two ago, when you were unhappy, perhaps it had +been some sort of consolation to you that I was with you.” + +Celia was looking away. When he took her hand she did not withdraw it, +but turned and nodded in musing general assent to what he had said. +“Yes, we have both been unstrung, as you call it, today,” she said, +decidedly out of pitch. “Let each forgive the other, and say no more +about it.” + +She took his arm, and they retraced their steps along the path, again +in silence. The labored noise of the orchestra, as it were, returned to +meet them. They halted at an intersecting footpath. + +“I go back to my slavery--my double bondage,” said Theron, letting his +voice sink to a sigh. “But even if I am put on the rack for it, I shall +have had one day of glory.” + +“I think you may kiss me, in memory of that one day--or of a few minutes +in that day,” said Celia. + +Their lips brushed each other in a swift, almost perfunctory caress. + +Theron went his way at a hurried pace, the sobered tones of her +“good-bye” beating upon his brain with every measure of the droning +waltz-music. + + + + +PART IV + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +The memory of the kiss abode with Theron. Like Aaron's rod, it swallowed +up one by one all competing thoughts and recollections, and made his +brain its slave. + +Even as he strode back through the woods to the camp-meeting, it was the +kiss that kept his feet in motion, and guided their automatic course. +All along the watches of the restless night, it was the kiss that bore +him sweet company, and wandered with him from one broken dream of bliss +to another. Next day, it was the kiss that made of life for him a sort +of sunlit wonderland. He preached his sermon in the morning, and took +his appointed part in the other services of afternoon and evening, +apparently to everybody's satisfaction: to him it was all a vision. + +When the beautiful full moon rose, this Sunday evening, and glorified +the clearing and the forest with its mellow harvest radiance, he could +have groaned with the burden of his joy. He went out alone into the +light, and bared his head to it, and stood motionless for a long time. +In all his life, he had never been impelled as powerfully toward earnest +and soulful thanksgiving. The impulse to kneel, there in the pure, +tender moonlight, and lift up offerings of praise to God, kept uppermost +in his mind. Some formless resignation restrained him from the act +itself, but the spirit of it hallowed his mood. He gazed up at the broad +luminous face of the satellite. “You are our God,” he murmured. “Hers +and mine! You are the most beautiful of heavenly creatures, as she is of +the angels on earth. I am speechless with reverence for you both.” + +It was not until the camp-meeting broke up, four days later, and Theron +with the rest returned to town, that the material aspects of what had +happened, and might be expected to happen, forced themselves upon his +mind. The kiss was a child of the forest. So long as Theron remained in +the camp, the image of the kiss, which was enshrined in his heart and +ministered to by all his thoughts, continued enveloped in a haze of +sylvan mystery, like a dryad. Suggestions of its beauty and holiness +came to him in the odors of the woodland, at the sight of wild flowers +and water-lilies. When he walked alone in unfamiliar parts of the +forest, he carried about with him the half-conscious idea of somewhere +coming upon a strange, hidden pool which mortal eye had not seen +before--a deep, sequestered mere of spring-fed waters, walled in by +rich, tangled growths of verdure, and bearing upon its virgin bosom only +the shadows of the primeval wilderness, and the light of the eternal +skies. His fancy dwelt upon some such nook as the enchanted home of +the fairy that possessed his soul. The place, though he never found it, +became real to him. As he pictured it, there rose sometimes from among +the lily-pads, stirring the translucent depths and fluttering over the +water's surface drops like gems, the wonderful form of a woman, with +pale leaves wreathed in her luxuriant red hair, and a skin which gave +forth light. + +With the homecoming to Octavius, his dreams began to take more account +of realities. In a day or two he was wide awake, and thinking hard. The +kiss was as much as ever the ceaseless companion of his hours, but it no +longer insisted upon shrouding itself in vines and woodland creepers, or +outlining itself in phosphorescent vagueness against mystic backgrounds +of nymph-haunted glades. It advanced out into the noonday, and assumed +tangible dimensions and substance. He saw that it was related to the +facts of his daily life, and had, in turn, altered his own relations to +all these facts. + +What ought he to do? What COULD he do? Apparently, nothing but wait. +He waited for a week--then for another week. The conclusion that the +initiative had been left to him began to take shape in his mind. From +this it seemed but a step to the passionate resolve to act at once. + +Turning the situation over and over in his anxious thoughts, two things +stood out in special prominence. One was that Celia loved him. The other +was that the boy in Gorringe's law office, and possibly Gorringe, and +heaven only knew how many others besides, had reasons for suspecting +this to be true. + +And what about Celia? Side by side with the moving rapture of thinking +about her as a woman, there rose the substantial satisfaction of +contemplating her as Miss Madden. She had kissed him, and she was very +rich. The things gradually linked themselves before his eyes. He tried +a thousand varying guesses at what she proposed to do, and each time +reined up his imagination by the reminder that she was confessedly a +creature of whims, who proposed to do nothing, but was capable of all +things. + +And as to the boy. If he had blabbed what he saw, it was incredible that +somebody should not take the subject up, and impart a scandalous twist +to it, and send it rolling like a snowball to gather up exaggeration and +foul innuendo till it was big enough to overwhelm him. What would happen +to him if a formal charge were preferred against him? He looked it up +in the Discipline. Of course, if his accusers magnified their mean +suspicions and calumnious imaginings to the point of formulating a +charge, it would be one of immorality. They could prove nothing; there +was nothing to prove. At the worst, it was an indiscretion, which would +involve his being admonished by his Presiding Elder. Or if these narrow +bigots confused slanders with proofs, and showed that they intended to +convict him, then it would be open to him to withdraw from the ministry, +in advance of his condemnation. His relation to the church would be +the same as if he had been expelled, but to the outer world it would be +different. And supposing he did withdraw from the ministry? + +Yes; this was the important point. What if he did abandon this mistaken +profession of his? On its mental side the relief would be prodigious, +unthinkable. But on the practical side, the bread-and-butter side? For +some days Theron paused with a shudder when he reached this question. +The thought of the plunge into unknown material responsibilities gave +him a sinking heart. He tried to imagine himself lecturing, canvassing +for books or insurance policies, writing for newspapers--and remained +frightened. But suddenly one day it occurred to him that these qualms +and forebodings were sheer folly. Was not Celia rich? Would she not with +lightning swiftness draw forth that check-book, like the flashing sword +of a champion from its scabbard, and run to his relief? Why, of course. +It was absurd not to have thought of that before. + +He recalled her momentary anger with him, that afternoon in the woods, +when he had cried out that discovery would mean ruin to him. He saw +clearly enough now that she had been grieved at his want of faith in her +protection. In his flurry of fright, he had lost sight of the fact that, +if exposure and trouble came to him, she would naturally feel that she +had been the cause of his martyrdom. It was plain enough now. If he got +into hot water, it would be solely on account of his having been seen +with her. He had walked into the woods with her--“the further the +better” had been her own words--out of pure kindliness, and the +desire to lead her away from the scene of her brother's and her own +humiliation. But why amplify arguments? Her own warm heart would tell +her, on the instant, how he had been sacrificed for her sake, and would +bring her, eager and devoted, to his succor. + +That was all right, then. Slowly, from this point, suggestions expanded +themselves. The future could be, if he willed it, one long serene +triumph of love, and lofty intellectual companionship, and existence +softened and enriched at every point by all that wealth could command, +and the most exquisite tastes suggest. Should he will it! Ah! the +question answered itself. But he could not enter upon this beckoning +heaven of a future until he had freed himself. When Celia said to him, +“Come!” he must not be in the position to reply, “I should like to, but +unfortunately I am tied by the leg.” He should have to leave Octavius, +leave the ministry, leave everything. He could not begin too soon to +face these contingencies. + +Very likely Celia had not thought it out as far as this. With her, +it was a mere vague “sometime I may.” But the harder masculine sense, +Theron felt, existed for the very purpose of correcting and giving point +to these loose feminine notions of time and space. It was for him to +clear away the obstacles, and map the plans out with definite decision. + +One warm afternoon, as he lolled in his easy-chair under the open +window of his study, musing upon the ever-shifting phases of this vast, +complicated, urgent problem, some chance words from the sidewalk in +front came to his ears, and, coming, remained to clarify his thoughts. + +Two ladies whose voices were strange to him had stopped--as so many +people almost daily stopped--to admire the garden of the parsonage. One +of them expressed her pleasure in general terms. Said the other-- + +“My husband declares those dahlias alone couldn't be matched for thirty +dollars, and that some of those gladiolus must have cost three or four +dollars apiece. I know we've spent simply oceans of money on our garden, +and it doesn't begin to compare with this.” + +“It seems like a sinful waste to me,” said her companion. + +“No-o,” the other hesitated. “No, I don't think quite that--if you can +afford it just as well as not. But it does seem to me that I'd rather +live in a little better house, and not spend it ALL on flowers. Just +LOOK at that cactus!” + +The voices died away. Theron sat up, with a look of arrested thought +upon his face, then sprang to his feet and moved hurriedly through the +parlor to an open front window. Peering out with caution he saw that the +two women receding from view were fashionably dressed and evidently +came from homes of means. He stared after them in a blank way until they +turned a corner. + +He went into the hall then, put on his frock-coat and hat, and stepped +out into the garden. He was conscious of having rather avoided it +heretofore--not altogether without reasons of his own, lying unexamined +somewhere in the recesses of his mind. Now he walked slowly about, and +examined the flowers with great attentiveness. The season was +advancing, and he saw that many plants had gone out of bloom. But what a +magnificent plenitude of blossoms still remained! + +Thirty dollars' worth of dahlias--that was what the stranger had said. +Theron hardly brought himself to credit the statement; but all the same +it was apparent to even his uninformed eye that these huge, imbricated, +flowering masses, with their extraordinary half-colors, must be unusual. +He remembered that the boy in Gorringe's office had spoken of just one +lot of plants costing thirty-one dollars and sixty cents, and there had +been two other lots as well. The figures remained surprisingly distinct +in his memory. It was no good deceiving himself any longer: of course +these were the plants that Gorringe had spent his money upon, here all +about him. + +As he surveyed them with a sour regard, a cool breeze stirred across the +garden. The tall, over-laden flower-spikes of gladioli bent and nodded +at him; the hollyhocks and flaming alvias, the clustered blossoms on the +standard roses, the delicately painted lilies on their stilt-like stems, +fluttered in the wind, and seemed all bowing satirically to him. “Yes, +Levi Gorringe paid for us!” He almost heard their mocking declaration. + +Out in the back-yard, where a longer day of sunshine dwelt, there were +many other flowers, and notably a bed of geraniums which literally made +the eye ache. Standing at this rear corner of the house, he caught the +droning sound of Alice's voice, humming a hymn to herself as she went +about her kitchen work. He saw her through the open window. She was +sweeping, and had a sort of cap on her head which did not add to the +graces of her appearance. He looked at her with a hard glance, recalling +as a fresh grievance the ten days of intolerable boredom he had spent +cooped up in a ridiculous little tent with her, at the camp-meeting. She +must have realized at the time how odious the enforced companionship was +to him. Yes, beyond doubt she did. It came back to him now that they +had spoken but rarely to each other. She had not even praised his sermon +upon the Sabbath-question, which every one else had been in raptures +over. For that matter she no longer praised anything he did, and took +obvious pains to preserve toward him a distant demeanor. So much the +better, he felt himself thinking. If she chose to behave in that +offish and unwifely fashion, she could blame no one but herself for its +results. + +She had seen him, and came now to the window, watering-pot and broom +in hand. She put her head out, to breathe a breath of dustless air, and +began as if she would smile on him. Then her face chilled and stiffened, +as she caught his look. + +“Shall you be home for supper?” she asked, in her iciest tone. + +He had not thought of going out before. The question, and the manner of +it, gave immediate urgency to the idea of going somewhere. “I may or I +may not,” he replied. “It is quite impossible for me to say.” He turned +on his heel with this, and walked briskly out of the yard and down the +street. + +It was the most natural thing that presently he should be strolling past +the Madden house, and letting a covert glance stray over its front and +the grounds about it, as he loitered along. Every day since his return +from the woods he had given the fates this chance of bringing Celia +to meet him, without avail. He had hung about in the vicinity of the +Catholic church on several evenings as well, but to no purpose. The +organ inside was dumb, and he could detect no signs of Celia's presence +on the curtains of the pastorate next door. This day, too, there was +no one visible at the home of the Maddens, and he walked on, a little +sadly. It was weary work waiting for the signal that never came. + +But there were compensations. His mind reverted doggedly to the flowers +in his garden, and to Alice's behavior toward him. They insisted upon +connecting themselves in his thoughts. Why should Levi Gorringe, a +money-lender, and therefore the last man in the world to incur reckless +expenditure, go and buy perhaps a hundred dollars, worth of flowers for +his wife's garden? It was time--high time--to face this question. And +his experiencing religion afterward, just when Alice did, and marching +down to the rail to kneel beside her--that was a thing to be thought of, +too. + +Meditation, it is true, hardly threw fresh light upon the matter. It +was incredible, of course, that there should be anything wrong. To even +shape a thought of Alice in connection with gallantry would be wholly +impossible. Nor could it be said that Gorringe, in his new capacity as a +professing church-member, had disclosed any sign of ulterior motives, +or of insincerity. Yet there the facts were. While Theron pondered them, +their mystery, if they involved a mystery, baffled him altogether. +But when he had finished, he found himself all the same convinced that +neither Alice nor Gorringe would be free to blame him for anything +he might do. He had grounds for complaint against them. If he did not +himself know just what these grounds were, it was certain enough that +THEY knew. Very well, then, let them take the responsibility for what +happened. + +It was indeed awkward that at the moment, as Theron chanced to emerge +temporarily from his brown-study, his eyes fell full upon the spare, +well-knit form of Levi Gorringe himself, standing only a few feet away, +in the staircase entrance to his law office. His lean face, browned by +the summer's exposure, had a more Arabian aspect than ever. His hands +were in his pockets, and he held an unlighted cigar between his teeth. +He looked the Rev. Mr. Ware over calmly, and nodded recognition. + +Theron had halted instinctively. On the instant he would have given +a great deal not to have stopped at all. It was stupid of him to have +paused, but it would not do now to go on without words of some sort. He +moved over to the door-way, and made a half-hearted pretence of looking +at the photographs in one of the show-cases at its side. As Mr. Gorringe +did not take his hands from his pockets, there was no occasion for any +formal greeting. + +“I had no idea that they took such good pictures in Octavius,” Theron +remarked after a minute's silence, still bending in examination of the +photographs. + +“They ought to; they charge New York prices,” observed the lawyer, +sententiously. + +Theron found in the words confirmation of his feeling that Gorringe was +not naturally a lavish or extravagant man. Rather was he a careful and +calculating man, who spent money only for a purpose. Though the minister +continued gazing at the stiff presentments of local beauties and +swains, his eyes seemed to see salmon-hued hollyhocks and spotted lilies +instead. Suddenly a resolve came to him. He stood erect, and faced his +trustee. + +“Speaking of the price of things,” he said, with an effort of arrogance +in his measured tone, “I have never had an opportunity before of +mentioning the subject of the flowers you have so kindly furnished for +my--for MY garden.” + +“Why mention it now?” queried Gorringe, with nonchalance. He turned his +cigar about with a movement of his lips, and worked it into the corner +of his mouth. He did not find it necessary to look at Theron at all. + +“Because--” began Mr. Ware, and then hesitated--“because--well, it +raises a question of my being under obligation, which I--” + +“Oh, no, sir,” said the lawyer; “put that out of your mind. You are no +more under obligation to me than I am to you. Oh, no, make yourself easy +about that. Neither of us owes the other anything.” + +“Not even good-will--I take that to be your meaning,” retorted Theron, +with some heat. + +“The words are yours, sir,” responded Gorringe, coolly. “I do not object +to them.” + +“As you like,” put in the other. “If it be so, why, then all the more +reason why I should, under the circumstances--” + +“Under what circumstances?” interposed the lawyer. “Let us be clear +about this thing as we go along. To what circumstances do you refer?” + +He had turned his eyes now, and looked Theron in the face. A slight +protrusion of his lower jaw had given the cigar an upward tilt under the +black mustache. + +“The circumstances are that you have brought or sent to my garden a +great many very expensive flower-plants and bushes and so on.” + +“And you object? I had not supposed that clergymen in general--and you +in particular--were so sensitive. Have donation parties, then, gone out +of date?” + +“I understand your sneer well enough,” retorted Theron, “but that +can pass. The main point is, that you did me the honor to send these +plants--or to smuggle them in--but never once deigned to hint to me that +you had done so. No one told me. Except by mere accident, I should not +have known to this day where they came from.” + +Mr. Gorringe twisted the cigar at another angle, with lines of grim +amusement about the corner of his mouth. “I should have thought,” he +said with dry deliberation, “that possibly this fact might have raised +in your mind the conceivable hypothesis that the plants might not be +intended for you at all.” + +“That is precisely it, sir,” said Theron. There were people passing, and +he was forced to keep his voice down. It would have been a relief, he +felt, to shout. “That is it--they were not intended for me.” + +“Well, then, what are you talking about?” The lawyer's speech had become +abrupt almost to incivility. + +“I think my remarks have been perfectly clear,” said the minister, with +dignity. It was a new experience to be addressed in that fashion. +It occurred to him to add, “Please remember that I am not in the +witness-box, to be bullied or insulted by a professional.” + +Gorringe studied Theron's face attentively with a cold, searching +scrutiny. “You may thank your stars you're not!” he said, with +significance. + +What on earth could he mean? The words and the menacing tone greatly +impressed Theron. Indeed, upon reflection, he found that they frightened +him. The disposition to adopt a high tone with the lawyer was melting +away. + +“I do not see,” he began, and then deliberately allowed his voice to +take on an injured and plaintive inflection--“I do not see why you +should adopt this tone toward me--Brother Gorringe.” + +The lawyer scowled, and bit sharply into the cigar, but said nothing. + +“If I have unconsciously offended you in any way,” Theron went on, “I +beg you to tell me how. I liked you from the beginning of my pastorate +here, and the thought that latterly we seemed to be drifting apart has +given me much pain. But now it is still more distressing to find you +actually disposed to quarrel with me. Surely, Brother Gorringe, between +a pastor and a probationer who--” + +“No,” Gorringe broke in; “quarrel isn't the word for it. There isn't any +quarrel, Mr. Ware.” He stepped down from the door-stone to the sidewalk +as he spoke, and stood face to face with Theron. Working-men with +dinner-pails, and factory girls, were passing close to them, and he +lowered his voice to a sharp, incisive half-whisper as he added, “It +wouldn't be worth any grown man's while to quarrel with so poor a +creature as you are.” + +Theron stood confounded, with an empty stare of bewilderment on his +face. It rose in his mind that the right thing to feel was rage, +righteous indignation, fury; but for the life of him, he could not +muster any manly anger. The character of the insult stupefied him. + +“I do not know that I have anything to say to you in reply,” he +remarked, after what seemed to him a silence of minutes. His lips +framed the words automatically, but they expressed well enough the blank +vacancy of his mind. The suggestion that anybody deemed him a “poor +creature” grew more astounding, incomprehensible, as it swelled in his +brain. + +“No, I suppose not,” snapped Gorringe. “You're not the sort to stand up +to men; your form is to go round the corner and take it out of somebody +weaker than yourself--a defenceless woman, for instance.” + +“Oh--ho!” said Theron. The exclamation had uttered itself. The sound of +it seemed to clarify his muddled thoughts; and as they ranged themselves +in order, he began to understand. “Oh--ho!” he said again, and nodded +his head in token of comprehension. + +The lawyer, chewing his cigar with increased activity, glared at him. +“What do you mean?” he demanded peremptorily. + +“Mean?” said the minister. “Oh, nothing that I feel called upon to +explain to you.” + +It was passing strange, but his self-possession had all at once returned +to him. As it became more apparent that the lawyer was losing his +temper, Theron found the courage to turn up the corners of his lips in +show of a bitter little smile of confidence. He looked into the other's +dusky face, and flaunted this smile at it in contemptuous defiance. “It +is not a subject that I can discuss with propriety--at this stage,” he +added. + +“Damn you! Are you talking about those flowers?” + +“Oh, I am not talking about anything in particular,” returned Theron, +“not even the curious choice of language which my latest probationer +seems to prefer.” + +“Go and strike my name off the list!” said Gorringe, with rising +passion. “I was a fool to ever have it there. To think of being a +probationer of yours--my God!” + +“That will be a pity--from one point of view,” remarked Theron, still +with the ironical smile on his lips. “You seemed to enter upon the new +life with such deliberation and fixity of purpose, too! I can imagine +the regrets your withdrawal will cause, in certain quarters. I only hope +that it will not discourage those who accompanied you to the altar, +and shared your enthusiasm at the time.” He had spoken throughout with +studied slowness and an insolent nicety of utterance. + +“You had better go away!” broke forth Gorringe. “If you don't, I shall +forget myself.” + +“For the first time?” asked Theron. Then, warned by the flash in the +lawyer's eye, he turned on his heel and sauntered, with a painstaking +assumption of a mind quite at ease, up the street. + +Gorringe's own face twitched and his veins tingled as he looked after +him. He spat the shapeless cigar out of his mouth into the gutter, and, +drawing forth another from his pocket, clenched it between his teeth, +his gaze following the tall form of the Methodist minister till it was +merged in the crowd. + +“Well, I'm damned!” he said aloud to himself. + +The photographer had come down to take in his showcases for the night. +He looked up from his task at the exclamation, and grinned inquiringly. + +“I've just been talking to a man,” said the lawyer, “who's so much +meaner than any other man I ever heard of that it takes my breath away. +He's got a wife that's as pure and good as gold, and he knows it, and +she worships the ground he walks on, and he knows that too. And yet the +scoundrel is around trying to sniff out some shadow of a pretext for +misusing her worse than he's already done. Yes, sir; he'd be actually +tickled to death if he could nose up some hint of a scandal about +her--something that he could pretend to believe, and work for his own +advantage to levy blackmail, or get rid of her, or whatever suited his +book. I didn't think there was such an out-and-out cur on this whole +footstool. I almost wish, by God, I'd thrown him into the canal!” + +“Yes, you lawyers must run against some pretty snide specimens,” + remarked the photographer, lifting one of the cases from its sockets. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Theron spent half an hour in aimless strolling about the streets. From +earliest boyhood his mind had always worked most clearly when he walked +alone. Every mental process which had left a mark upon his memory and +his career--the daydreams of future academic greatness and fame which +had fashioned themselves in his brain as a farm lad; the meditations, +raptures, and high resolves of his student period at the seminary; the +more notable sermons and powerful discourse by which he had revealed the +genius that was in him to astonished and delighted assemblages--all were +associated in his retrospective thoughts with solitary rambles. + +He had a very direct and vivid consciousness now that it was good to be +on his legs, and alone. He had never in his life been more sensible of +the charm of his own companionship. The encounter with Gorringe seemed +to have cleared all the clouds out of his brain, and restored lightness +to his heart. After such an object lesson, the impossibility of his +continuing to sacrifice himself to a notion of duty to these low-minded +and coarse-natured villagers was beyond all argument. There could no +longer be any doubt about his moral right to turn his back upon them, to +wash his hands of the miserable combination of hypocrisy and hysterics +which they called their spiritual life. + +And the question of Gorringe and Alice, that too stood precisely where +he wanted it. Even in his own thoughts, he preferred to pursue it no +further. Between them somewhere an offence of concealment, it might be +of conspiracy, had been committed against him. It was no business of his +to say more, or to think more. He rested his case simply on the fact, +which could not be denied, and which he was not in the least interested +to have explained, one way or the other. The recollection of Gorringe's +obvious disturbance of mind was especially pleasant to him. He himself +had been magnanimous almost to the point of weakness. He had gone out +of his way to call the man “brother,” and to give him an opportunity of +behaving like a gentleman; but his kindly forbearance had been wasted. +Gorringe was not the man to understand generous feelings, much less rise +to their level. He had merely shown that he would be vicious if he knew +how. It was more important and satisfactory to recall that he had also +shown a complete comprehension of the injured husband's grievance. The +fact that he had recognized it was enough--was, in fact, everything. + +In the background of his thoughts Theron had carried along a notion of +going and dining with Father Forbes when the time for the evening meal +should arrive. The idea in itself attracted him, as a fitting capstone +to his resolve not to go home to supper. It gave just the right kind +of character to his domestic revolt. But when at last he stood on the +doorstep of the pastorate, waiting for an answer to the tinkle of the +electric bell he had heard ring inside, his mind contained only the +single thought that now he should hear something about Celia. Perhaps he +might even find her there; but he put that suggestion aside as slightly +unpleasant. + +The hag-faced housekeeper led him, as before, into the dining-room. It +was still daylight, and he saw on the glance that the priest was alone +at the table, with a book beside him to read from as he ate. + +Father Forbes rose and came forward, greeting his visitor with profuse +urbanity and smiles. If there was a perfunctory note in the invitation +to sit down and share the meal, Theron did not catch it. He frankly +displayed his pleasure as he laid aside his hat, and took the chair +opposite his host. + +“It is really only a few months since I was here, in this room, before,” + he remarked, as the priest closed his book and tossed it to one side, +and the housekeeper came in to lay another place. “Yet it might have +been years, many long years, so tremendous is the difference that the +lapse of time has wrought in me.” + +“I am afraid we have nothing to tempt you very much, Mr. Ware,” remarked +Father Forbes, with a gesture of his plump white hand which embraced the +dishes in the centre of the table. “May I send you a bit of this boiled +mutton? I have very homely tastes when I am by myself.” + +“I was saying,” Theron observed, after some moments had passed in +silence, “that I date such a tremendous revolution in my thoughts, my +beliefs, my whole mind and character, from my first meeting with you, +my first coming here. I don't know how to describe to you the enormous +change that has come over me; and I owe it all to you.” + +“I can only hope, then, that it is entirely of a satisfactory nature,” + said the priest, politely smiling. + +“Oh, it is so splendidly satisfactory!” said Theron, with fervor. “I +look back at myself now with wonder and pity. It seems incredible +that, such a little while ago, I should have been such an ignorant +and unimaginative clod of earth, content with such petty ambitions and +actually proud of my limitations.” + +“And you have larger ambitions now?” asked the other. “Pray let me help +you to some potatoes. I am afraid that ambitions only get in our way and +trip us up. We clergymen are like street-car horses. The more steadily +we jog along between the rails, the better it is for us.” + +“Oh, I don't intend to remain in the ministry,” declared Theron. The +statement seemed to him a little bald, now that he had made it; and as +his companion lifted his brows in surprise, he added stumblingly: “That +is, as I feel now, it seems to me impossible that I should remain much +longer. With you, of course, it is different. You have a thousand things +to interest and pleasantly occupy you in your work and its ceremonies, +so that mere belief or non-belief in the dogma hardly matters. But in +our church dogma is everything. If you take that away, or cease to have +its support, the rest is intolerable, hideous.” + +Father Forbes cut another slice of mutton for himself. “It is a pretty +serious business to make such a change at your time of life. I take it +for granted you will think it all over very carefully before you commit +yourself.” He said this with an almost indifferent air, which rather +chilled his listener's enthusiasm. + +“Oh, yes,”, Theron made answer; “I shall do nothing rash. But I have a +good many plans for the future.” + +Father Forbes did not ask what these were, and a brief further period of +silence fell upon the table. + +“I hope everything went off smoothly at the picnic,” Theron ventured, at +last. “I have not seen any of you since then.” + +The priest shook his head and sighed. “No,” he said. “It is a bad +business. I have had a great deal of unhappiness out of it this past +fortnight. That young man who was rude to you--of course it was mere +drunken, irresponsible nonsense on his part--has got himself into a +serious scrape, I'm afraid. It is being kept quite within the family, +and we hope to manage so that it will remain there, but it has terribly +upset his father and his sister. But that, after all, is not so hard +to bear as the other affliction that has come upon the Maddens. You +remember Michael, the other brother? He seems to have taken cold that +evening, or perhaps over-exerted himself. He has been seized with quick +consumption. He will hardly last till snow flies.” + +“Oh, I am GRIEVED to hear that!” Theron spoke with tremulous +earnestness. It seemed to him as if Michael were in some way related to +him. + +“It is very hard upon them all,” the priest went on. “Michael is as +sweet and holy a character as it is possible for any one to think of. He +is the apple of his father's eye. They were inseparable, those two. Do +you know the father, Mr. Madden?” + +Theron shook his head. “I think I have seen him,” he said. “A small man, +with gray whiskers.” + +“A peasant,” said Father Forbes, “but with a heart of gold. Poor man! he +has had little enough out of his riches. Ah, the West Coast people, what +tragedies I have seen among them over here! They have rudimentary lung +organizations, like a frog's, to fit the mild, wet soft air they live +in. The sharp air here kills them off like flies in a frost. Whole +families go. I should think there are a dozen of old Jeremiah's children +in the cemetery. If Michael could have passed his twenty-eighth year, +there would have been hope for him, at least till his thirty-fifth. +These pulmonary things seem to go by sevens, you know.” + +“I didn't know,” said Theron. “It is very strange--and very sad.” His +startled mind was busy, all at once, with conjectures as to Celia's age. + +“The sister--Miss Madden--seems extremely strong,” he remarked +tentatively. + +“Celia may escape the general doom,” said the priest. His guest noted +that he clenched his shapely white hand on the table as he spoke, and +that his gentle, carefully modulated voice had a gritty hardness in its +tone. “THAT would be too dreadful to think of,” he added. + +Theron shuddered in silence, and strove to shut his mind against the +thought. + +“She has taken Michael's illness so deeply to heart,” the priest +proceeded, “and devoted herself to him so untiringly that I get a little +nervous about her. I have been urging her to go away and get a change of +air and scene, if only for a few days. She does not sleep well, and that +is always a bad thing.” + +“I think I remember her telling me once that sometimes she had sleepless +spells,” said Theron. “She said that then she banged on her piano at +all hours, or dragged the cushions about from room to room, like a wild +woman. A very interesting young lady, don't you find her so?” + +Father Forbes let a wan smile play on his lips. “What, our Celia?” + he said. “Interesting! Why, Mr. Ware, there is no one like her in the +world. She is as unique as--what shall I say?--as the Irish are among +races. Her father and mother were both born in mud-cabins, and she--she +might be the daughter of a hundred kings, except that they seem mostly +rather under-witted than otherwise. She always impresses me as a sort of +atavistic idealization of the old Kelt at his finest and best. There in +Ireland you got a strange mixture of elementary early peoples, walled +off from the outer world by the four seas, and free to work out their +own racial amalgam on their own lines. They brought with them at the +outset a great inheritance of Eastern mysticism. Others lost it, but the +Irish, all alone on their island, kept it alive and brooded on it, and +rooted their whole spiritual side in it. Their religion is full of it; +their blood is full of it; our Celia is fuller of it than anybody else. +The Ireland of two thousand years ago is incarnated in her. They are the +merriest people and the saddest, the most turbulent and the most docile, +the most talented and the most unproductive, the most practical and the +most visionary, the most devout and the most pagan. These impossible +contradictions war ceaselessly in their blood. When I look at Celia, +I seem to see in my mind's eye the fair young-ancestral mother of them +all.” + +Theron gazed at the speaker with open admiration. “I love to hear you +talk,” he said simply. + +An unbidden memory flitted upward in his mind. Those were the very words +that Alice had so often on her lips in their old courtship days. How +curious it was! He looked at the priest, and had a quaint sensation of +feeling as a romantic woman must feel in the presence of a specially +impressive masculine personality. It was indeed strange that this +soft-voiced, portly creature in a gown, with his white, fat hands and +his feline suavity of manner, should produce such a commanding and +unique effect of virility. No doubt this was a part of the great sex +mystery which historically surrounded the figure of the celibate priest +as with an atmosphere. Women had always been prostrating themselves +before it. Theron, watching his companion's full, pallid face in the +lamp-light, tried to fancy himself in the priest's place, looking down +upon these worshipping female forms. He wondered what the celibate's +attitude really was. The enigma fascinated him. + +Father Forbes, after his rhetorical outburst, had been eating. He pushed +aside his cheese-plate. “I grow enthusiastic on the subject of my race +sometimes,” he remarked, with the suggestion of an apology. “But I make +up for it other times--most of the time--by scolding them. If it were +not such a noble thing to be an Irishman, it would be ridiculous.” + +“Ah,” said Theron, deprecatingly, “who would not be enthusiastic in +talking of Miss Madden? What you said about her was perfect. As you +spoke, I was thinking how proud and thankful we ought to be for the +privilege of knowing her--we who do know her well--although of course +your friendship with her is vastly more intimate than mine--than mine +could ever hope to be.” + +The priest offered no comment, and Theron went on: “I hardly know how to +describe the remarkable impression she makes upon me. I can't imagine to +myself any other young woman so brilliant or broad in her views, or so +courageous. Of course, her being so rich makes it easier for her to do +just what she wants to do, but her bravery is astonishing all the same. +We had a long and very sympathetic talk in the woods, that day of the +picnic, after we left you. I don't know whether she spoke to you about +it?” + +Father Forbes made a movement of the head and eyes which seemed to +negative the suggestion. + +“Her talk,” continued Theron, “gave me quite new ideas of the range and +capacity of the female mind. I wonder that everybody in Octavius isn't +full of praise and admiration for her talents and exceptional character. +In such a small town as this, you would think she would be the centre of +attention--the pride of the place.” + +“I think she has as much praise as is good for her,” remarked the +priest, quietly. + +“And here's a thing that puzzles me,” pursued Mr. Ware. “I was immensely +surprised to find that Dr. Ledsmar doesn't even think she is smart--or +at least he professes the utmost intellectual contempt for her, and says +he dislikes her into the bargain. But of course she dislikes him, too, +so that's only natural. But I can't understand his denying her great +ability.” + +The priest smiled in a dubious way. “Don't borrow unnecessary alarm +about that, Mr. Ware,” he said, with studied smoothness of modulated +tones. “These two good friends of mine have much enjoyment out of +the idea that they are fighting for the mastery over my poor unstable +character. It has grown to be a habit with them, and a hobby as well, +and they pursue it with tireless zest. There are not many intellectual +diversions open to us here, and they make the most of this one. It +amuses them, and it is not without its charms for me, in my capacity +as an interested observer. It is a part of the game that they should +pretend to themselves that they detest each other. In reality I fancy +that they like each other very much. At any rate, there is nothing to be +disturbed about.” + +His mellifluous tones had somehow the effect of suggesting to Theron +that he was an outsider and would better mind his own business. Ah, if +this purring pussy-cat of a priest only knew how little of an outsider +he really was! The thought gave him an easy self-control. + +“Of course,” he said, “our warm mutual friendship makes the observation +of these little individual vagaries merely a part of a delightful whole. +I should not dream of discussing Miss Madden's confidences to me, or the +doctor's either, outside our own little group.” + +Father Forbes reached behind him and took from a chair his black +three-cornered cap with the tassel. “Unfortunately I have a sick call +waiting me,” he said, gathering up his gown and slowly rising. + +“Yes, I saw the man sitting in the hall,” remarked Theron, getting to +his feet. + +“I would ask you to go upstairs and wait,” the priest went on, “but my +return, unhappily, is quite uncertain. Another evening I may be more +fortunate. I am leaving town tomorrow for some days, but when I get +back--” + +The polite sentence did not complete itself. Father Forbes had come out +into the hall, giving a cool nod to the working-man, who rose from the +bench as they passed, and shook hands with his guest on the doorstep. + +When the door had closed upon Mr. Ware, the priest turned to the man. +“You have come about those frames,” he said. “If you will come upstairs, +I will show you the prints, and you can give me a notion of what can +be done with them. I rather fancy the idea of a triptych in carved old +English, if you can manage it.” + +After the workman had gone away, Father Forbes put on slippers and an +old loose soutane, lighted a cigar, and, pushing an easy-chair over to +the reading lamp, sat down with a book. Then something occurred to him, +and he touched the house-bell at his elbow. + +“Maggie,” he said gently, when the housekeeper appeared at the door, “I +will have the coffee and FINE CHAMPAGNE up here, if it is no trouble. +And--oh, Maggie--I was compelled this evening to turn the blameless +visit of the framemaker into a venial sin, and that involves a needless +wear and tear of conscience. I think that--hereafter--you understand?--I +am not invariably at home when the Rev. Mr. Ware does me the honor to +call.” + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +That night brought the first frost of the season worth counting. In +the morning, when Theron came downstairs, his casual glance through +the window caught a desolate picture of blackened dahlia stalks and +shrivelled blooms. The gayety and color of the garden were gone, and in +their place was shabby and dishevelled ruin. He flung the sash up and +leaned out. The nipping autumn air was good to breathe. He looked about +him, surveying the havoc the frost had wrought among the flowers, and +smiled. + +At breakfast he smiled again--a mirthless and calculated smile. “I +see that Brother Gorringe's flowers have come to grief over night,” he +remarked. + +Alice looked at him before she spoke, and saw on his face a confirmation +of the hostile hint in his voice. She nodded in a constrained way, and +said nothing. + +“Or rather, I should say,” Theron went on, with deliberate words, “the +late Brother Gorringe's flowers.” + +“How do you mean--LATE” asked his wife, swiftly. + +“Oh, calm yourself!” replied the husband. “He is not dead. He has only +intimated to me his desire to sever his connection. I may add that he +did so in a highly offensive manner.” + +“I am very sorry,” said Alice, in a low tone, and with her eyes on her +plate. + +“I took it for granted you would be grieved at his backsliding,” + remarked Theron, making his phrases as pointed as he could. “He was +such a promising probationer, and you took such a keen interest in his +spiritual awakening. But the frost has nipped his zeal--along with the +hundred or more dollars' worth of flowers by which he testified his +faith. I find something interesting in their having been blasted +simultaneously.” + +Alice dropped all pretence of interest in her breakfast. With a flushed +face and lips tightly compressed, she made a movement as if to rise from +her chair. Then, changing her mind, she sat bolt upright and faced her +husband. + +“I think we had better have this out right now,” she said, in a voice +which Theron hardly recognized. “You have been hinting round the subject +long enough--too long. There are some things nobody is obliged to put +up with, and this is one of them. You will oblige me by saying out in so +many words what it is you are driving at.” + +The outburst astounded Theron. He laid down his knife and fork, and +gazed at his wife in frank surprise. She had so accustomed him, of late, +to a demeanor almost abject in its depressed docility that he had quite +forgotten the Alice of the old days, when she had spirit and courage +enough for two, and a notable tongue of her own. The flash in her +eyes and the lines of resolution about her mouth and chin for a moment +daunted him. Then he observed by a flutter of the frill at her wrist +that she was trembling. + +“I am sure I have nothing to 'say out in so many words,' as you put +it,” he replied, forcing his voice into cool, impassive tones. “I merely +commented upon a coincidence, that was all. If, for any reason under +the sun, the subject chances to be unpleasant to you, I have no earthly +desire to pursue it.” + +“But I insist upon having it pursued!” returned Alice. “I've had just +all I can stand of your insinuations and innuendoes, and it's high time +we had some plain talk. Ever since the revival, you have been dropping +sly, underhand hints about Mr. Gorringe and--and me. Now I ask you what +you mean by it.” + +Yes, there was a shake in her voice, and he could see how her bosom +heaved in a tremor of nervousness. It was easy for him to be very calm. + +“It is you who introduce these astonishing suggestions, not I,” he +replied coldly. “It is you who couple your name with his--somewhat to my +surprise, I admit--but let me suggest that we drop the subject. You +are excited just now, and you might say things that you would prefer to +leave unsaid. It would surely be better for all concerned to say no more +about it.” + +Alice, staring across the table at him with knitted brows, emitted a +sharp little snort of indignation. “Well, I never! Theron, I wouldn't +have thought it of you!” + +“There are so many things you wouldn't have thought, on such a variety +of subjects,” he observed, with a show of resuming his breakfast. “But +why continue? We are only angering each other.” + +“Never mind that,” she replied, with more control over her speech. “I +guess things have come to a pass where a little anger won't do any harm. +I have a right to insist on knowing what you mean by your insinuations.” + +Theron sighed. “Why will you keep harping on the thing?” he asked +wearily. “I have displayed no curiosity. I don't ask for any +explanations. I think I mentioned that the man had behaved insultingly +to me--but that doesn't matter. I don't bring it up as a grievance. I +am very well able to take care of myself. I have no wish to recur to the +incident in any way. So far as I am concerned, the topic is dismissed.” + +“Listen to me!” broke in Alice, with eager gravity. She hesitated, as he +looked up with a nod of attention, and reflected as well as she was able +among her thoughts for a minute or two. “This is what I want to say to +you. Ever since we came to this hateful Octavius, you and I have been +drifting apart--or no, that doesn't express it--simply rushing away from +each other. It only began last spring, and now the space between us +is so wide that we are worse than complete strangers. For strangers at +least don't hate each other, and I've had a good many occasions lately +to see that you positively do hate me--” + +“What grotesque absurdity” interposed Theron, impatiently. + +“No, it isn't absurdity; it's gospel truth,” retorted Alice. “And--don't +interrupt me--there have been times, too, when I have had to ask myself +if I wasn't getting almost to hate you in return. I tell you this +frankly.” + +“Yes, you are undoubtedly frank,” commented the husband, toying with his +teaspoon. “A hypercritical person might consider, almost too frank.” + +Alice scanned his face closely while he spoke, and held her breath as +if in expectant suspense. Her countenance clouded once more. “You don't +realize, Theron,” she said gravely; “your voice when you speak to me, +your look, your manner, they have all changed. You are like another +man--some man who never loved me, and doesn't even know me, much less +like me. I want to know what the end of it is to be. Up to the time of +your sickness last summer, until after the Soulsbys went away, I didn't +let myself get downright discouraged. It seemed too monstrous for +belief that you should go away out of my life like that. It didn't seem +possible that God could allow such a thing. It came to me that I had +been lax in my Christian life, especially in my position as a minister's +wife, and that this was my punishment. I went to the altar, to intercede +with Him, and to try to loose my burden at His feet. But nothing has +come of it. I got no help from you.” + +“Really, Alice,” broke in Theron, “I explained over and over again to +you how preoccupied I was--with the book--and affairs generally.” + +“I got no assistance from Heaven either,” she went on, declining the +diversion he offered. “I don't want to talk impiously, but if there is a +God, he has forgotten me, his poor heart-broken hand-maiden.” + +“You are talking impiously, Alice,” observed her husband. “And you are +doing me cruel injustice, into the bargain.” + +“I only wish I were!” she replied; “I only wish to God I were!” + +“Well, then, accept my complete assurance that you ARE--that your whole +conception of me, and of what you are pleased to describe as my change +toward you, is an entire and utter mistake. Of course, the married +state is no more exempt from the universal law of growth, development, +alteration, than any other human institution. On its spiritual side, of +course, viewed either as a sacrament, or as--” + +“Don't let us go into that,” interposed Alice, abruptly. “In fact, there +is no good in talking any more at all. It is as if we didn't speak the +same language. You don't understand what I say; it makes no impression +upon your mind.” + +“Quite to the contrary,” he assured her; “I have been deeply interested +and concerned in all you have said. I think you are laboring under a +great delusion, and I have tried my best to convince you of it; but +I have never heard you speak more intelligibly or, I might say, +effectively.” + +A little gleam of softness stole over Alice's face. “If you only gave me +a little more credit for intelligence,” she said, “you would find that I +am not such a blockhead as you think I am.” + +“Come, come!” he said, with a smiling show of impatience. “You really +mustn't impute things to me wholesale, like that.” + +She was glad to answer the smile in kind. “No; but truly,” she pleaded, +“you don't realize it, but you have grown into a way of treating me as +if I had absolutely no mind at all.” + +“You have a very admirable mind,” he responded, and took up his teaspoon +again. She reached for his cup, and poured out hot coffee for him. An +almost cheerful spirit had suddenly descended upon the breakfast table. + +“And now let me say the thing I have been aching to say for months,” she +began in less burdened voice. + +He lifted his brows. “Haven't things been discussed pretty fully +already?” he asked. + +The doubtful, harassed expression clouded upon her face at his +words, and she paused. “No,” she said resolutely, after an +instant's reflection; “it is my duty to discuss this, too. It is a +misunderstanding all round. You remember that I told you Mr. Gorringe +had given me some plants, which he got from some garden or other?” + +“If you really wish to go on with the subject--yes I have a recollection +of that particular falsehood of his.” + +“He did it with the kindest and friendliest motives in the world!” + protested Alice. “He saw how down-in-the-mouth and moping I was here, +among these strangers--and I really was getting quite peaked and +run-down--and he said I stayed indoors too much and it would do me all +sorts of good to work in the garden, and he would send me some plants. +The next I knew, here they were, with a book about mixing soils and +planting, and so on. When I saw him next, and thanked him, I suppose I +showed some apprehension about his having laid out money on them, and +he, just to ease my mind, invented the story about his getting them for +nothing. When I found out the truth--I got it out of that boy, Harvey +Semple--he admitted it quite frankly--said he was wrong to deceive me.” + +“This was in the fine first fervor of his term of probation, I suppose,” + put in Theron. He made no effort to dissemble the sneer in his voice. + +“Well,” answered Alice, with a touch of acerbity, “I have told you +now, and it is off my mind. There never would have been the slightest +concealment about it, if you hadn't begun by keeping me at arm's length, +and making it next door to impossible to speak to you at all, and if--” + +“And if he hadn't lied.” Theron, as he finished her sentence for her, +rose from the table. Dallying for a brief moment by his chair, there +seemed the magnetic premonition in the air of some further and kindlier +word. Then he turned and walked sedately into the next room, and closed +the door behind him. The talk was finished; and Alice, left alone, +passed the knuckle of her thumb over one swimming eye and then the +other, and bit her lips and swallowed down the sob that rose in her +throat. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +It was early afternoon when Theron walked out of his yard, bestowing no +glance upon the withered and tarnished show of the garden, and started +with a definite step down the street. The tendency to ruminative +loitering, which those who saw him abroad always associated with his +tall, spare figure, was not suggested today. He moved forward like a man +with a purpose. + +All the forenoon in the seclusion of the sitting-room, with a book +opened before him, he had been thinking hard. It was not the talk with +Alice that occupied his thoughts. That rose in his mind from time to +time, only as a disagreeable blur, and he refused to dwell upon it. It +was nothing to him, he said to himself, what Gorringe's motives in lying +had been. As for Alice, he hardened his heart against her. Just now +it was her mood to try and make up to him. But it had been something +different yesterday, and who could say what it would be tomorrow? He +really had passed the limit of patience with her shifting emotional +vagaries, now lurching in this direction, now in that. She had had her +chance to maintain a hold upon his interest and imagination, and had +let it slip. These were the accidents of life, the inevitable harsh +happenings in the great tragedy of Nature. They could not be helped, and +there was nothing more to be said. + +He had bestowed much more attention upon what the priest had said the +previous evening. He passed in review all the glowing tributes Father +Forbes had paid to Celia. They warmed his senses as he recalled them, +but they also, in a curious, indefinite way, caused him uneasiness. +There had been a personal fervor about them which was something more +than priestly. He remembered how the priest had turned pale and faltered +when the question whether Celia would escape the general doom of her +family came up. It was not a merely pastoral agitation that, he felt +sure. + +A hundred obscure hints, doubts, stray little suspicions, crowded upward +together in his thoughts. It became apparent to him now that from the +outset he had been conscious of something queer--yes, from that very +first day when he saw the priest and Celia together, and noted their +glance of recognition inside the house of death. He realized now, upon +reflection, that the tone of other people, his own parishioners and his +casual acquaintances in Octavius alike, had always had a certain note of +reservation in it when it touched upon Miss Madden. Her running in and +out of the pastorate at all hours, the way the priest patted her on +the shoulder before others, the obvious dislike the priest's ugly old +housekeeper bore her, the astonishing freedom of their talk with each +other--these dark memories loomed forth out of a mass of sinister +conjecture. + +He could bear the uncertainty no longer. Was it indeed not entirely his +own fault that it had existed thus long? No man with the spirit of a +mouse would have shilly-shallied in this preposterous fashion, week +after week, with the fever of a beautiful woman's kiss in his blood, and +the woman herself living only round the corner. The whole world had been +as good as offered to him--a bewildering world of wealth and beauty and +spiritual exaltation and love--and he, like a weak fool, had waited for +it to be brought to him on a salver, as it were, and actually forced +upon his acceptance! “That is my failing,” he reflected; “these +miserable ecclesiastical bandages of mine have dwarfed my manly side. +The meanest of Thurston's clerks would have shown a more adventurous +spirit and a bolder nerve. If I do not act at once, with courage and +resolution, everything will be lost. Already she must think me unworthy +of the honor it was in her sweet will to bestow.” Then he remembered +that she was now always at home. “Not another hour of foolish +indecision!” he whispered to himself. “I will put my destiny to the +test. I will see her today!” + +A middle-aged, plain-faced servant answered his ring at the door-bell +of the Madden mansion. She was palpably Irish, and looked at him with a +saddened preoccupation in her gray eyes, holding the door only a little +ajar. + +Theron had got out one of his cards. “I wish to make inquiry about +young Mr. Madden--Mr. Michael Madden,” he said, holding the card forth +tentatively. “I have only just heard of his illness, and it has been a +great grief to me.” + +“He is no better,” answered the woman, briefly. + +“I am the Rev. Mr. Ware,” he went on, “and you may say that, if he is +well enough, I should be glad to see him.” + +The servant peered out at him with a suddenly altered expression, then +shook her head. “I don't think he would be wishing to see YOU,” she +replied. It was evident from her tone that she suspected the visitor's +intentions. + +Theron smiled in spite of himself. “I have not come as a clergyman,” he +explained, “but as a friend of the family. If you will tell Miss Madden +that I am here, it will do just as well. Yes, we won't bother him. If +you will kindly hand my card to his sister.” + +When the domestic turned at this and went in, Theron felt like throwing +his hat in the air, there where he stood. The woman's churlish sectarian +prejudices had played ideally into his hands. In no other imaginable way +could he have asked for Celia so naturally. He wondered a little that a +servant at such a grand house as this should leave callers standing on +the doorstep. Still more he wondered what he should say to the lady of +his dream when he came into her presence. + +“Will you please to walk this way?” The woman had returned. She closed +the door noiselessly behind him, and led the way, not up the sumptuous +staircase, as Theron had expected, but along through the broad hall, +past several large doors, to a small curtained archway at the end. +She pushed aside this curtain, and Theron found himself in a sort of +conservatory, full of the hot, vague light of sunshine falling through +ground-glass. The air was moist and close, and heavy with the smell of +verdure and wet earth. A tall bank of palms, with ferns sprawling at +their base, reared itself directly in front of him. The floor was of +mosaic, and he saw now that there were rugs upon it, and that there were +chairs and sofas, and other signs of habitation. It was, indeed, only +half a greenhouse, for the lower part of it was in rosewood panels, with +floral paintings on them, like a room. + +Moving to one side of the barrier of palms, he discovered, to his great +surprise, the figure of Michael, sitting propped up with pillows in +a huge easy-chair. The sick man was looking at him with big, gravely +intent eyes. His face did not show as much change as Theron had in fancy +pictured. It had seemed almost as bony and cadaverous on the day of the +picnic. The hands spread out on the chair-arms were very white and +thin, though, and the gaze in the blue eyes had a spectral quality which +disturbed him. + +Michael raised his right hand, and Theron, stepping forward, took it +limply in his for an instant. Then he laid it down again. The touch of +people about to die had always been repugnant to him. He could feel on +his own warm palm the very damp of the grave. + +“I only heard from Father Forbes last evening of your--your ill-health,” + he said, somewhat hesitatingly. He seated himself on a bench beneath +the palms, facing the invalid, but still holding his hat. “I hope very +sincerely that you will soon be all right again.” + +“My sister is lying down in her room,” answered Michael. He had not once +taken his sombre and embarrassing gaze from the other's face. The voice +in which he uttered this uncalled-for remark was thin in fibre, cold +and impassive. It fell upon Theron's ears with a suggestion of hidden +meaning. He looked uneasily into Michael's eyes, and then away again. +They seemed to be looking straight through him, and there was no +shirking the sensation that they saw and comprehended things with an +unnatural prescience. + +“I hope she is feeling better,” Theron found himself saying. “Father +Forbes mentioned that she was a little under the weather. I dined with +him last night.” + +“I am glad that you came,” said Michael, after a little pause. His +earnest, unblinking eyes seemed to supplement his tongue with speech of +their own. “I do be thinking a great deal about you. I have matters to +speak of to you, now that you are here.” + +Theron bowed his head gently, in token of grateful attention. He tried +the experiment of looking away from Michael, but his glance went back +again irresistibly, and fastened itself upon the sick man's gaze, and +clung there. + +“I am next door to a dead man,” he went on, paying no heed to the +other's deprecatory gesture. “It is not years or months with me, but +weeks. Then I go away to stand up for judgment on my sins, and if it is +His merciful will, I shall see God. So I say my good-byes now, and so +you will let me speak plainly, and not think ill of what I say. You +are much changed, Mr. Ware, since you came to Octavius, and it is not a +change for the good.” + +Theron lifted his brows in unaffected surprise, and put inquiry into his +glance. + +“I don't know if Protestants will be saved, in God's good time, or not,” + continued Michael. “I find there are different opinions among the clergy +about that, and of course it is not for me, only a plain mechanic, to be +sure where learned and pious scholars are in doubt. But I am sure about +one thing. Those Protestants, and others too, mind you, who profess +and preach good deeds, and themselves do bad deeds--they will never be +saved. They will have no chance at all to escape hell-fire.” + +“I think we are all agreed upon that, Mr. Madden,” said Theron, with +surface suavity. + +“Then I say to you, Mr. Ware, you are yourself in a bad path. Take the +warning of a dying man, sir, and turn from it!” + +The impulse to smile tugged at Theron's facial muscles. This was +really too droll. He looked up at the ceiling, the while he forced his +countenance into a polite composure, then turned again to Michael, with +some conciliatory commonplace ready for utterance. But he said nothing, +and all suggestion of levity left his mind, under the searching +inspection bent upon him by the young man's hollow eyes. What did +Michael suspect? What did he know? What was he hinting at, in this +strange talk of his? + +“I saw you often on the street when first you came here,” continued +Michael. “I knew the man who was here before you--that is, by sight--and +he was not a good man. But your face, when you came, pleased me. I liked +to look at you. I was tormented just then, do you see, that so many +decent, kindly people, old school-mates and friends and neighbors of +mine--and, for that matter, others all over the country must lose their +souls because they were Protestants. At my boyhood and young manhood, +that thought took the joy out of me. Sometimes I usen't to sleep a whole +night long, for thinking that some lad I had been playing with, perhaps +in his own house, that very day, would be taken when he died, and his +mother too, when she died, and thrown into the flames of hell for +all eternity. It made me so unhappy that finally I wouldn't go to any +Protestant boy's house, and have his mother be nice to me, and give me +cake and apples--and me thinking all the while that they were bound to +be damned, no matter how good they were to me.” + +The primitive humanity of this touched Theron, and he nodded approbation +with a tender smile in his eyes, forgetting for the moment that a +personal application of the monologue had been hinted at. + +“But then later, as I grew up,” the sick man went on, “I learned that it +was not altogether certain. Some of the authorities, I found, maintained +that it was doubtful, and some said openly that there must be salvation +possible for good people who lived in ignorance of the truth through no +fault of their own. Then I had hope one day, and no hope the next, and +as I did my work I thought it over, and in the evenings my father and +I talked it over, and we settled nothing of it at all. Of course, how +could we?” + +“Did you ever discuss the question with your sister?” it occurred +suddenly to Theron to interpose. He was conscious of some daring in +doing so, and he fancied that Michael's drawn face clouded a little at +his words. + +“My sister is no theologian,” he answered briefly. “Women have no call +to meddle with such matters. But I was saying--it was in the middle of +these doubtings of mine that you came here to Octavius, and I noticed +you on the streets, and once in the evening--I made no secret of it to +my people--I sat in the back of your church and heard you preach. As I +say, I liked you. It was your face, and what I thought it showed of the +man underneath it, that helped settle my mind more than anything else. I +said to myself: 'Here is a young man, only about my own age, and he has +education and talents, and he does not seek to make money for himself, +or a great name, but he is content to live humbly on the salary of a +book-keeper, and devote all his time to prayer and the meditation of +his religion, and preaching, and visiting the sick and the poor, and +comforting them. His very face is a pleasure and a help for those in +suffering and trouble to look at. The very sight of it makes one believe +in pure thoughts and merciful deeds. I will not credit it that God +intends damning such a man as that, or any like him!'” + +Theron bowed, with a slow, hesitating gravity of manner, and deep, not +wholly complacent, attention on his face. Evidently all this was by way +of preparation for something unpleasant. + +“That was only last spring,” said Michael. His tired voice sank for +a sentence or two into a meditative half-whisper. “And it was MY last +spring of all. I shall not be growing weak any more, or drawing hard +breaths, when the first warm weather comes. It will be one season to +me hereafter, always the same.” He lifted his voice with perceptible +effort. “I am talking too much. The rest I can say in a word. Only half +a year has gone by, and you have another face on you entirely. I had +noticed the small changes before, one by one. I saw the great change, +all of a sudden, the day of the picnic. I see it a hundred times more +now, as you sit there. If it seemed to me like the face of a saint +before, it is more like the face of a bar-keeper now!” + +This was quite too much. Theron rose, flushed to the temples, and +scowled down at the helpless man in the chair. He swallowed the sharp +words which came uppermost, and bit and moistened his lips as he forced +himself to remember that this was a dying man, and Celia's brother, to +whom she was devoted, and whom he himself felt he wanted to be very fond +of. He got the shadow of a smile on to his countenance. + +“I fear you HAVE tired yourself unduly,” he said, in as non-contentious +a tone as he could manage. He even contrived a little deprecatory laugh. +“I am afraid your real quarrel is with the air of Octavius. It agrees +with me so wonderfully--I am getting as fat as a seal. But I do hope I +am not paying for it by such a wholesale deterioration inside. If my own +opinion could be of any value, I should assure you that I feel myself +an infinitely better and broader and stronger man than I was when I came +here.” + +Michael shook his head dogmatically. “That is the greatest pity of all,” + he said, with renewed earnestness. “You are entirely deceived about +yourself. You do not at all realize how you have altered your direction, +or where you are going. It was a great misfortune for you, sir, that +you did not keep among your own people. That poor half-brother of mine, +though the drink was in him when he said that same to you, never spoke +a truer word. Keep among your own people, Mr. Ware! When you go among +others--you know what I mean--you have no proper understanding of what +their sayings and doings really mean. You do not realize that they are +held up by the power of the true Church, as a little child learning to +walk is held up with a belt by its nurse. They can say and do things, +and no harm at all come to them, which would mean destruction to you, +because they have help, and you are walking alone. And so be said by me, +Mr. Ware! Go back to the way you were brought up in, and leave alone the +people whose ways are different from yours. You are a married man, and +you are the preacher of a religion, such as it is. There can be nothing +better for you than to go and strive to be a good husband, and to set a +good example to the people of your Church, who look up to you--and mix +yourself up no more with outside people and outside notions that only do +you mischief. And that is what I wanted to say to you.” + +Theron took up his hat. “I take in all kindness what you have felt it +your duty to say to me, Mr. Madden,” he said. “I am not sure that I have +altogether followed you, but I am very sure you mean it well.” + +“I mean well by you,” replied Michael, wearily moving his head on the +pillow, and speaking in an undertone of languor and pain, “and I mean +well by others, that are nearer to me, and that I have a right to care +more about. When a man lies by the site of his open grave, he does not +be meaning ill to any human soul.” + +“Yes--thanks--quite so!” faltered Theron. He dallied for an instant +with the temptation to seek some further explanation, but the sight of +Michael's half-closed eyes and worn-out expression decided him against +it. It did not seem to be expected, either, that he should shake hands, +and with a few perfunctory words of hope for the invalid's recovery, +which fell with a jarring note of falsehood upon his own ears, he turned +and left the room. As he did so, Michael touched a bell on the table +beside him. + +Theron drew a long breath in the hall, as the curtain fell behind him. +It was an immense relief to escape from the oppressive humidity and heat +of the flower-room, and from that ridiculous bore of a Michael as well. + +The middle-aged, grave-faced servant, warned by the bell, stood waiting +to conduct him to the door. + +“I am sorry to have missed Miss Madden,” he said to her. “She must be +quite worn out. Perhaps later in the day--” + +“She will not be seeing anybody today,” returned the woman. “She is +going to New York this evening, and she is taking some rest against the +journey.” + +“Will she be away long?” he asked mechanically. The servant's answer, “I +have no idea,” hardly penetrated his consciousness at all. + +He moved down the steps, and along the gravel to the street, in a maze +of mental confusion. When he reached the sidewalk, under the familiar +elms, he paused, and made a definite effort to pull his thoughts +together, and take stock of what had happened, of what was going to +happen; but the thing baffled him. It was as if some drug had stupefied +his faculties. + +He began to walk, and gradually saw that what he was thinking about was +the fact of Celia's departure for New York that evening. He stared +at this fact, at first in its nakedness, then clothed with reassuring +suggestions that this was no doubt a trip she very often made. There was +a blind sense of comfort in this idea, and he rested himself upon it. +Yes, of course, she travelled a great deal. New York must be as familiar +to her as Octavius was to him. Her going there now was quite a matter of +course--the most natural thing in the world. + +Then there burst suddenly uppermost in his mind the other fact--that +Father Forbes was also going to New York that evening. The two things +spindled upward, side by side, yet separately, in his mental vision; +then they twisted and twined themselves together. He followed their +convolutions miserably, walking as if his eyes were shut. + +In slow fashion matters defined and arranged themselves before him. +The process of tracing their sequence was all torture, but there was no +possibility, no notion, of shirking any detail of the pain. The priest +had spoken of his efforts to persuade Celia to go away for a few days, +for rest and change of air and scene. He must have known only too well +that she was going, but of that he had been careful to drop no hint. The +possibility of accident was too slight to be worth considering. People +on such intimate terms as Celia and the priest--people with such +facilities for seeing each other whenever they desired--did not find +themselves on the same train of cars, with the same long journey in +view, by mere chance. + +Theron walked until dusk began to close in upon the autumn day. It grew +colder, as he turned his face homeward. He wondered if it would freeze +again over-night, and then remembered the shrivelled flowers in his +wife's garden. For a moment they shaped themselves in a picture before +his mind's eye; he saw their blackened foliage, their sicklied, drooping +stalks, and wilted blooms, and as he looked, they restored themselves to +the vigor and grace and richness of color of summer-time, as vividly as +if they had been painted on a canvas. Or no, the picture he stared at +was not on canvas, but on the glossy, varnished panel of a luxurious +sleeping-car. He shook his head angrily and blinked his eyes again and +again, to prevent their seeing, seated together in the open window above +this panel, the two people he knew were there, gloved and habited for +the night's journey, waiting for the train to start. + + + +“Very much to my surprise,” he found himself saying to Alice, watching +her nervously as she laid the supper-table, “I find I must go to Albany +tonight. That is, it isn't absolutely necessary, for that matter, but +I think it may easily turn out to be greatly to my advantage to go. +Something has arisen--I can't speak about it as yet--but the sooner I +see the Bishop about it the better. Things like that occur in a man's +life, where boldly striking out a line of action, and following it up +without an instant's delay, may make all the difference in the world +to him. Tomorrow it might be too late; and, besides, I can be home the +sooner again.” + +Alice's face showed surprise, but no trace of suspicion. She spoke with +studied amiability during the meal, and deferred with such unexpected +tact to his implied desire not to be questioned as to the mysterious +motives of the journey, that his mood instinctively softened and warmed +toward her, as they finished supper. + +He smiled a little. “I do hope I shan't have to go on tomorrow to New +York; but these Bishops of ours are such gad-abouts one never knows +where to catch them. As like as not Sanderson may be down in New York, +on Book-Concern business or something; and if he is, I shall have to +chase him up. But, after all, perhaps the trip will do me good--the +change of air and scene, you know.” + +“I'm sure I hope so,” said Alice, honestly enough. “If you do go on to +New York, I suppose you'll go by the river-boat. Everybody talks so much +of that beautiful sail down the Hudson.” + +“That's an idea!” exclaimed Theron, welcoming it with enthusiasm. “It +hadn't occurred to me. If I do have to go, and it is as lovely as they +make out, the next time I promise I won't go without you, my girl. I +HAVE been rather out of sorts lately,” he continued. “When I come back, +I daresay I shall be feeling better, more like my old self. Then I'm +going to try, Alice, to be nicer to you than I have been of late. I'm +afraid there was only too much truth in what you said this morning.” + +“Never mind what I said this morning--or any other time,” broke in +Alice, softly. “Don't ever remember it again, Theron, if only--only--” + +He rose as she spoke, moved round the table to where she sat, and, +bending over her, stopped the faltering sentence with a kiss. When was +it, he wondered, that he had last kissed her? It seemed years, ages, +ago. + +An hour later, with hat and overcoat on, and his valise in his hand, he +stood on the doorstep of the parsonage, and kissed her once more before +he turned and descended into the darkness. He felt like whistling as his +feet sounded firmly on the plank sidewalk beyond the gate. It seemed as +if he had never been in such capital good spirits before in his life. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +The train was at a standstill somewhere, and the dull, ashen beginnings +of daylight had made a first feeble start toward effacing the lamps in +the car-roof, when the new day opened for Theron. A man who had just +come in stopped at the seat upon which he had been stretched through the +night, and, tapping him brusquely on the knee, said, “I'm afraid I must +trouble you, sir.” After a moment of sleep-burdened confusion, he sat +up, and the man took the other half of the seat and opened a newspaper, +still damp from the press. It was morning, then. + +Theron rubbed a clear space upon the clouded window with his thumb, and +looked out. There was nothing to be seen but a broad stretch of tracks, +and beyond this the shadowed outlines of wagons and machinery in a yard, +with a background of factory buildings. + +The atmosphere in the car was vile beyond belief. He thought of opening +the window, but feared that the peremptory-looking man with the paper, +who had wakened him and made him sit up, might object. They were the +only people in the car who were sitting up. Backwards and forwards, +on either side of the narrow aisle, the dim light disclosed recumbent +forms, curled uncomfortably into corners, or sprawling at difficult +angles which involved the least interference with one another. Here and +there an upturned face gave a livid patch of surface for the mingled +play of the gray dawn and the yellow lamp-light. A ceaseless noise of +snoring was in the air. + +He got up and walked to the tank of ice-water at the end of the aisle, +and took a drink from the most inaccessible portion of the common +tin-cup's rim. The happy idea of going out on the platform struck him, +and he acted upon it. The morning air was deliciously cool and fresh +by contrast, and he filled his lungs with it again and again. Standing +here, he could discern beyond the buildings to the right the faint +purplish outlines of great rounded hills. Some workmen, one of them +bearing a torch, were crouching along under the side of the train, +pounding upon the resonant wheels with small hammers. He recalled having +heard the same sound in the watches of the night, during a prolonged +halt. Some one had said it was Albany. He smiled in spite of himself at +the thought that Bishop Sanderson would never know about the visit he +had missed. + +Swinging himself to the ground, he bent sidewise and looked forward down +the long train. There were five, six, perhaps more, sleeping-cars on +in front. Which one of them, he wondered--and then there came the sharp +“All aboard!” from the other side, and he bundled up the steps again, +and entered the car as the train slowly resumed its progress. + +He was wide-awake now, and quite at his ease. He took his seat, and +diverted himself by winking gravely at a little child facing him on the +next seat but one. There were four other children in the family party, +encamped about the tired and still sleeping mother whose back was turned +to Theron. He recalled now having noticed this poor woman last night, +in the first stage of his journey--how she fed her brood from one of the +numerous baskets piled under their feet, and brought water in a tin dish +of her own from the tank to use in washing their faces with a rag, and +loosened their clothes to dispose them for the night's sleep. The face +of the woman, her manner and slatternly aspect, and the general effect +of her belongings, bespoke squalid ignorance and poverty. Watching her, +Theron had felt curiously interested in the performance. In one sense, +it was scarcely more human than the spectacle of a cat licking her +kittens, or a cow giving suck to her calf. Yet, in another, was there +anything more human? + +The child who had wakened before the rest regarded him with placidity, +declining to be amused by his winkings, but exhibiting no other emotion. +She had been playing by herself with a couple of buttons tied on +a string, and after giving a civil amount of attention to Theron's +grimaces, she turned again to the superior attractions of this toy. Her +self-possession, her capacity for self-entertainment, the care she took +not to arouse the others, all impressed him very much. He felt in his +pocket for a small coin, and, reaching forward, offered it to her. She +took it calmly, bestowed a tranquil gaze upon him for a moment, and went +back to the buttons. Her indifference produced an unpleasant sensation +upon him somehow, and he rubbed the steaming window clear again, and +stared out of it. + +The wide river lay before him, flanked by a precipitous wall of +cliffs which he knew instantly must be the Palisades. There was an +advertisement painted on them which he tried in vain to read. He was +surprised to find they interested him so slightly. He had heard all his +life of the Hudson, and especially of it just at this point. The reality +seemed to him almost commonplace. His failure to be thrilled depressed +him for the moment. + +“I suppose those ARE the Palisades?” he asked his neighbor. + +The man glanced up from his paper, nodded, and made as if to resume his +reading. But his eye had caught something in the prospect through the +window which arrested his attention. “By George!” he exclaimed, and +lifted himself to get a clearer view. + +“What is it?” asked Theron, peering forth as well. + +“Nothing; only Barclay Wendover's yacht is still there. There's been a +hitch of some sort. They were to have left yesterday.” + +“Is that it--that long black thing?” queried Theron. “That can't be a +yacht, can it?” + +“What do you think it is?” answered the other. They were looking at a +slim, narrow hull, lying at anchor, silent and motionless on the drab +expanse of water. “If that ain't a yacht, they haven't begun building +any yet. They're taking her over to the Mediterranean for a cruise, you +know--around India and Japan for the winter, and home by the South Sea +islands. Friend o' mine's in the party. Wouldn't mind the trip myself.” + +“But do you mean to say,” asked Theron, “that that little shell of a +thing can sail across the ocean? Why, how many people would she hold?” + +The man laughed. “Well,” he said, “there's room for two sets of +quadrilles in the chief saloon, if the rest keep their legs well up on +the sofas. But there's only ten or a dozen in the party this time. +More than that rather get in one another's way, especially with so many +ladies on board.” + +Theron asked no more questions, but bent his head to see the last of +this wonderful craft. The sight of it, and what he had heard about it, +suddenly gave point and focus to his thoughts. He knew at last what it +was that had lurked, formless and undesignated, these many days in the +background of his dreams. The picture rose in his mind now of Celia as +the mistress of a yacht. He could see her reclining in a low easy-chair +upon the polished deck, with the big white sails billowing behind her, +and the sun shining upon the deep blue waves, and glistening through the +splash of spray in the air, and weaving a halo of glowing gold about +her fair head. Ah, how the tender visions crowded now upon him! Eternal +summer basked round this enchanted yacht of his fancy--summer sought +now in Scottish firths or Norwegian fiords, now in quaint old Southern +harbors, ablaze with the hues of strange costumes and half-tropical +flowers and fruits, now in far-away Oriental bays and lagoons, or among +the coral reefs and palm-trees of the luxurious Pacific. He dwelt upon +these new imaginings with the fervent longing of an inland-born boy. +Every vague yearning he had ever felt toward salt-water stirred again in +his blood at the thought of the sea--with Celia. + +Why not? She had never visited any foreign land. “Sometime,” she had +said, “sometime, no doubt I will.” He could hear again the wistful, +musing tone of her voice. The thought had fascinations for her, it was +clear. How irresistibly would it not appeal to her, presented with the +added charm of a roving, vagrant independence on the high seas, free +to speed in her snow-winged chariot wherever she willed over the deep, +loitering in this place, or up-helm-and-away to another, with no more +care or weight of responsibility than the gulls tossing through the air +in her wake! + +Theron felt, rather than phrased to himself, that there would not be +“ten or a dozen in the party” on that yacht. Without defining anything +in his mind, he breathed in fancy the same bold ocean breeze which +filled the sails, and toyed with Celia's hair; he looked with her as she +sat by the rail, and saw the same waves racing past, the same vast dome +of cloud and ether that were mirrored in her brown eyes, and there was +no one else anywhere near them. Even the men in sailors' clothes, +who would be pulling at ropes, or climbing up tarred ladders, kept +themselves considerately outside the picture. Only Celia sat there, and +at her feet, gazing up again into her face as in the forest, the man +whose whole being had been consecrated to her service, her worship, by +the kiss. + +“You've passed it now. I was trying to point out the Jumel house to +you--where Aaron Burr lived, you know.” + +Theron roused himself from his day-dream, and nodded with a confused +smile at his neighbor. “Thanks,” he faltered; “I didn't hear you. The +train makes such a noise, and I must have been dozing.” + +He looked about him. The night aspect, as of a tramps' lodging-house, +had quite disappeared from the car. Everybody was sitting up; and the +more impatient were beginning to collect their bundles and hand-bags +from the racks and floor. An expressman came through, jangling a huge +bunch of brass checks on leathern thongs over his arm, and held parley +with passengers along the aisle. Outside, citified streets, with stores +and factories, were alternating in the moving panorama with open fields; +and, even as he looked, these vacant spaces ceased altogether, and +successive regular lines of pavement, between two tall rows of houses +all alike, began to stretch out, wheel to the right, and swing off out +of view, for all the world like the avenues of hop-poles he remembered +as a boy. Then was a long tunnel, its darkness broken at stated +intervals by brief bursts of daylight from overhead, and out of this all +at once the train drew up its full length in some vast, vaguely lighted +enclosure, and stopped. + +“Yes, this is New York,” said the man, folding up his paper, and +springing to his feet. The narrow aisle was filled with many others who +had been prompter still; and Theron stood, bag in hand, waiting till +this energetic throng should have pushed itself bodily past him forth +from the car. Then he himself made his way out, drifting with a sense of +helplessness in their resolute wake. There rose in his mind the sudden +conviction that he would be too late. All the passengers in the forward +sleepers would be gone before he could get there. Yet even this terror +gave him no new power to get ahead of anybody else in the tightly packed +throng. + +Once on the broad platform, the others started off briskly; they all +seemed to know just where they wanted to go, and to feel that no instant +of time was to be lost in getting there. Theron himself caught some of +this urgent spirit, and hurled himself along in the throng with reckless +haste, knocking his bag against peoples' legs, but never pausing for +apology or comment until he found himself abreast of the locomotive at +the head of the train. He drew aside from the main current here, and +began searching the platform, far and near, for those he had travelled +so far to find. + +The platform emptied itself. Theron lingered on in puzzled hesitation, +and looked about him. In the whole immense station, with its acres of +tracks and footways, and its incessantly shifting processions of people, +there was visible nobody else who seemed also in doubt, or who appeared +capable of sympathizing with indecision in any form. Another train came +in, some way over to the right, and before it had fairly stopped, +swarms of eager men began boiling out of each end of each car, literally +precipitating themselves over one another, it seemed to Theron, in their +excited dash down the steps. As they caught their footing below, they +started racing pell-mell down the platform to its end; there he saw +them, looking more than ever like clustered bees in the distance, +struggling vehemently in a dense mass up a staircase in the remote +corner of the building. + +“What are those folks running for? Is there a fire?” he asked an +amiable-faced young mulatto, in the uniform of the sleeping-car service, +who passed him with some light hand-bags. + +“No; they's Harlem people, I guess--jes' catchin' the Elevated--that's +all, sir,” he answered obligingly. + +At the moment some passengers emerged slowly from one of the +sleeping-cars, and came loitering toward him. + +“Why, are there people still in these cars?” he asked eagerly. “Haven't +they all gone?” + +“Some has; some ain't,” the porter replied. “They most generally take +their time about it. They ain't no hurry, so long's they get out 'fore +we're drawn round to the drill-yard.” + +There was still hope, then. Theron took up his bag and walked forward, +intent upon finding some place from which he could watch unobserved the +belated stragglers issuing from the sleeping-cars. He started back +all at once, confronted by a semi-circle of violent men with whips +and badges, who stunned his hearing by a sudden vociferous outburst of +shouts and yells. They made furious gestures at him with their whips +and fists, to enforce the incoherent babel of their voices; and in these +gestures, as in their faces and cries, there seemed a great deal of +menace and very little invitation. There was a big policeman sauntering +near by, and Theron got the idea that it was his presence alone which +protected him from open violence at the hands of these savage hackmen. +He tightened his clutch on his valise, and, turning his back on them +and their uproar, tried to brave it out and stand where he was. But the +policeman came lounging slowly toward him, with such authority in his +swaying gait, and such urban omniscience written all over his broad, +sandy face, that he lost heart, and beat an abrupt retreat off to the +right, where there were a number of doorways, near which other people +had ventured to put down baggage on the floor. + +Here, somewhat screened from observation, he stood for a long time, +watching at odd moments the ceaselessly varying phases of the strange +scene about him, but always keeping an eye on the train he had himself +arrived in. It was slow and dispiriting work. A dozen times his heart +failed him, and he said to himself mournfully that he had had his +journey for nothing. Then some new figure would appear, alighting from +the steps of a sleeper, and hope revived in his breast. + +At last, when over half an hour of expectancy had been marked off by the +big clock overhead, his suspense came to an end. He saw Father Forbes' +erect and substantial form, standing on the car platform nearest of +all, balancing himself with his white hands on the rails, waiting for +something. Then after a little he came down, followed by a black porter, +whose arms were burdened by numerous bags and parcels. The two stood +a minute or so more in hesitation at the side of the steps. Then Celia +descended, and the three advanced. + +The importance of not being discovered was uppermost in Theron's mind, +now that he saw them actually coming toward him. He had avoided this the +previous evening, in the Octavius depot, with some skill, he flattered +himself. It gave him a pleasurable sense of being a man of affairs, +almost a detective, to be confronted by the necessity now of baffling +observation once again. He was still rather without plans for keeping +them in view, once they left the station. He had supposed that he would +be able to hear what hotel they directed their driver to take them to, +and, failing that, he had fostered a notion, based upon a story he had +read when a boy, of throwing himself into another carriage, and bidding +his driver to pursue them in hot haste, and on his life not fail to +track them down. These devices seemed somewhat empty, now that the +urgent moment was at hand; and as he drew back behind some other +loiterers, out of view, he sharply racked his wits for some way of +coping with this most pressing problem. + +It turned out, however, that there was no difficulty at all. Father +Forbes and Celia seemed to have no use for the hackmen, but moved +straight forward toward the street, through the doorway next to that +in which Theron cowered. He stole round, and followed them at a safe +distance, making Celia's hat, and the portmanteau perched on the +shoulder of the porter behind her, his guides. To his surprise, they +still kept on their course when they had reached the sidewalk, and went +over the pavement across an open square which spread itself directly +in front of the station. Hanging as far behind as he dared, he saw them +pass to the other sidewalk diagonally opposite, proceed for a block or +so along this, and then separate at a corner. Celia and the negro lad +went down a side street, and entered the door of a vast, tall red-brick +building which occupied the whole block. The priest, turning on his +heel, came back again and went boldly up the broad steps of the front +entrance to this same structure, which Theron now discovered to be the +Murray Hill Hotel. + +Fortune had indeed favored him. He not only knew where they were, but he +had been himself a witness to the furtive way in which they entered +the house by different doors. Nothing in his own limited experience of +hotels helped him to comprehend the notion of a separate entrance +for ladies and their luggage. He did not feel quite sure about the +significance of what he had observed, in his own mind. But it was +apparent to him that there was something underhanded about it. + +After lingering awhile on the steps of the hotel, and satisfying himself +by peeps through the glass doors that the coast was clear, he ventured +inside. The great corridor contained many people, coming, going, or +standing about, but none of them paid any attention to him. At last +he made up his mind, and beckoned a colored boy to him from a group +gathered in the shadows of the big central staircase. Explaining that +he did not at that moment wish a room, but desired to leave his bag, the +boy took him to a cloak-room, and got him a check for the thing. With +this in his pocket he felt himself more at his ease, and turned to walk +away. Then suddenly he wheeled, and, bending his body over the counter +of the cloak-room, astonished the attendant inside by the eagerness with +which he scrutinized the piled rows of portmanteaus, trunks, overcoats, +and bundles in the little enclosure. + +“What is it you want? Here's your bag, if you're looking for that,” this +man said to him. + +“No, thanks; it's nothing,” replied Theron, straightening himself again. +He had had a narrow escape. Father Forbes and Celia, walking side by +side, had come down the small passage in which he stood, and had passed +him so closely that he had felt her dress brush against him. Fortunately +he had seen them in time, and by throwing himself half into the +cloak-room, had rendered recognition impossible. + +He walked now in the direction they had taken, till he came to the +polite colored man at an open door on the left, who was bowing people +into the breakfast room. Standing in the doorway, he looked about him +till his eye lighted upon his two friends, seated at a small table by +a distant window, with a black waiter, card in hand, bending over in +consultation with them. + +Returning to the corridor, he made bold now to march up to the desk and +examine the register. The priest's name was not there. He found only the +brief entry, “Miss Madden, Octavius,” written, not by her, but by Father +Forbes. On the line were two numbers in pencil, with an “and” between +them. An indirect question to one of the clerks helped him to an +explanation of this. When there were two numbers, it meant that the +guest in question had a parlor as well as a bedroom. + +Here he drew a long, satisfied breath, and turned away. The first half +of his quest stood completed--and that much more fully and easily than +he had dared to hope. He could not but feel a certain new respect for +himself as a man of resource and energy. He had demonstrated that people +could not fool with him with impunity. + +It remained to decide what he would do with his discovery, now that +it had been so satisfactorily made. As yet, he had given this hardly a +thought. Even now, it did not thrust itself forward as a thing demanding +instant attention. It was much more important, first of all, to get a +good breakfast. He had learned that there was another and less formal +eating-place, downstairs in the basement by the bar, with an entrance +from the street. He walked down by the inner stairway instead, feeling +himself already at home in the big hotel. He ordered an ample breakfast, +and came out while it was being served to wash and have his boots +blacked, and he gave the man a quarter of a dollar. His pockets were +filled with silver quarters, half-dollars, and dollars almost to a +burdensome point, and in his valise was a bag full of smaller change, +including many rolls of copper cents which Alice always counted and +packed up on Mondays. In the hurry of leaving he had brought with him +the church collections for the past two weeks. It occurred to him that +he must keep a strict account of his expenditure. Meanwhile he gave ten +cents to another man in a silk-sleeved cardigan jacket, who had merely +stood by and looked at him while his boots were being polished. There +was a sense of metropolitan affluence in the very atmosphere. + +The little table in the adjoining room, on which Theron found his meal +in waiting for him, seemed a vision of delicate napery and refined +appointments in his eyes. He was wolfishly hungry, and the dishes he +looked upon gave him back assurances by sight and smell that he was very +happy as well. The servant in attendance had an extremely white apron +and a kindly black face. He bowed when Theron looked at him, with the +air of a lifelong admirer and humble friend. + +“I suppose you'll have claret with your breakfast, sir?” he remarked, as +if it were a matter of course. + +“Why, certainly,” answered Theron, stretching his legs contentedly +under the table, and tucking the corner of his napkin in his +neckband.--“Certainly, my good man.” + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +At ten o'clock Theron, loitering near the bookstall in the corridor, saw +Father Forbes come downstairs, pass out through the big front doors, get +into a carriage, and drive away. + +This relieved him of a certain sense of responsibility, and he retired +to a corner sofa and sat down. The detective side of him being off duty, +so to speak, there was leisure at last for reflection upon the other +aspects of his mission. Yes; it was high time for him to consider what +he should do next. + +It was easier to recognize this fact, however, than to act upon it. +His mind was full of tricksy devices for eluding this task of serious +thought which he sought to impose upon it. It seemed so much pleasanter +not to think at all--but just to drift. He found himself watching with +envy the men who, as they came out from their breakfast, walked over to +the bookstall, and bought cigars from the row of boxes nestling there +among the newspaper piles. They had such evident delight in the work +of selection; they took off the ends of the cigars so carefully, and +lighted them with such meditative attention,--he could see that he was +wofully handicapped by not knowing how to smoke. He had had the most +wonderful breakfast of his life, but even in the consciousness of +comfortable repletion which pervaded his being, there was an obstinate +sense of something lacking. No doubt a good cigar was the thing needed +to round out the perfection of such a breakfast. He half rose once, +fired by a sudden resolution to go over and get one. But of course that +was nonsense; it would only make him sick. He sat down, and determinedly +set himself to thinking. + +The effort finally brought fruit--and of a kind which gave him a very +unhappy quarter of an hour. The lover part of him was uppermost now, +insistently exposing all its raw surfaces to the stings and scalds of +jealousy. Up to this moment, his brain had always evaded the direct +question of how he and the priest relatively stood in Celia's +estimation. It forced itself remorselessly upon him now; and his +thoughts, so far from shirking the subject, seemed to rise up to meet +it. It was extremely unpleasant, all this. + +But then a calmer view asserted itself. Why go out of his way to +invent anguish for himself? The relations between Celia and the priest, +whatever they might be, were certainly of old standing. They had begun +before his time. His own romance was a more recent affair, and must take +its place, of course, subject to existing conditions. + +It was all right for him to come to New York, and satisfy his legitimate +curiosity as to the exact character and scope of these conditions. But +it was foolish to pretend to be amazed or dismayed at the discovery of +their existence. They were a part of the situation which he, with his +eyes wide open, had accepted. It was his function to triumph over them, +to supplant them, to rear the edifice of his own victorious passion upon +their ruins. It was to this that Celia's kiss had invited him. It was +for this that he had come to New York. To let his purpose be hampered or +thwarted now by childish doubts and jealousies would be ridiculous. + +He rose, and holding himself very erect, walked with measured +deliberation across the corridor and up the broad staircase. There was +an elevator near at hand, he had noticed, but he preferred the stairs. +One or two of the colored boys clustered about the foot of the stairs +looked at him, and he had a moment of dreadful apprehension lest they +should stop his progress. Nothing was said, and he went on. The numbers +on the first floor were not what he wanted, and after some wandering +about he ascended to the next, and then to the third. Every now and then +he encountered attendants, but intuitively he bore himself with an air +of knowing what he was about which protected him from inquiry. + +Finally he came upon the hall-way he sought. Passing along, he found +the doors bearing the numbers he had memorized so well. They were quite +close together, and there was nothing to help him guess which belonged +to the parlor. He hesitated, gazing wistfully from one to the other. In +the instant of indecision, even while his alert ear caught the sound of +feet coming along toward the passage in which he stood, a thought came +to quicken his resolve. It became apparent to him that his discovery +gave him a certain new measure of freedom with Celia, a sort of right to +take things more for granted than heretofore. He chose a door at random, +and rapped distinctly on the panel. + +“Come!” + +The voice he knew for Celia's. The single word, however, recalled +the usage of Father Forbes, which he had noted more than once at the +pastorate, when Maggie had knocked. + +He straightened his shoulders, took his hat off, and pushed open the +door. It WAS the parlor--a room of sofas, pianos, big easy-chairs, and +luxurious bric-a-brac. A tall woman was walking up and down in it, with +bowed head. Her back was at the moment toward him; and he looked at her, +saying to himself that this was the lady of his dreams, the enchantress +of the kiss, the woman who loved him--but somehow it did not seem to his +senses to be Celia. + +She turned, and moved a step or two in his direction before she +mechanically lifted her eyes and saw who was standing in her doorway. +She stopped short, and regarded him. Her face was in the shadow, and he +could make out nothing of its expression, save that there was a general +effect of gravity about it. + +“I cannot receive you,” she said. “You must go away. You have no +business to come like this without sending up your card.” + +Theron smiled at her. The notion of taking in earnest her inhospitable +words did not at all occur to him. He could see now that her face had +vexed and saddened lines upon it, and the sharpness of her tone remained +in his ears. But he smiled again gently, to reassure her. + +“I ought to have sent up my name, I know,” he said, “but I couldn't bear +to wait. I just saw your name on the register and--you WILL forgive me, +won't you?--I ran to you at once. I know you won't have the heart to +send me away!” + +She stood where she had halted, her arms behind her, looking him fixedly +in the face. He had made a movement to advance, and offer his hand in +greeting, but her posture checked the impulse. His courage began to +falter under her inspection. + +“Must I really go down again?” he pleaded. “It's a crushing penalty to +suffer for such little indiscretion. I was so excited to find you were +here--I never stopped to think. Don't send me away; please don't!” + +Celia raised her head. “Well, shut the door, then,” she said, “since you +are so anxious to stay. You would have done much better, though, very +much better indeed, to have taken the hint and gone away.” + +“Will you shake hands with me, Celia?” he asked softly, as he came near +her. + +“Sit there, please!” she made answer, indicating a chair in the middle +of the room. He obeyed her, but to his surprise, instead of seating +herself as well, she began walking up and down the length of the floor +again. After a turn or two she stopped in front of him, and looked him +full in the eye. The light from the windows was on her countenance now, +and its revelations vaguely troubled him. It was a Celia he had never +seen before who confronted him. + +“I am much occupied by other matters,” she said, speaking with cold +impassivity, “but still I find myself curious to know just what limits +you set to your dishonesty.” + +Theron stared up at her. His lips quivered, but no speech came to them. +If this was all merely fond playfulness, it was being carried to a +heart-aching point. + +“I saw you hiding about in the depot at home last evening,” she went on. +“You come up here, pretending to have discovered me by accident, but I +saw you following me from the Grand Central this morning.” + +“Yes, I did both these things,” said Theron, boldly. A fine bravery +tingled in his veins all at once. He looked into her face and found the +spirit to disregard its frowning aspect. “Yes, I did them,” he repeated +defiantly. “That is not the hundredth part, or the thousandth part, +of what I would do for your sake. I have got way beyond caring for any +consequences. Position, reputation, the good opinion of fools--what are +they? Life itself--what does it amount to? Nothing at all--with you in +the balance!” + +“Yes--but I am not in the balance,” observed Celia, quietly. “That is +where you have made your mistake.” + +Theron laid aside his hat. Women were curious creatures, he reflected. +Some were susceptible to one line of treatment, some to another. His own +reading of Celia had always been that she liked opposition, of a smart, +rattling, almost cheeky, sort. One got on best with her by saying bright +things. He searched his brain now for some clever quip that would strike +sparks from the adamantine mood which for the moment it was her whim to +assume. To cover the process, he smiled a little. Then her beauty, +as she stood before him, her queenly form clad in a more stiffly +fashionable dress than he had seen her wearing before, appealed afresh +and overwhelmingly to him. He rose to his feet. + +“Have you forgotten our talk in the woods?” he murmured with a wooing +note. “Have you forgotten the kiss?” + +She shook her head calmly. “I have forgotten nothing.” + +“Then why play with me so cruelly now?” he went on, in a voice of tender +deprecation. “I know you don't mean it, but all the same it bruises my +heart a little. I build myself so wholly upon you, I have made existence +itself depend so completely upon your smile, upon a soft glance in your +eyes, that when they are not there, why, I suffer, I don't know how to +live at all. So be kinder to me, Celia!” + +“I was kinder, as you call it, when you came in,” she replied. “I +told you to go away. That was pure kindness--more kindness than you +deserved.” + +Theron looked at his hat, where it stood on the carpet by his feet. He +felt tears coming into his eyes. “You tell me that you remember,” he +said, in depressed tones, “and yet you treat me like this! Perhaps I am +wrong. No doubt it is my own fault. I suppose I ought not to have come +down here at all.” + +Celia nodded her head in assent to this view. + +“But I swear that I was helpless in the matter,” he burst forth. “I HAD +to come! It would have been literally impossible for me to have stayed +at home, knowing that you were here, and knowing also that--that--” + +“Go on!” said Celia, thrusting forth her under-lip a trifle, and +hardening still further the gleam in her eye, as he stumbled over his +sentence and left it unfinished. “What was the other thing that you were +'knowing'?” + +“Knowing--” he took up the word hesitatingly--“knowing that life would +be insupportable to me if I could not be near you.” + +She curled her lip at him. “You skated over the thin spot very well,” + she commented. “It was on the tip of your tongue to mention the fact +that Father Forbes came with me. Oh, I can read you through and through, +Mr. Ware.” + +In a misty way Theron felt things slipping from his grasp. The rising +moisture blurred his eyes as their gaze clung to Celia. + +“Then if you do read me,” he protested, “you must know how utterly my +heart and brain are filled with you. No other man in all the world can +yield himself so absolutely to the woman he worships as I can. You have +taken possession of me so wholly, I am not in the least master of myself +any more. I don't know what I say or what I do. I am not worthy of you, +I know. No man alive could be that. But no one else will idolize and +reverence you as I do. Believe me when I say that, Celia! And how can +you blame me, in your heart, for following you? 'Whither thou goest, +I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my +people, and thy God my God; where thou diest, will I die, and there will +I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death +part thee and me!'” + +Celia shrugged her shoulders, and moved a few steps away from him. +Something like despair seized upon him. + +“Surely,” he urged with passion, “surely I have a right to remind you of +the kiss!” + +She turned. “The kiss,” she said meditatively. “Yes, you have a right +to remind me of it. Oh, yes, an undoubted right. You have another right +too--the right to have the kiss explained to you. It was of the good-bye +order. It signified that we weren't to meet again, and that just for one +little moment I permitted myself to be sorry for you. That was all.” + +He held himself erect under the incredible words, and gazed blankly at +her. The magnitude of what he confronted bewildered him; his mind was +incapable of taking it in. “You mean--” he started to say, and then +stopped, helplessly staring into her face, with a dropped jaw. It was +too much to try to think what she meant. + +A little side-thought sprouted in the confusion of his brain. It grew +until it spread a bitter smile over his pale face. “I know so little +about kisses,” he said; “I am such a greenhorn at that sort of thing. +You should have had pity on my inexperience, and told me just what brand +of kiss it was I was getting. Probably I ought to have been able to +distinguish, but you see I was brought up in the country--on a farm. +They don't have kisses in assorted varieties there.” + +She bowed her head slightly. “Yes, you are entitled to say that,” she +assented. “I was to blame, and it is quite fair that you should tell +me so. You spoke of your inexperience, your innocence. That was why I +kissed you in saying good-bye. It was in memory of that innocence of +yours, to which you yourself had been busy saying good-bye ever since I +first saw you. The idea seemed to me to mean something at the moment. I +see now that it was too subtle. I do not usually err on that side.” + +Theron kept his hold upon her gaze, as if it afforded him bodily +support. He felt that he ought to stoop and take up his hat, but he +dared not look away from her. “Do you not err now, on the side of +cruelty?” he asked her piteously. + +It seemed for the instant as if she were wavering, and he swiftly thrust +forth other pleas. “I admit that I did wrong to follow you to New York. +I see that now. But it was an offence committed in entire good faith. +Think of it, Celia! I have never seen you since that day--that day in +the woods. I have waited--and waited--with no sign from you, no chance +of seeing you at all. Think what that meant to me! Everything in the +world had been altered for me, torn up by the roots. I was a new being, +plunged into a new existence. The kiss had done that. But until I saw +you again, I could not tell whether this vast change in me and my life +was for good or for bad--whether the kiss had come to me as a blessing +or a curse. The suspense was killing me, Celia! That is why, when I +learned that you were coming here, I threw everything to the winds and +followed you. You blame me for it, and I bow my head and accept the +blame. But are you justified in punishing me so terribly--in going on +after I have confessed my error, and cutting my heart into little +strips, putting me to death by torture?” + +“Sit down,” said Celia, with a softened weariness in her voice. She +seated herself in front of him as he sank into his chair again. “I don't +want to give you unnecessary pain, but you have insisted on forcing +yourself into a position where there isn't anything else but pain. I +warned you to go away, but you wouldn't. No matter how gently I may try +to explain things to you, you are bound to get nothing but suffering out +of the explanation. Now shall I still go on?” + +He inclined his head in token of assent, and did not lift it again, but +raised toward her a disconsolate gaze from a pallid, drooping face. + +“It is all in a single word, Mr. Ware,” she proceeded, in low tones. +“I speak for others as well as myself, mind you--we find that you are a +bore.” + +Theron's stiffened countenance remained immovable. He continued to stare +unblinkingly up into her eyes. + +“We were disposed to like you very much when we first knew you,” + Celia went on. “You impressed us as an innocent, simple, genuine young +character, full of mother's milk. It was like the smell of early spring +in the country to come in contact with you. Your honesty of nature, +your sincerity in that absurd religion of yours, your general NAIVETE of +mental and spiritual get-up, all pleased us a great deal. We thought you +were going to be a real acquisition.” + +“Just a moment--whom do you mean by 'we'?” He asked the question calmly +enough, but in a voice with an effect of distance in it. + +“It may not be necessary to enter into that,” she replied. “Let me go +on. But then it became apparent, little by little, that we had misjudged +you. We liked you, as I have said, because you were unsophisticated and +delightfully fresh and natural. Somehow we took it for granted you would +stay so. But that is just what you didn't do--just what you hadn't the +sense to try to do. Instead, we found you inflating yourself with +all sorts of egotisms and vanities. We found you presuming upon the +friendships which had been mistakenly extended to you. Do you want +instances? You went to Dr. Ledsmar's house that very day after I had +been with you to get a piano at Thurston's, and tried to inveigle him +into talking scandal about me. You came to me with tales about him. You +went to Father Forbes, and sought to get him to gossip about us both. +Neither of those men will ever ask you inside his house again. But that +is only one part of it. Your whole mind became an unpleasant thing +to contemplate. You thought it would amuse and impress us to hear you +ridiculing and reviling the people of your church, whose money supports +you, and making a mock of the things they believe in, and which you for +your life wouldn't dare let them know you didn't believe in. You talked +to us slightingly about your wife. What were you thinking of, not +to comprehend that that would disgust us? You showed me once--do you +remember?--a life of George Sand that you had just bought,--bought +because you had just discovered that she had an unclean side to her +life. You chuckled as you spoke to me about it, and you were for all the +world like a little nasty boy, giggling over something dirty that older +people had learned not to notice. These are merely random incidents. +They are just samples, picked hap-hazard, of the things in you which +have been opening our eyes, little by little, to our mistake. I +can understand that all the while you really fancied that you were +expanding, growing, in all directions. What you took to be improvement +was degeneration. When you thought that you were impressing us most by +your smart sayings and doings, you were reminding us most of the fable +about the donkey trying to play lap-dog. And it wasn't even an honest, +straightforward donkey at that!” + +She uttered these last words sorrowfully, her hands clasped in her lap, +and her eyes sinking to the floor. A silence ensued. Then Theron reached +a groping hand out for his hat, and, rising, walked with a lifeless, +automatic step to the door. + +He had it half open, when the impossibility of leaving in this way +towered suddenly in his path and overwhelmed him. He slammed the door +to, and turned as if he had been whirled round by some mighty wind. +He came toward her, with something almost menacing in the vigor of his +movements, and in the wild look upon his white, set face. Halting +before her, he covered the tailor-clad figure, the coiled red hair, the +upturned face with its simulated calm, the big brown eyes, the rings +upon the clasped fingers, with a sweeping, comprehensive glare of +passion. + +“This is what you have done to me, then!” + +His voice was unrecognizable in his own ears--hoarse and broken, but +with a fright-compelling something in it which stimulated his rage. The +horrible notion of killing her, there where she sat, spread over the +chaos of his mind with an effect of unearthly light--red and abnormally +evil. It was like that first devilish radiance ushering in Creation, of +which the first-fruit was Cain. Why should he not kill her? In all ages, +women had been slain for less. Yes--and men had been hanged. Something +rose and stuck in his dry throat; and as he swallowed it down, the +sinister flare of murderous fascination died suddenly away into +darkness. The world was all black again--plunged in the Egyptian night +which lay upon the face of the deep while the earth was yet without form +and void. He was alone on it--alone among awful, planetary solitudes +which crushed him. + +The sight of Celia, sitting motionless only a pace in front of him, was +plain enough to his eyes. It was an illusion. She was really a star, +many millions of miles away. These things were hard to understand; but +they were true, none the less. People seemed to be about him, but in +fact he was alone. He recalled that even the little child in the car, +playing with those two buttons on a string, would have nothing to do +with him. Take his money, yes; take all he would give her--but not smile +at him, not come within reach of him! Men closed the doors of their +houses against him. The universe held him at arm's length as a nuisance. + +He was standing with one knee upon a sofa. Unconsciously he had moved +round to the side of Celia; and as he caught the effect of her face now +in profile, memory-pictures began at once building themselves in his +brain--pictures of her standing in the darkened room of the cottage of +death, declaiming the CONFITEOR; of her seated at the piano, under the +pure, mellowed candle-light; of her leaning her chin on her hands, and +gazing meditatively at the leafy background of the woods they were in; +of her lying back, indolently content, in the deck-chair on the yacht of +his fancy--that yacht which a few hours before had seemed so brilliantly +and bewitchingly real to him, and now--now--! + +He sank in a heap upon the couch, and, burying his face among its +cushions, wept and groaned aloud. His collapse was absolute. He sobbed +with the abandonment of one who, in the veritable presence of death, +lets go all sense of relation to life. + +Presently some one was touching him on the shoulder--an incisive, +pointed touch--and he checked himself, and lifted his face. + +“You will have to get up, and present some sort of an appearance, and +go away at once,” Celia said to him in low, rapid tones. “Some gentlemen +are at the door, whom I have been waiting for.” + +As he stupidly sat up and tried to collect his faculties, Celia had +opened the door and admitted two visitors. The foremost was Father +Forbes; and he, with some whispered, smiling words, presented to her his +companion, a tall, robust, florid man of middle-age, with a frock-coat +and a gray mustache, sharply waxed. The three spoke for a moment +together. Then the priest's wandering eye suddenly lighted upon the +figure on the sofa. He stared, knitted his brows, and then lifted them +in inquiry as he turned to Celia. + +“Poor man!” she said readily, in tones loud enough to reach Theron. “It +is our neighbor, Father, the Rev. Mr. Ware. He hit upon my name in +the register quite unexpectedly, and I had him come up. He is in sore +distress--a great and sudden bereavement. He is going now. Won't you +speak to him in the hall--a few words, Father? It would please him. He +is terribly depressed.” + +The words had drawn Theron to his feet, as by some mechanical process. +He took up his hat and moved dumbly to the door. It seemed to him that +Celia intended offering to shake hands; but he went past her with only +some confused exchange of glances and a murmured word or two. The tall +stranger, who drew aside to let him pass, had acted as if he expected to +be introduced. Theron, emerging into the hall, leaned against the wall +and looked dreamily at the priest, who had stepped out with him. + +“I am very sorry to learn that you are in trouble, Mr. Ware,” Father +Forbes said, gently enough, but in hurried tones. “Miss Madden is also +in trouble. I mentioned to you that her brother had got into a serious +scrape. I have brought my old friend, General Brady, to consult with +her about the matter. He knows all the parties concerned, and he can set +things right if anybody can.” + +“It's a mistake about me--I 'm not in any trouble at all,” said Theron. +“I just dropped in to make a friendly call.” + +The priest glanced sharply at him, noting with a swift, informed +scrutiny how he sprawled against the wall, and what vacuity his eyes and +loosened lips expressed. + +“Then you have a talent for the inopportune amounting to positive +genius,” said Father Forbes, with a stormy smile. + +“Tell me this, Father Forbes,” the other demanded, with impulsive +suddenness, “is it true that you don't want me in your house again? Is +that the truth or not?” + +“The truth is always relative, Mr. Ware,” replied the priest, turning +away, and closing the door of the parlor behind him with a decisive +sound. + +Left alone, Theron started to make his way downstairs. He found his +legs wavering under him and making zigzag movements of their own in a +bewildering fashion. He referred this at first, in an outburst of fresh +despair, to the effects of his great grief. Then, as he held tight to +the banister and governed his descent step by step, it occurred to him +that it must be the wine he had had for breakfast. Upon examination, he +was not so unhappy, after all. + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +At the second peal of the door-bell, Brother Soulsby sat up in bed. +It was still pitch-dark, and the memory of the first ringing fluttered +musically in his awakening consciousness as a part of some dream he had +been having. + +“Who the deuce can that be?” he mused aloud, in querulous resentment at +the interruption. + +“Put your head out of the window, and ask,” suggested his wife, +drowsily. + +The bell-pull scraped violently in its socket, and a third outburst of +shrill reverberations clamored through the silent house. + +“Whatever you do, I'd do it before he yanked the whole thing to pieces,” + added the wife, with more decision. + +Brother Soulsby was wide awake now. He sprang to the floor, and, groping +about in the obscurity, began drawing on some of his clothes. He rapped +on the window during the process, to show that the house was astir, and +a minute afterward made his way out of the room and down the stairs, the +boards creaking under his stockinged feet as he went. + +Nearly a quarter of an hour passed before he returned. Sister Soulsby, +lying in sleepy quiescence, heard vague sounds of voices at the front +door, and did not feel interested enough to lift her head and listen. +A noise of footsteps on the sidewalk followed, first receding from the +door, then turning toward it, this second time marking the presence of +more than one person. There seemed in this the implication of a guest, +and she shook off the dozing impulses which enveloped her faculties, +and waited to hear more. There came up, after further muttering of male +voices, the undeniable chink of coins striking against one another. Then +more footsteps, the resonant slam of a carriage door out in the street, +the grinding of wheels turning on the frosty road, and the racket of a +vehicle and horses going off at a smart pace into the night. Somebody +had come, then. She yawned at the thought, but remained well awake, +tracing idly in her mind, as various slight sounds rose from the lower +floor, the different things Soulsby was probably doing. Their spare room +was down there, directly underneath, but curiously enough no one seemed +to enter it. The faint murmur of conversation which from time to +time reached her came from the parlor instead. At last she heard her +husband's soft tread coming up the staircase, and still there had been +no hint of employing the guest-chamber. What could he be about? she +wondered. + +Brother Soulsby came in, bearing a small lamp in his hand, the reddish +light of which, flaring upward, revealed an unlooked-for display of +amusement on his thin, beardless face. He advanced to the bedside, +shading the glare from her blinking eyes with his palm, and grinned. + +“A thousand guesses, old lady,” he said, with a dry chuckle, “and you +wouldn't have a ghost of a chance. You might guess till Hades froze over +seven feet thick, and still you wouldn't hit it.” + +She sat up in turn. “Good gracious, man,” she began, “you don't mean--” + Here the cheerful gleam in his small eyes reassured her, and she sighed +relief, then smiled confusedly. “I half thought, just for the minute,” + she explained, “it might be some bounder who'd come East to try and +blackmail me. But no, who is it--and what on earth have you done with +him?” + +Brother Soulsby cackled in merriment. “It's Brother Ware of Octavius, +out on a little bat, all by himself. He says he's been on the loose only +two days; but it looks more like a fortnight.” + +“OUR Brother Ware?” she regarded him with open-eyed surprise. + +“Well, yes, I suppose he's OUR Brother Ware--some,” returned Soulsby, +genially. “He seems to think so, anyway.” + +“But tell me about it!” she urged eagerly. “What's the matter with him? +How does he explain it?” + +“Well, he explains it pretty badly, if you ask me,” said Soulsby, with +a droll, joking eye and a mock-serious voice. He seated himself on the +side of the bed, facing her, and still considerately shielding her +from the light of the lamp he held. “But don't think I suggested any +explanations. I've been a mother myself. He's merely filled himself up +to the neck with rum, in the simple, ordinary, good old-fashioned way. +That's all. What is there to explain about that?” + +She looked meditatively at him for a time, shaking her head. “No, +Soulsby,” she said gravely, at last. “This isn't any laughing matter. +You may be sure something bad has happened, to set him off like that. +I'm going to get up and dress right now. What time is it?” + +“Now don't you do anything of the sort,” he urged persuasively. “It +isn't five o'clock; it'll be dark for nearly an hour yet. Just you turn +over, and have another nap. He's all right. I put him on the sofa, with +the buffalo robe round him. You'll find him there, safe and sound, when +it's time for white folks to get up. You know how it breaks you up all +day, not to get your full sleep.” + +“I don't care if it makes me look as old as the everlasting hills,” she +said. “Can't you understand, Soulsby? The thing worries me--gets on my +nerves. I couldn't close an eye, if I tried. I took a great fancy to +that young man. I told you so at the time.” + +Soulsby nodded, and turned down the wick of his lamp a trifle. “Yes, I +know you did,” he remarked in placidly non-contentious tones. “I +can't say I saw much in him myself, but I daresay you're right.” There +followed a moment's silence, during which he experimented in turning the +wick up again. “But, anyway,” he went on, “there isn't anything you can +do. He'll sleep it off, and the longer he's left alone the better. It +isn't as if we had a hired girl, who'd come down and find him there, and +give the whole thing away. He's fixed up there perfectly comfortable; +and when he's had his sleep out, and wakes up on his own account, he'll +be feeling a heap better.” + +The argument might have carried conviction, but on the instant the sound +of footsteps came to them from the room below. The subdued noise rose +regularly, as of one pacing to and fro. + +“No, Soulsby, YOU come back to bed, and get YOUR sleep out. I'm going +downstairs. It's no good talking; I'm going.” + +Brother Soulsby offered no further opposition, either by talk or +demeanor, but returned contentedly to bed, pulling the comforter over +his ears, and falling into the slow, measured respiration of tranquil +slumber before his wife was ready to leave the room. + +The dim, cold gray of twilight was sifting furtively through the lace +curtains of the front windows when Mrs. Soulsby, lamp in hand, entered +the parlor. She confronted a figure she would have hardly recognized. +The man seemed to have been submerged in a bath of disgrace. From the +crown of his head to the soles of his feet, everything about him was +altered, distorted, smeared with an intangible effect of shame. In the +vague gloom of the middle distance, between lamp and window, she noticed +that his shoulders were crouched, like those of some shambling tramp. +The frowsy shadows of a stubble beard lay on his jaw and throat. His +clothes were crumpled and hung awry; his boots were stained with mud. +The silk hat on the piano told its battered story with dumb eloquence. + +Lifting the lamp, she moved forward a step, and threw its light upon his +face. A little groan sounded involuntarily upon her lips. Out of a mask +of unpleasant features, swollen with drink and weighted by the physical +craving for rest and sleep, there stared at her two bloodshot eyes, +shining with the wild light of hysteria. The effect of dishevelled hair, +relaxed muscles, and rough, half-bearded lower face lent to these eyes, +as she caught their first glance, an unnatural glare. The lamp shook +in her hand for an instant. Then, ashamed of herself, she held out her +other hand fearlessly to him. + +“Tell me all about it, Theron,” she said calmly, and with a soothing, +motherly intonation in her voice. + +He did not take the hand she offered, but suddenly, with a wailing moan, +cast himself on his knees at her feet. He was so tall a man that the +movement could have no grace. He abased his head awkwardly, to bury +it among the folds of the skirts at her ankles. She stood still for a +moment, looking down upon him. Then, blowing out the light, she reached +over and set the smoking lamp on the piano near by. The daylight made +things distinguishable in a wan, uncertain way, throughout the room. + +“I have come out of hell, for the sake of hearing some human being speak +to me like that!” + +The thick utterance proceeded in a muffled fashion from where his face +grovelled against her dress. Its despairing accents appealed to her, but +even more was she touched by the ungainly figure he made, sprawling on +the carpet. + +“Well, since you are out, stay out,” she answered, as reassuringly as +she could. “But get up and take a seat here beside me, like a sensible +man, and tell me all about it. Come! I insist!” + +In obedience to her tone, and the sharp tug at his shoulder with which +she emphasized it, he got slowly to his feet, and listlessly seated +himself on the sofa to which she pointed. He hung his head, and began +catching his breath with a periodical gasp, half hiccough, half sob. + +“First of all,” she said, in her brisk, matter-of-fact manner, “don't +you want to lie down there again, and have me tuck you up snug with the +buffalo robe, and go to sleep? That would be the best thing you could +do.” + +He shook his head disconsolately, from side to side. “I can't!” he +groaned, with a swifter recurrence of the sob-like convulsions. “I'm +dying for sleep, but I'm too--too frightened!” + +“Come, I'll sit beside you till you drop off,” she said, with masterful +decision. He suffered himself to be pushed into recumbency on the couch, +and put his head with docility on the pillow she brought from the spare +room. When she had spread the fur over him, and pushed her chair close +to the sofa, she stood by it for a little, looking down in meditation at +his demoralized face. Under the painful surface-blur of wretchedness +and fatigued debauchery, she traced reflectively the lineaments of the +younger and cleanlier countenance she had seen a few months before. +Nothing essential had been taken away. There was only this pestiferous +overlaying of shame and cowardice to be removed. The face underneath was +still all right. + +With a soft, maternal touch, she smoothed the hair from his forehead +into order. Then she seated herself, and, when he got his hand out from +under the robe and thrust it forth timidly, she took it in hers and +held it in a warm, sympathetic grasp. He closed his eyes at this, and +gradually the paroxysmal catch in his breathing lapsed. The daylight +strengthened, until at last tiny flecks of sunshine twinkled in the +meshes of the further curtains at the window. She fancied him asleep, +and gently sought to disengage her hand, but his fingers clutched at it +with vehemence, and his eyes were wide open. + +“I can't sleep at all,” he murmured. “I want to talk.” + +“There 's nothing in the world to hinder you,” she commented smilingly. + +“I tell you the solemn truth,” he said, lifting his voice in dogged +assertion: “the best sermon I ever preached in my life, I preached only +three weeks ago, at the camp-meeting. It was admitted by everybody to be +far and away my finest effort! They will tell you the same!” + +“It's quite likely,” assented Sister Soulsby. “I quite believe it.” + +“Then how can anybody say that I've degenerated, that I've become a +fool?” he demanded. + +“I haven't heard anybody hint at such a thing,” she answered quietly. + +“No, of course, YOU haven't heard them!” he cried. “I heard them, +though!” Then, forcing himself to a sitting posture, against the +restraint of her hand, he flung back the covering. “I'm burning hot +already! Yes, those were the identical words: I haven't improved; I've +degenerated. People hate me; they won't have me in their houses. They +say I'm a nuisance and a bore. I'm like a little nasty boy. That's what +they say. Even a young man who was dying--lying right on the edge of his +open grave--told me solemnly that I reminded him of a saint once, but I +was only fit for a barkeeper now. They say I really don't know anything +at all. And I'm not only a fool, they say, I'm a dishonest fool into the +bargain!” + +“But who says such twaddle as that?” she returned consolingly. The +violence of his emotion disturbed her. “You mustn't imagine such things. +You are among friends here. Other people are your friends, too. They +have the very highest opinion of you.” + +“I haven't a friend on earth but you!” he declared solemnly. His eyes +glowed fiercely, and his voice sank into a grave intensity of tone. “I +was going to kill myself. I went on to the big bridge to throw myself +off, and a policeman saw me trying to climb over the railing, and he +grabbed me and marched me away. Then he threw me out at the entrance, +and said he would club my head off if I came there again. And then I +went and stood and let the cable-cars pass close by me, and twenty times +I thought I had the nerve to throw myself under the next one, and then +I waited for the next--and I was afraid! And then I was in a crowd +somewhere, and the warning came to me that I was going to die. The fool +needn't go kill himself: God would take care of that. It was my heart, +you know. I've had that terrible fluttering once before. It seized me +this time, and I fell down in the crowd, and some people walked over +me, but some one else helped me up, and let me sit down in a big lighted +hallway, the entrance to some theatre, and some one brought me some +brandy, but somebody else said I was drunk, and they took it away again, +and put me out. They could see I was a fool, that I hadn't a friend +on earth. And when I went out, there was a big picture of a woman in +tights, and the word 'Amazons' overhead--and then I remembered you. I +knew you were my friend--the only one I have on earth.” + +“It is very flattering--to be remembered like that,” said Sister +Soulsby, gently. The disposition to laugh was smothered by a pained +perception of the suffering he was undergoing. His face had grown drawn +and haggard under the burden of his memories as he rambled on. + +“So I came straight to you,” he began again. “I had just money enough +left to pay my fare. The rest is in my valise at the hotel--the Murray +Hill Hotel. It belongs to the church. I stole it from the church. When I +am dead they can get it back again!” + +Sister Soulsby forced a smile to her lips. “What nonsense you +talk--about dying!” she exclaimed. “Why, man alive, you'll sleep this +all off like a top, if you'll only lie down and give yourself a chance. +Come, now, you must do as you're told.” + +With a resolute hand, she made him lie down again, and once more covered +him with the fur. He submitted, and did not even offer to put out his +arm this time, but looked in piteous dumbness at her for a long time. +While she sat thus in silence, the sound of Brother Soulsby moving about +upstairs became audible. + +Theron heard it, and the importance of hurrying on some further +disclosure seemed to suggest itself. “I can see you think I'm just +drunk,” he said, in low, sombre tones. “Of course that's what HE +thought. The hackman thought so, and so did the conductor, and +everybody. But I hoped you would know better. I was sure you would see +that it was something worse than that. See here, I'll tell you. Then +you'll understand. I've been drinking for two days and one whole night, +on my feet all the while, wandering alone in that big strange New York, +going through places where they murdered men for ten cents, mixing +myself up with the worst people in low bar-rooms and dance-houses, and +they saw I had money in my pocket, too, and yet nobody touched me, or +offered to lay a finger on me. Do you know why? They understood that I +wanted to get drunk, and couldn't. The Indians won't harm an idiot, or +lunatic, you know. Well, it was the same with these vilest of the vile. +They saw that I was a fool whom God had taken hold of, to break his +heart first, and then to craze his brain, and then to fling him on a +dunghill to die like a dog. They believe in God, those people. They're +the only ones who do, it seems to me. And they wouldn't interfere when +they saw what He was doing to me. But I tell you I wasn't drunk. I +haven't been drunk. I'm only heart-broken, and crushed out of shape +and life--that's all. And I've crawled here just to have a friend by me +when--when I come to the end.” + +“You're not talking very sensibly, or very bravely either, Theron Ware,” + remarked his companion. “It's cowardly to give way to notions like +that.” + +“Oh, I 'm not afraid to die; don't think that,” he remonstrated wearily. +“If there is a Judgment, it has hit me as hard as it can already. There +can't be any hell worse than that I've gone through. Here I am talking +about hell,” he continued, with a pained contraction of the muscles +about his mouth--a stillborn, malformed smile--“as if I believed in one! +I've got way through all my beliefs, you know. I tell you that frankly.” + +“It's none of my business,” she reassured him. “I'm not your Bishop, or +your confessor. I'm just your friend, your pal, that's all.” + +“Look here!” he broke in, with some animation and a new intensity of +glance and voice. “If I was going to live, I'd have some funny things to +tell. Six months ago I was a good man. I not only seemed to be good, to +others and to myself, but I was good. I had a soul; I had a conscience. +I was going along doing my duty, and I was happy in it. We were poor, +Alice and I, and people behaved rather hard toward us, and sometimes we +were a little down in the mouth about it; but that was all. We really +were happy; and I--I really was a good man. Here's the kind of joke God +plays! You see me here six months after. Look at me! I haven't got an +honest hair in my head. I'm a bad man through and through, that's what +I am. I look all around at myself, and there isn't an atom left anywhere +of the good man I used to be. And, mind you, I never lifted a finger +to prevent the change. I didn't resist once; I didn't make any fight. +I just walked deliberately down-hill, with my eyes wide open. I told +myself all the while that I was climbing uphill instead, but I knew in +my heart that it was a lie. Everything about me was a lie. I wouldn't be +telling the truth, even now, if--if I hadn't come to the end of my rope. +Now, how do you explain that? How can it be explained? Was I really +rotten to the core all the time, years ago, when I seemed to everybody, +myself and the rest, to be good and straight and sincere? Was it all a +sham, or does God take a good man and turn him into an out-and-out bad +one, in just a few months--in the time that it takes an ear of corn to +form and ripen and go off with the mildew? Or isn't there any God at +all--but only men who live and die like animals? And that would explain +my case, wouldn't it? I got bitten and went vicious and crazy, and +they've had to chase me out and hunt me to my death like a mad dog! Yes, +that makes it all very simple. It isn't worth while to discuss me at +all as if I had a soul, is it? I'm just one more mongrel cur that's gone +mad, and must be put out of the way. That's all.” + +“See here,” said Sister Soulsby, alertly, “I half believe that a good +cuffing is what you really stand in need of. Now you stop all this +nonsense, and lie quiet and keep still! Do you hear me?” + +The jocose sternness which she assumed, in words and manner, seemed to +soothe him. He almost smiled up at her in a melancholy way, and sighed +profoundly. + +“I've told you MY religion before,” she went on with gentleness. “The +sheep and the goats are to be separated on Judgment Day, but not a +minute sooner. In other words, as long as human life lasts, good, bad, +and indifferent are all braided up together in every man's nature, and +every woman's too. You weren't altogether good a year ago, any more than +you're altogether bad now. You were some of both then; you're some +of both now. If you've been making an extra sort of fool of yourself +lately, why, now that you recognize it, the only thing to do is to slow +steam, pull up, and back engine in the other direction. In that way +you'll find things will even themselves up. It's a see-saw with all +of us, Theron Ware--sometimes up; sometimes down. But nobody is rotten +clear to the core.” + +He closed his eyes, and lay in silence for a time. + +“This is what day of the week?” he asked, at last. + +“Friday, the nineteenth.” + +“Wednesday--that would be the seventeenth. That was the day ordained for +my slaughter. On that morning, I was the happiest man in the world. +No king could have been so proud and confident as I was. A wonderful +romance had come to me. The most beautiful young woman in the world, the +most talented too, was waiting for me. An express train was carrying me +to her, and it couldn't go fast enough to keep up with my eagerness. She +was very rich, and she loved me, and we were to live in eternal summer, +wherever we liked, on a big, beautiful yacht. No one else had such a +life before him as that. It seemed almost too good for me, but I thought +I had grown and developed so much that perhaps I would be worthy of it. +Oh, how happy I was! I tell you this because--because YOU are not like +the others. You will understand.” + +“Yes, I understand,” she said patiently. “Well--you were being so +happy.” + +“That was in the morning--Wednesday the seventeenth--early in the +morning. There was a little girl in the car, playing with some buttons, +and when I tried to make friends with her, she looked at me, and she +saw, right at a glance, that I was a fool. 'Out of the mouths of babes +and sucklings,' you know. She was the first to find it out. It began +like that, early in the morning. But then after that everybody knew it. +They had only to look at me and they said: 'Why, this is a fool--like a +little nasty boy; we won't let him into our houses; we find him a bore.' +That is what they said.” + +“Did SHE say it?” Sister Soulsby permitted herself to ask. + +For answer Theron bit his lips, and drew his chin under the fur, and +pushed his scowling face into the pillow. The spasmodic, sob-like gasps +began to shake him again. She laid a compassionate hand upon his hot +brow. + +“That is why I made my way here to you,” he groaned piteously. “I knew +you would sympathize; I could tell it all to you. And it was so awful, +to die there alone in the strange city--I couldn't do it--with nobody +near me who liked me, or thought well of me. Alice would hate me. There +was no one but you. I wanted to be with you--at the last.” + +His quavering voice broke off in a gust of weeping, and his face frankly +surrendered itself to the distortions of a crying child's countenance, +wide-mouthed and tragically grotesque in its abandonment of control. + +Sister Soulsby, as her husband's boots were heard descending the stairs, +rose, and drew the robe up to half cover his agonized visage. She patted +the sufferer softly on the head, and then went to the stair-door. + +“I think he'll go to sleep now,” she said, lifting her voice to the +new-comer, and with a backward nod toward the couch. “Come out into the +kitchen while I get breakfast, or into the sitting-room, or somewhere, +so as not to disturb him. He's promised me to lie perfectly quiet, and +try to sleep.” + +When they had passed together out of the room, she turned. “Soulsby,” + she said with half-playful asperity, “I'm disappointed in you. For a man +who's knocked about as much as you have, I must say you've picked up an +astonishingly small outfit of gumption. That poor creature in there is +no more drunk than I am. He's been drinking--yes, drinking like a +fish; but it wasn't able to make him drunk. He's past being drunk; he's +grief-crazy. It's a case of 'woman.' Some girl has made a fool of him, +and decoyed him up in a balloon, and let him drop. He's been hurt bad, +too.” + +“We have all been hurt in our day and generation,” responded Brother +Soulsby, genially. “Don't you worry; he'll sleep that off too. It takes +longer than drink, and it doesn't begin to be so pleasant, but it can be +slept off. Take my word for it, he'll be a different man by noon.” + +When noon came, however, Brother Soulsby was on his way to summon one +of the village doctors. Toward nightfall, he went out again to telegraph +for Alice. + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +Spring fell early upon the pleasant southern slopes of the Susquehanna +country. The snow went off as by magic. The trees budded and leaved +before their time. The birds came and set up their chorus in the elms, +while winter seemed still a thing of yesterday. + +Alice, clad gravely in black, stood again upon a kitchen-stoop, and +looked across an intervening space of back-yards and fences to where the +tall boughs, fresh in their new verdure, were silhouetted against the +pure blue sky. The prospect recalled to her irresistibly another sunlit +morning, a year ago, when she had stood in the doorway of her own +kitchen, and surveyed a scene not unlike this; it might have been with +the same carolling robins, the same trees, the same azure segment of +the tranquil, speckless dome. Then she was looking out upon surroundings +novel and strange to her, among which she must make herself at home as +best she could. But at least the ground was secure under her feet; at +least she had a home, and a word from her lips could summon her husband +out, to stand beside her with his arm about her, and share her buoyant, +hopeful joy in the promises of spring. + +To think that that was only one little year ago--the mere revolution of +four brief seasons! And now--! + +Sister Soulsby, wiping her hands on her apron, came briskly out upon +the stoop. Some cheerful commonplace was on her tongue, but a glance at +Alice's wistful face kept it back. She passed an arm around her waist +instead, and stood in silence, looking at the elms. + +“It brings back memories to me--all this,” said Alice, nodding her head, +and not seeking to dissemble the tears which sprang to her eyes. + +“The men will be down in a minute, dear,” the other reminded her. +“They'd nearly finished packing before I put the biscuits in the oven. +We mustn't wear long faces before folks, you know.” + +“Yes, I know,” murmured Alice. Then, with a sudden impulse, she turned +to her companion. “Candace,” she said fervently, “we're alone here for +the moment; I must tell you that if I don't talk gratitude to you, it's +simply and solely because I don't know where to begin, or what to say. +I'm just dumfounded at your goodness. It takes my speech away. I only +know this, Candace: God will be very good to you.” + +“Tut! tut!” replied Sister Soulsby, “that's all right, you dear thing. I +know just how you feel. Don't dream of being under obligation to explain +it to me, or to thank us at all. We've had all sorts of comfort out of +the thing--Soulsby and I. We used to get downright lonesome, here all +by ourselves, and we've simply had a winter of pleasant company instead, +that s all. Besides, there's solid satisfaction in knowing that at +last, for once in our lives we've had a chance to be of some real use to +somebody who truly needed it. You can't imagine how stuck up that makes +us in our own conceit. We feel as if we were George Peabody and Lady +Burdett-Coutts, and several other philanthropists thrown in. No, +seriously, don't think of it again. We're glad to have been able to do +it all; and if you only go ahead now, and prosper and be happy, why, +that will be the only reward we want.” + +“I hope we shall do well,” said Alice. “Only tell me this, Candace. You +do think I was right, don't you, in insisting on Theron's leaving the +ministry altogether? He seems convinced enough now that it was the right +thing to do; but I grow nervous sometimes lest he should find it harder +than he thought to get along in business, and regret the change--and +blame me.” + +“I think you may rest easy in your mind about that,” the other +responded. “Whatever else he does, he will never want to come within +gunshot of a pulpit again. It came too near murdering him for that.” + +Alice looked at her doubtfully. “Something came near murdering him, I +know. But it doesn't seem to me that I would say it was the ministry. +And I guess you know pretty well yourself what it was. Of course, I've +never asked any questions, and I've hushed up everybody at Octavius +who tried to quiz me about it--his disappearance and my packing up +and leaving, and all that--and I've never discussed the question with +you--but--” + +“No, and there's no good going into it now,” put in Sister Soulsby, +with amiable decisiveness. “It's all past and gone. In fact, I hardly +remember much about it now myself. He simply got into deep water, poor +soul, and we've floated him out again, safe and sound. That's all. +But all the same, I was right in what I said. He was a mistake in the +ministry.” + +“But if you'd known him in previous years,” urged Alice, plaintively, +“before we were sent to that awful Octavius. He was the very ideal of +all a young minister should be. People used to simply worship him, +he was such a perfect preacher, and so pure-minded and friendly +with everybody, and threw himself into his work so. It was all that +miserable, contemptible Octavius that did the mischief.” + +Sister Soulsby slowly shook her head. “If there hadn't been a screw +loose somewhere,” she said gently, “Octavius wouldn't have hurt him. No, +take my word for it, he never was the right man for the place. He seemed +to be, no doubt, but he wasn't. When pressure was put on him, it found +out his weak spot like a shot, and pushed on it, and--well, it came near +smashing him, that's all.” + +“And do you think he'll always be a--a back-slider,” mourned Alice. + +“For mercy's sake, don't ever try to have him pretend to be anything +else!” exclaimed the other. “The last state of that man would be worse +than the first. You must make up your mind to that. And you mustn't show +that you're nervous about it. You mustn't get nervous! You mustn't be +afraid of things. Just you keep a stiff upper lip, and say you WILL get +along, you WILL be happy. That's your only chance, Alice. He isn't going +to be an angel of light, or a saint, or anything of that sort, and it's +no good expecting it. But he'll be just an average kind of man--a little +sore about some things, a little wiser than he was about some others. +You can get along perfectly with him, if you only keep your courage up, +and don't show the white feather.” + +“Yes, I know; but I've had it pretty well taken out of me,” commented +Alice. “It used to come easy to me to be cheerful and resolute and all +that; but it's different now.” + +Sister Soulsby stole a swift glance at the unsuspecting face of her +companion which was not all admiration, but her voice remained patiently +affectionate. “Oh, that'll all come back to you, right enough. You'll +have your hands full, you know, finding a house, and unpacking all your +old furniture, and buying new things, and getting your home settled. +It'll keep you so busy you won't have time to feel strange or lonesome, +one bit. You'll see how it'll tone you up. In a year's time you won't +know yourself in the looking-glass.” + +“Oh, my health is good enough,” said Alice; “but I can't help thinking, +suppose Theron should be taken sick again, away out there among +strangers. You know he's never appeared to me to have quite got his +strength back. These long illnesses, you know, they always leave a mark +on a man.” + +“Nonsense! He's strong as an ox,” insisted Sister Soulsby. “You mark my +word, he'll thrive in Seattle like a green bay-tree.” + +“Seattle!” echoed Alice, meditatively. “It sounds like the other end of +the world, doesn't it?” + +The noise of feet in the house broke upon the colloquy, and the women +went indoors, to join the breakfast party. During the meal, it was +Brother Soulsby who bore the burden of the conversation. He was full of +the future of Seattle and the magnificent impending development of that +Pacific section. He had been out there, years ago, when it was next door +to uninhabited. He had visited the district twice since, and the changes +discoverable each new time were more wonderful than anything Aladdin's +lamp ever wrought. He had secured for Theron, through some of his +friends in Portland, the superintendency of a land and real estate +company, which had its headquarters in Seattle, but ambitiously linked +its affairs with the future of all Washington Territory. In an hour's +time the hack would come to take the Wares and their baggage to the +depot, the first stage in their long journey across the continent +to their new home. Brother Soulsby amiably filled the interval with +reminiscences of the Oregon of twenty years back, with instructive +dissertations upon the soil, climate, and seasons of Puget Sound and the +Columbia valley, and, above all, with helpful characterizations of the +social life which had begun to take form in this remotest West. He had +nothing but confidence, to all appearances, in the success of his young +friend, now embarking on this new career. He seemed so sanguine about +it that the whole atmosphere of the breakfast room lightened up, and the +parting meal, surrounded by so many temptations to distraught broodings +and silences as it was, became almost jovial in its spirit. + +At last, it was time to look for the carriage. The trunks and hand-bags +were ready in the hall, and Sister Soulsby was tying up a package of +sandwiches for Alice to keep by her in the train. + +Theron, with hat in hand, and overcoat on arm, loitered restlessly into +the kitchen, and watched this proceeding for a moment. Then he sauntered +out upon the stoop, and, lifting his head and drawing as long a breath +as he could, looked over at the elms. + +Perhaps the face was older and graver; it was hard to tell. The long +winter's illness, with its recurring crises and sustained confinement, +had bleached his skin and reduced his figure to gauntness, but there was +none the less an air of restored and secure good health about him. Only +in the eyes themselves, as they rested briefly upon the prospect, did +a substantial change suggest itself. They did not dwell fondly upon the +picture of the lofty, spreading boughs, with their waves of sap-green +leafage stirring against the blue. They did not soften and glow this +time, at the thought of how wholly one felt sure of God's goodness in +these wonderful new mornings of spring. + +They looked instead straight through the fairest and most moving +spectacle in nature's processional, and saw afar off, in conjectural +vision, a formless sort of place which was Seattle. They surveyed its +impalpable outlines, its undefined dimensions, with a certain cool +glitter of hard-and-fast resolve. There rose before his fancy, out of +the chaos of these shapeless imaginings, some faces of men, then more +behind them, then a great concourse of uplifted countenances, crowded +close together as far as the eye could reach. They were attentive faces +all, rapt, eager, credulous to a degree. Their eyes were admiringly bent +upon a common object of excited interest. They were looking at HIM; they +strained their ears to miss no cadence of his voice. Involuntarily +he straightened himself, stretched forth his hand with the pale, thin +fingers gracefully disposed, and passed it slowly before him from side +to side, in a comprehensive, stately gesture. The audience rose at him, +as he dropped his hand, and filled his day-dream with a mighty roar of +applause, in volume like an ocean tempest, yet pitched for his hearing +alone. + +He smiled, shook himself with a little delighted tremor, and turned on +the stoop to the open door. + +“What Soulsby said about politics out there interested me enormously,” + he remarked to the two women. “I shouldn't be surprised if I found +myself doing something in that line. I can speak, you know, if I can't +do anything else. Talk is what tells, these days. Who knows? I may turn +up in Washington a full-blown senator before I'm forty. Stranger things +have happened than that, out West!” + +“We'll come down and visit you then, Soulsby and I,” said Sister +Soulsby, cheerfully. “You shall take us to the White House, Alice, and +introduce us.” + +“Oh, it isn't likely I would come East,” said Alice, pensively. “Most +probably I'd be left to amuse myself in Seattle. But there--I think +that's the carriage driving up to the door.” + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 133 *** |