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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/5358.txt b/5358.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6be3e2b --- /dev/null +++ b/5358.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2957 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Inside of the Cup, Volume 3, by Winston Churchill + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Inside of the Cup, Volume 3 + +Author: Winston Churchill + +Release Date: October 17, 2004 [EBook #5358] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INSIDE OF THE CUP, VOLUME 3 *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE INSIDE OF THE CUP + +By Winston Churchill + + + +Volume 3. + +IX. THE DIVINE DISCONTENT +X. THE MESSENGER IN THE CHURCH +XI. THE LOST PARISHIONER +XII. THE WOMAN OF THE SONG + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE DIVINE DISCONTENT + +I + +It was the last Sunday in May, and in another week the annual flight to +the seashore and the mountains would have begun again. The breezes +stealing into the church through the open casements wafted hither and +thither the odours of the chancel flowers, and mingled with those fainter +and subtler perfumes set free by the rustling of summer gowns. + +As on this day he surveyed his decorous and fashionable congregation, +Hodder had something of that sense of extremity which the great apostle +to the Gentiles himself must have felt when he stood in the midst of the +Areopagus and made his vain yet sublime appeal to Athenian indifference +and luxury. "And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now +commandeth all men everywhere to repent." . . Some, indeed, stirred +uneasily as the rector paused, lowering their eyes before the intensity +of his glance, vaguely realizing that the man had flung the whole passion +of his being into the appeal. + +Heedlessness--that was God's accusation against them, against the age. +Materialism, individualism! So absorbed were they in the pursuit of +wealth, of distraction, so satisfied with the current philosophy, so +intent on surrounding themselves with beautiful things and thus shutting +out the sterner view, that they had grown heedless of the divine message. +How few of them availed themselves of their spiritual birthright to renew +their lives at the altar rail! And they had permitted their own children +to wander away . . . . Repent! + +There was a note of desperation in his appeal, like that of the hermit +who stands on a mountain crag and warns the gay and thoughtless of the +valley of the coming avalanche. Had they heard him at last? There were +a few moments of tense silence, during which he stood gazing at them. +Then he raised his arm in benediction, gathered up his surplice, +descended the pulpit steps, and crossed swiftly the chancel . . . . + +He had, as it were, turned on all the power in a supreme effort to reach +them. What if he had failed again? Such was the misgiving that beset +him, after the service, as he got out of his surplice, communicated by +some occult telepathy . . . . Mr. Parr was awaiting him, and +summoning his courage, hope battling against intuition, he opened the +door into the now empty church and made his way toward the porch, where +the sound of voices warned him that several persons were lingering. The +nature of their congratulations confirmed his doubts. Mrs. Plimpton, +resplendent and looking less robust than usual in one of her summer Paris +gowns, greeted him effusively. + +"Oh, Mr. Hodder, what a wonderful sermon!" she cried. "I can't express +how it made me feel--so delinquent! Of course that is exactly the effect +you wished. And I was just telling Wallis I was so glad I waited until +Tuesday to go East, or I should have missed it. You surely must come on +to Hampton and visit us, and preach it over again in our little stone +church there, by the sea. Good-by and don't forget! I'll write you, +setting the date, only we'd be glad to have you any time." + +"One of the finest I ever heard--if not the finest," Mr. Plimpton +declared, with a kind of serious 'empressement', squeezing his hand. + +Others stopped him; Everett Constable, for one, and the austere Mrs. +Atterbury. Hodder would have avoided the ever familiar figure of her +son, Gordon, in the invariable black cutaway and checked trousers, +but he was standing beside Mr. Parr. + +"Ahem! Why, Mr. Hodder," he exclaimed, squinting off his glasses, +"that was a magnificent effort. I was saying to Mr. Parr that it isn't +often one hears a sermon nowadays as able as that, and as sound. Many +clergymen refrain from preaching them, I sometimes think, because they +are afraid people won't like them." + +"I scarcely think it's that," the rector replied, a little shortly. +"We're afraid people won't heed them." + +He became aware, as he spoke, of a tall young woman, who had cast an +enigmatic glance first at Gordon Atterbury, and then at himself. + +"It was a good sermon," said Mr. Parr. "You're coming to lunch, Hodder?" + +The rector nodded. "I'm ready when you are," he answered. + +"The motor's waiting," said the banker, leading the way down the steps to +the sidewalk, where he turned. "Alison, let me introduce Mr. Hodder. +This is my daughter," he added simply. + +This sudden disclosure of the young woman's identity had upon Hodder a +certain electric effect, and with it came a realization of the extent to +which--from behind the scenes, so to speak--she had gradually aroused him +to a lively speculation. She seemed to have influenced, to a greater or +less degree, so many lives with which he had come into touch! Compelled +persons to make up their minds about her! And while he sympathized +with Eldon Parr in his abandonment, he had never achieved the full +condemnation which he felt--an impartial Christian morality would have +meted out. + +As he uttered the conventional phrase and took her hand, he asked himself +whether her personality justified his interest. Her glance at Gordon +Atterbury in the midst of that gentleman's felicitations on the sermon +had been expressive, Hodder thought, of veiled amusement slightly +tinctured with contempt; and he, Hodder, felt himself to have grown warm +over it. He could not be sure that Alison Parr had not included, in her +inner comment, the sermon likewise, on which he had so spent himself. +What was she doing at church? As her eyes met his own, he seemed to +read a challenge. He had never encountered a woman--he decided--who +so successfully concealed her thought, and at the same time so incited +curiosity about it. + +The effect of her reappearance on Gordon Atterbury was painfully +apparent, and Mrs. Larrabbee's remark, "that he had never got over it," +recurred to Hodder. He possessed the virtue of being faithful, at least, +in spite of the lady's apostasy, and he seemed to be galvanized into a +tenfold nervousness as he hustled after them and handed her, with the +elaborate attention little men are apt to bestow upon women, into the +motor. + +"Er--how long shall you be here, Alison?" he asked. "I don't know," she +answered, not unkindly, but with a touch of indifference. + +"You treat us shamefully," he informed her, "upon my word! But I'm +coming to call." + +"Do," said Alison. Hodder caught her eye again, and this time he was +sure that she surprised in him a certain disdain of Mr. Atterbury's zeal. +Her smile was faint, yet unmistakable. + +He resented it. Indeed, it was with a well-defined feeling of antagonism +that he took his seat, and this was enhanced as they flew westward, Mr. +Parr wholly absorbed with the speaking trumpet, energetically rebuking at +every bounce. In the back of the rector's mind lay a weight, which he +identified, at intervals, with what he was now convinced was the failure +of his sermon. . . Alison took no part in the casual conversation that +began when they reached the boulevard and Mr. Parr abandoned the trumpet, +but lay back in silence and apparently with entire comfort in a corner of +the limousine. + +At the lunch-table Mr. Parr plunged into a discussion of some of the +still undecided details of the new settlement house, in which, as the +plan developed, he had become more and more interested. He had made +himself responsible, from time to time, for additional sums, until the +original estimate had been almost doubled. Most of his suggestions had +come from Hodder, who had mastered the subject with a thoroughness that +appealed to the financier: and he had gradually accepted the rector's +idea of concentrating on the children. Thus he had purchased an +adjoining piece of land that was to be a model playground, in connection +with the gymnasium and swimming-pool. The hygienic department was to be +all that modern science could desire. + +"If we are going to do the thing," the banker would, remark, "we may as +well do it thoroughly; we may as well be leaders and not followers." + +So, little by little, the scheme had grown to proportions that sometimes +appalled the rector when he realized how largely he had been responsible +for the additions,--in spite of the lukewarmness with which he had begun. +And yet it had occasionally been Mr. Parr who, with a sweep of his hand, +had added thousands to a particular feature: thus the dance-hall had +become, in prospect, a huge sun-parlour at the top of the building, where +the children were to have their kindergartens and games in winter; and +which might be shaded and opened up to the breezes in summer. What had +reconciled Hodder to the enterprise most of all, however, was the chapel +--in the plan a beautiful Gothic church--whereby he hoped to make the +religious progress keep pace with the social. Mr. Parr was decidedly in +sympathy with this intention, and referred to it now. + +"I was much impressed by what you said in your sermon to-day as to the +need of insisting upon authority in religious matters," he declared, "and +I quite agree that we should have a chapel of some size at the settlement +house for that reason. Those people need spiritual control. It's what +the age needs. And when I think of some of the sermons printed in the +newspapers to-day, and which are served up as Christianity, there is only +one term to apply to them--they are criminally incendiary." + +"But isn't true Christianity incendiary, in your meaning of the word?" + +It was Alison who spoke, in a quiet and musical voice that was in +striking contrast to the tone of Mr. Parr, which the rector had thought +unusually emphatic. It was the first time she had shown an inclination +to contribute to the talk. But since Hodder had sat down at the table +her presence had disturbed him, and he had never been wholly free from an +uncomfortable sense that he was being measured and weighed. + +Once or twice he had stolen a glance at her as she sat, perfectly at +ease, and asked himself whether she had beauty, and it dawned upon him +little by little that the very proportion she possessed made for physical +unobtrusiveness. She was really very tall for a woman. At first he +would have said her nose was straight, when he perceived that it had a +delicate hidden curve; her eyes were curiously set, her dark hair parted +in the middle, brought down low on each side of the forehead and tied in +a Grecian knot. Thus, in truth, he observed, were seemingly all the +elements of the classic, even to the firm yet slender column of the neck. +How had it eluded him? + +Her remark, if it astonished Hodder, had a dynamic effect on Eldon Parr. +And suddenly the rector comprehended that the banker had not so much been +talking to him as through him; had been, as it were, courting opposition. + +"What do you mean by Christianity being incendiary?" he demanded. + +"Incendiary, from your point of view--I made, the qualification," +Alison replied, apparently unmoved by his obvious irritation. "I don't +pretend to be a Christian, as you know, but if there is one element +in Christianity that distinguishes it, it is the brotherhood of man. +That's pure nitroglycerin, though it's been mixed with so much sawdust. +Incendiary is a mild epithet. I never read the sermons you refer to; +I dare say they're crude, but they're probably attempts to release an +explosive which would blow your comfortable social system and its +authority into atoms." + +Hodder, who had listened in amazement, glanced at the banker. He had +never before heard him opposed, or seen him really angry. + +"I've heard that doctrine," cried Mr. Parr. "Those who are dissatisfied +with things as they are because they have been too stupid or too weak +or self-indulgent to rise, find it easy to twist the principles of +Christianity into revolutionary propaganda. It's a case of the devil +quoting Scripture. The brotherhood of man! There has never been an age +when philanthropy and organized charity were on such a scale as to-day." + +A certain gallant, indomitable ring crept into Alison's voice; she did +not seem in the least dismayed or overborne. + +"But isn't that just where most so-called Christians make their mistake?" +she asked. "Philanthropy and organized charity, as they exist to-day, +have very little to do with the brotherhood of man. Mightn't it be you +who are fooling yourselves instead of the incendiaries fooling themselves +So long as you can make yourselves believe that this kind of charity is +a logical carrying out of the Christian principles, so long are your +consciences satisfied with the social system which your class, very +naturally, finds so comfortable and edifying. The weak and idiotic ought +to be absurdly grateful for what is flung to them, and heaven is gained +in the throwing. In this way the rich inevitably become the elect, both +here and hereafter, and the needle's eye is widened into a gap." + +There was on Mr. Parr's lips a smile not wholly pleasant to see. Indeed, +in the last few minutes there had been revealed to Hodder a side of the +banker's character which had escaped him in the two years of their +acquaintance. + +"I suppose," said Mr. Parr, slowly, drumming on the table, "you would say +that of the new settlement house of St. John's, whereby we hope to raise +a whole neighbourhood." + +"Yes, I should," replied Alison, with spirit. "The social system by +which you thrive, and which politically and financially you strive to +maintain, is diametrically opposed to your creed, which is supposed to be +the brotherhood of man. But if that were really your creed, you would +work for it politically and financially. You would see that your Church +is trying to do infinitesimally what the government, but for your +opposition, might do universally. Your true creed is the survival of the +fittest. You grind these people down into what is really an economic +slavery and dependence, and then you insult and degrade them by inviting +them to exercise and read books and sing hymns in your settlement house, +and give their children crackers and milk and kindergartens and sunlight! +I don't blame them for not becoming Christians on that basis. Why, the +very day I left New York a man over eighty, who had been swindled out +of all he had, rather than go to one of those Christian institutions +deliberately forged a check and demanded to be sent to the penitentiary. +He said he could live and die there with some self-respect." + +"I might have anticipated that you would ultimately become a Socialist, +Alison," Mr. Parr remarked--but his voice trembled. + +"I don't know whether I'm a Socialist or an Anarchist," she answered. +Hodder thought be detected a note of hopelessness in her voice, and the +spirit in it ebbed a little. Not only did she seem indifferent to her +father's feeling--which incidentally added fuel to it--but her splendid +disregard of him, as a clergyman, had made an oddly powerful appeal. +And her argument! His feelings, as he listened to this tremendous +arraignment of Eldon Parr by his daughter, are not easily to be +described. To say that she had compelled him, the rector of St. John's, +at last to look in the face many conditions which he had refused to +recognize would be too definite a statement. Nevertheless, some such +thing had occurred. Refutations sprang to his lips, and died there, +though he had no notion of uttering them. He saw that to admit her +contentions would be to behold crumble into ruins the structure that +he had spent a life in rearing; and yet something within him responded +to her words--they had the passionate, convincing ring of truth. + +By no means the least of their disturbing effects was due to the fact +that they came as a climax to, as a fulfilment of the revelation he had +had at the Fergusons', when something of the true nature of Mr. Plimpton +and others of his congregation had suddenly been laid bare. And now +Hodder looked at Eldon Parr to behold another man from the one he had +known, and in that moment realized that their relationship could never +again be the same. . . Were his sympathies with the daughter? + +"I don't know what I believe," said Alison, after a pause. "I've ceased +trying to find out. What's the use!" She appeared now to be addressing +no one in particular. + +A servant entered with a card, and the banker's hand shook perceptibly +as he put down his claret and adjusted his glasses. + +"Show him into my office upstairs, and tell him I'll see him at once," he +said, and glanced at the rector. But it was Alison whom he addressed. +"I must leave Mr. Hodder to answer your arguments," he added, with an +attempt at lightness; and then to the rector: "Perhaps you can convince +her that the Church is more sinned against than sinning, and that +Christians are not such terrible monsters after all. You'll excuse me?" + +"Certainly." Hodder had risen. + + + +II + +"Shall we have coffee in the garden?" Alison asked. "It's much nicer +outside this time of year." + +For an instant he was at a loss to decide whether to accede, or to make +an excuse and leave the house. Wisdom seemed to point to flight. But +when he glanced at her he saw to his surprise that the mood of +abstraction into which she had fallen still held her; that the discussion +which had aroused Eldon Parr to such dramatic anger had left her serious +and thoughtful. She betrayed no sense of triumph at having audaciously +and successfully combated him, and she appeared now only partially to be +aware of Hodder's presence. His interest, his curiosity mounted suddenly +again, overwhelming once more the antagonism which he had felt come and +go in waves; and once more his attempted classification of her was swept +away. She had relapsed into an enigma. + +"I like the open air," he answered, "and I have always wished to see the +garden. I have admired it from the windows." + +"It's been on my mind for some years," she replied, as she led the way +down a flight of steps into the vine-covered pergola. "And I intend to +change parts of it while I am out here. It was one of my first attempts, +and I've learned more since." + +"You must forgive my ignorant praise," he said, and smiled. "I have +always thought it beautiful: But I can understand that an artist is never +satisfied." + +She turned to him, and suddenly their eyes met and held in a momentary, +electric intensity that left him warm and agitated. There was nothing +coquettish in the glance, but it was the first distinct manifestation +that he was of consequence. She returned his smile, without levity. + +"Is a clergyman ever satisfied?" she asked. + +"He ought not to be," replied Hodder, wondering whether she had read him. + +"Although you were so considerate, I suppose you must have thought it +presumptuous of me to criticize your, profession, which is religion." + +"Religion, I think, should be everybody's," he answered quietly. + +She made no reply. And he entered, as into another world, the circular +arbour in which the pergola ended, so complete in contrast was its +atmosphere to that of the house. The mansion he had long since grown to +recognize as an expression of the personality of its owner, but this +classic bower was as remote from it as though it were in Greece. He was +sensitive to beauty, yet the beauty of the place had a perplexing +quality, which he felt in the perfect curves of the marble bench, in the +marble basin brimming to the tip with clear water,--the surface of which, +flecked with pink petals, mirrored the azure sky through the leafy +network of the roof. In one green recess a slender Mercury hastily +adjusted his sandal. + +Was this, her art, the true expression of her baffling personality? As +she had leaned back in the corner of the automobile she had given him the +impression of a languor almost Oriental, but this had been startlingly +dispelled at the lunch-table by the revelation of an animation and a +vitality which had magically transformed her. But now, as under the +spell of a new encompassment of her own weaving, she seemed to revert to +her former self, sinking, relaxed, into a wicker lounge beside the basin, +one long and shapely hand in the water, the other idle in her lap. Her +eyes, he remarked, were the contradiction in her face. Had they been +larger, and almond-shaped, the illusion might have been complete. They +were neither opaque nor smouldering,--but Western eyes, amber-coloured, +with delicately stencilled rays and long lashes. And as they gazed up at +him now they seemed to reflect, without disclosing the flitting thoughts +behind them. He felt antagonism and attraction in almost equal degree +--the situation transcended his experience. + +"You don't intend to change this?" he asked, with an expressive sweep of +his hand. + +"No," she said, "I've always liked it. Tell me what you feel about it." + +He hesitated. + +"You resent it," she declared. + +"Why do you say that?" he demanded quickly. + +"I feel it," she answered calmly, but with a smile. + +"'Resent' would scarcely be the proper word," he contended, returning her +smile, yet hesitating again. + +"You think it pagan," she told him. + +"Perhaps I do," he answered simply, as though impressed by her felicitous +discovery of the adjective. + +Alison laughed. + +"It's pagan because I'm pagan, I suppose." + +"It's very beautiful--you have managed to get an extraordinary +atmosphere," he continued, bent on doing himself an exact justice. But +I should say, if you pressed me, that it represents to me the deification +of beauty to the exclusion of all else. You have made beauty the Alpha +and Omega." + +"There is nothing else for me," she said. + +The coffee-tray arrived and was deposited on a wicker table beside her. +She raised herself on an elbow, filled his cup and handed it to him. + +"And yet," he persisted, "from the manner in which you spoke at the +table--" + +"Oh, don't imagine I haven't thought? But thinking isn't--believing." + +"No," he admitted, with a touch of sadness, "you are right. There were +certain comments you made on the Christian religion--" + +She interrupted him again. + +"As to the political side of it, which is Socialism, so far as I can +see. If there is any other side, I have never been able to discover it. +It seems to me that if Christians were logical, they should be +Socialists. The brotherhood of man, cooperation--all that is Socialism, +isn't it? It's opposed to the principle of the survival of the fittest, +which so many of these so-called Christians practise. I used to think, +when I came back from Paris, that I was a Socialist, and I went to a lot +of their meetings in New York, and to lectures. But after a while I saw +there was something in Socialism that didn't appeal to me, something +smothering,--a forced cooperation that did not leave one free. I wanted +to be free, I've been striving all my life to be free," she exclaimed +passionately, and was silent an instant, inspecting him. "Perhaps I owe +you an apology for speaking as I did before a clergyman--especially +before an honest one." + +He passed over the qualification with a characteristic smile. + +"Oh, if we are going to shut our ears to criticism we'd better give up +being clergymen," he answered. "I'm afraid there is a great deal of +truth in what you said." + +"That's generous of you!" she exclaimed, and thrilled him with the +tribute. Nor was the tribute wholly in the words: there had come +spontaneously into her voice an exquisite, modulated note that haunted +him long after it had died away . . . . + +"I had to say what I thought," she continued earnestly; "I stood it as +long as I could. Perhaps you didn't realize it, but my father was +striking at me when he referred to your sermon, and spiritual control +--and in other things he said when you were talking about the +settlement-house. He reserves for himself the right to do as he pleases, +but insists that those who surround him shall adopt the subserviency +which he thinks proper for the rest of the world. If he were a Christian +himself, I shouldn't mind it so much." + +Hodder was silent. The thought struck him with the force of a great +wind. + +"He's a Pharisee," Alison went on, following the train of her thought. +"I remember the first time I discovered that--it was when I was reading +the New Testament carefully, in the hope of finding something in +Christianity I might take hold of. And I was impressed particularly by +the scorn with which Christ treated the Pharisees. My father, too, if he +had lived in those days, would have thought Christ a seditious person, an +impractical, fanatical idealist, and would have tried to trip him up with +literal questions concerning the law. His real and primary interest--is +in a social system that benefits himself and his kind, and because this +is so, he, and men like him, would have it appear that Christianity is +on the side of what they term law and order. I do not say that they are +hypocritical, that they reason this out. They are elemental; and they +feel intuitively that Christianity contains a vital spark which, if +allowed to fly, would start a conflagration beyond their control. The +theologians have helped them to cover the spark with ashes, and naturally +they won't allow the ashes to be touched, if they can help it." + +She lay very still. + +The rector had listened to her, at first with amazement, then with more +complicated sensations as she thus dispassionately discussed the foremost +member of his congregation and the first layman of the diocese, who was +incidentally her own father. In her masterly analysis of Eldon Parr, she +had brought Hodder face to face with the naked truth, and compelled him +to recognize it. How could he attempt to refute it, with honesty? + +He remembered Mr. Parr's criticism of Alison. There had been hardness in +that, though it were the cry of a lacerated paternal affection. In that, +too, a lack of comprehension, an impotent anger at a visitation not +understood, a punishment apparently unmerited. Hodder had pitied him +then--he still pitied him. In the daughter's voice was no trace of +resentment. No one, seemingly, could be farther removed from him (the +rector of St. John's) in her opinions and views of life, than Allison +Parr; and yet he felt in her an undercurrent, deep and strong, which +moved him strangely, strongly, irresistibly; he recognized a passionate +desire for the truth, and the courage to face it at any cost, and a +capacity for tenderness, revealed in flashes. + +"I have hurt you," she exclaimed. "I am sorry." + +He collected himself. + +"It is not you who have hurt me," he replied. "Reflections on the +contradictions and imperfections of life are always painful. And since +I have been here, I have seen a great deal of your father." + +"You are fond of him!" + +He hesitated. It was not an ordinary conversation they were dealing with +realities, and he had a sense that vital issues were at stake. He had, +in that moment, to make a revaluation of his sentiments for the +financier--to weigh the effect of her indictment. + +"Yes," he answered slowly, "I am fond of him. He has shown me a side of +himself, perhaps, that other men have not seen,--and he is very lonely." + +"You pity him." He started at her word. "I guessed that from an +expression that crossed your face when we were at the table. But surely +you must have observed the incongruity of his relationship with your +Church! Surely, in preaching as you did this morning against +materialism, individualism, absorption in the pursuit of wealth, you must +have had my father in mind as the supreme example! And yet he listened +to you as serenely as though he had never practised any of these things! + +"Clergymen wonder why Christianity doesn't make more progress to-day; +well, what strikes the impartial observer who thinks about the subject at +all, as one reason, is the paralyzing inconsistency of an alliance +between those who preach the brotherhood of man and those who are opposed +to it. I've often wondered what clergymen would say about it, if they +were frank--only I never see any clergymen." + +He was strongly agitated. He did not stop--strangely enough--to reflect +how far they had gone, to demand by what right she brought him to the +bar, challenged the consistency of his life. For she had struck, with a +ruthless precision, at the very core of his trouble, revealed it for what +it was. + +"Yes," he said, "I can see how we may be accused of inconsistency, and +with much justice." + +His refusal to excuse and vindicate himself impressed her as no attempt +at extenuation could have done. Perhaps, in that moment, her quick +instinct divined something of his case, something of the mental suffering +he strove to conceal. Contrition shone in her eyes. + +"I ought not to have said that," she exclaimed gently. "It is so easy +for outsiders to criticize those who are sincere--and I am sure you are. +We cannot know all the perplexities. But when we look at the Church, we +are puzzled by that--which I have mentioned--and by other things." + +"What other things?" he demanded. + +She hesitated in her turn. + +"I suppose you think it odd, my having gone to church, feeling as I do," +she said. "But St. John's is now the only place vividly associated with +my mother. She was never at home here, in this house. I always go at +least once when I am out here. And I listened to your sermon intently." + +"Yes." + +"I wanted to tell you this: you interested me as I had not been +interested since I was twenty, when I made a desperate attempt to become +a Christian--and failed. Do you know how you struck me? It was as a man +who actually had a great truth which he was desperately trying to impart, +and could not. I have not been in a church more than a dozen times in +the last eight years, but you impressed me as a man who felt something +--whatever it is." + +He did not speak. + +"But why," she cried, "do you insist on what you cell authority? As a +modern woman who has learned to use her own mind, I simply can't believe, +if the God of the universe is the moral God you assert him to be, that he +has established on earth an agency of the kind you infer, and delegated +to it the power of life and death over human souls. Perhaps you do not +go so far, but if you make the claim at all you must make it in its +entirety. There is an idea of commercialism, of monopoly in that +conception which is utterly repugnant to any one who tries to approach +the subject with a fresh mind, and from an ideal point of view. And +religion must be idealism--mustn't it? + +"Your ancient monks and saints weren't satisfied until they had +settled every detail of the invisible world, of the past and future. +They mapped it out as if it were a region they had actually explored, +like geographers. They used their reason, and what science they had, to +make theories about it which the churches still proclaim as the catholic +and final truth. You forbid us to use our reason. You declare, in order +to become Christians, that we have to accept authoritative statements. +Oh, can't you see that an authoritative statement is just what an +ethical person doesn't want? Belief--faith doesn't consist in the mere +acceptance of a statement, but in something much higher--if we can +achieve it. Acceptance of authority is not faith, it is mere credulity, +it is to shirk the real issue. We must believe, if we believe at all, +without authority. If we knew, there would be no virtue in striving. +If I choose a God," she added, after a pause, "I cannot take a consensus +of opinion about him,--he must be my God." + +Hodder did not speak immediately. Strange as it may seem, he had +never heard the argument, and the strength of it, reenforced by the +extraordinary vitality and earnestness of the woman who had uttered it, +had a momentary stunning effect. He sat contemplating her as she lay +back among the cushions, and suddenly he seemed to see in her the +rebellious child of which her father had spoken. No wonder Eldon Parr +had misunderstood her, had sought to crush her spirit! She was to be +dealt with in no common way, nor was the consuming yearning he discerned +in her to be lightly satisfied. + +"The God of the individualist," he said at length--musingly, not +accusingly. + +"I am an individualist," she admitted simply. "But I am at least logical +in that philosophy, and the individualists who attend the churches to-day +are not. The inconsistency of their lives is what makes those of us who +do not go to church doubt the efficacy of their creed, which seems to +have no power to change them. The majority of people in St. John's are +no more Christians than I am. They attend service once a week, and the +rest of the time they are bent upon getting all they can of pleasure +and profit for themselves. Do you wonder that those who consider this +spectacle come inevitably to the conclusion that either Christianity +is at fault, is outworn, or else that it is presented in the wrong way?" + +The rector rose abruptly, walked to the entrance of the arbour, and stood +staring out across the garden. Presently he turned and came back and +stood over her. + +"Since you ask me," he said slowly, "I do not wonder at it." + +She raised her eyes swiftly. + +"When you speak like that," she exclaimed with an enthusiasm that +stirred him, despite the trouble of his mind, "I cannot think of you as +a clergyman,--but as a man. Indeed," she added, in the surprise of her +discovery, "I have never thought of you as a clergyman--even when I first +saw you this morning. I could not account then for a sense of duality +about you that puzzled me. Do you always preach as earnestly as that?" + +"Why?" + +"I felt as if you were throwing your whole soul into the effort-=oh, +I felt it distinctly. You made some of them, temporarily, a little +uncomfortable, but they do not understand you, and you didn't change +them. It seemed to me you realized this when Gordon Atterbury spoke to +you. I tried to analyze the effect on myself--if it had been in the +slightest degree possible for my reason to accept what you said you +might, through sheer personality, have compelled me to reconsider. +As it was, I found myself resisting you." + +With his hands clasped behind him, he paced across the arbour and back +again. + +"Have you ever definitely and sincerely tried to put what the Church +teaches into practice?" he asked. + +"Orthodox Christianity? penance, asceticism, self-abnegation--repression +--falling on my knees and seeking a forgiveness out of all proportion to +the trespass, and filled with a sense of total depravity? If I did that +I should lose myself--the only valuable thing I've got." + +Hodder, who had resumed his pacing, glanced at her involuntarily, and +fought an inclination to agree with her. + +"I see no one upon whom I can rely but myself," she went on with the +extraordinary energy she was able to summon at will, "and I am +convinced that self-sacrifice--at least, indiscriminate, unreasoning +self-sacrifice--is worse than useless, and to teach it is criminal +ignorance. None of the so-called Christian virtues appeals to me: I hate +humility. You haven't it. The only happiness I can see in the world lies +in self-expression, and I certainly shouldn't find that in sewing +garments for the poor. + +"The last thing that I could wish for would be immortality as orthodox +Christianity depicts it! And suppose I had followed the advice of my +Christian friends and remained here, where they insisted my duty was, +what would have happened to me? In a senseless self-denial I should +gradually have, withered into a meaningless old maid, with no opinions +of my own, and no more definite purpose in life than to write checks for +charities. Your Christianity commands that women shall stay at home, and +declares that they are not entitled to seek their own salvation, to have +any place in affairs, or to meddle with the realm of the intellect. +Those forbidden gardens are reserved for the lordly sex. St. Paul, you +say, put us in our proper place some twenty centuries ago, and we are to +remain there for all time." + +He felt sweeping through him the reverse current of hostility. + +"And what I preach," he asked, "has tended to confirm you in such a mean +conception of Christianity?" + +Her eye travelled over the six feet of him--the kindling, reflecting eye +of the artist; it rested for a moment on the protesting locks of his +hair, which apparently could not be cut short enough to conform; on the +hands, which were strong and sinewy; on the wide, tolerant mouth, with +its rugged furrows, on the breadth and height of the forehead. She lay +for a moment, inert, considering. + +"What you preach--yes," she answered, bravely meeting his look. "What +you are--no. You and your religion are as far apart as the poles. Oh, +this old argument, the belief that has been handed down to the man, the +authority with which he is clothed, and not the man himself! How can one +be a factor in life unless one represents something which is the fruit of +actual, personal experience? Your authority is for the weak, the timid, +the credulous,--for those who do not care to trust themselves, who run +for shelter from the storms of life to a 'papier-mache' fortress, made to +look like rock. In order to preach that logically you should be a white +ascetic, with a well-oiled manner, a downcast look lest you stumble in +your pride; lest by chance you might do something original that sprang +out of your own soul instead of being an imitation of the saints. And if +your congregation took your doctrine literally, I can see a whole army of +white, meek Christians. But you are not like that. Can't you see it for +yourself?" she exclaimed. + +"Can't you feel that you are an individual, a personality, a force that +might be put to great uses? That will be because you are open-minded, +because there is room in you for growth and change?" + +He strove with all his might to quell the inner conflagration which she +had fanned into leaping flames. Though he had listened before to doubt +and criticism, this woman, with her strange shifting moods of calm and +passion, with her bewildering faculty of changing from passive to active +resistance, her beauty (once manifest, never to be forgotten), her unique +individuality that now attracted, now repelled, seemed for the moment the +very incarnation of the forces opposed to him and his religion. Holder, +as he looked at her, had a flash of fierce resentment that now, of all +times, she should suddenly have flung herself across his path. For she +was to be reckoned with. Why did he not tell her she was an egoist? Why +didn't he speak out, defend his faith, denounce her views as prejudiced +and false? + +"Have I made you angry?" he heard her say. "I am sorry." + +It was the hint of reproach in her tone to which the man in him instantly +responded. And what he saw now was his portrait she had painted. The +thought came to him: was he indeed greater, more vital than the religion +he professed? God forbid! Did he ring true, and it false? + +She returned his gaze. And gradually, under her clear olive skin, he saw +the crimson colour mounting higher . . . . She put forth her hand, +simply, naturally, and pressed his own, as though they had been friends +for a lifetime . . . . + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE MESSENGER IN THE CHURCH + + +I + +The annual scourge of summer had descended pitilessly upon the city once +more, enervating, depressing, stagnating, and people moved languidly in +the penetrating heat that steamed from the pores of the surrounding river +bottoms. + +The rector of St. John's realized that a crisis had come in his life, +--a crisis he had tried to stave off in vain. And yet there was a period +during which he pursued his shrunken duties as though nothing had +happened to him; as a man who has been struck in battle keeps on, loath +to examine, to acknowledge the gravity of his wound; fearing to, perhaps. +Sometimes, as his mind went back to the merciless conflict of his past, +his experience at the law school, it was the unchaining of that other man +he dreaded, the man he believed himself to have finally subdued. But +night and day he was haunted by the sorrowful and reproachful face of +Truth. + +Had he the courage, now, to submit the beliefs which had sustained him +all these years to Truth's inexorable inspection? Did he dare to turn +and open those books which she had inspired,--the new philosophies, the +historical criticisms which he had neglected and condemned, which he had +flattered himself he could do without,--and read of the fruit of +Knowledge? Twice, thrice he had hesitated on the steps of the big +library, and turned away with a wildly beating heart. + +Day by day the storm increased, until from a cloud on the horizon it +grew into a soul-shaking tempest. Profoundly moved Parr's he had been on +that Sunday afternoon, in Eldon Parr's garden, he had resolutely resolved +to thrust the woman and the incident from his mind, to defer the +consideration of the questions she had raised--grave though they were--to +a calmer period. For now he was unable to separate her, to eliminate the +emotion--he was forced to acknowledge--the thought of her aroused, from +the problems themselves. Who was she? At moments he seemed to see her +shining, accusing, as Truth herself, and again as a Circe who had drawn +him by subtle arts from his wanderings, luring him to his death; or, at +other times, as the mutinous daughter of revolt. But when he felt, in +memory, the warm touch of her hand, the old wildness of his nature +responded, he ceased to speculate or care, and he longed only to crush +and subdue her by the brute power of the man in him. For good or bad, +she had woven her spell. + +Here was the old, elemental, twofold contest, carnal and spiritual, +thoroughly revived! . . . + +He recalled, in his musings, the little theological school surrounded +by southern woods and fields, where he had sometime walked under autumn +foliage with the elderly gentleman who had had such an influence on his +life--the dean. Mild-mannered and frail, patient in ordinary converse, +--a lion for the faith. He would have died for it as cheerfully as any +martyr in history. By the marvels of that faith Holder had beheld, from +his pew in the chapel, the little man transformed. He knew young men, +their perplexities and temptations, and he dealt with them personally, +like a father. Holder's doubts were stilled, he had gained power of his +temptations and peace for his soul, and he had gone forth inspired by the +reminder that there was no student of whom the dean expected better +things. Where now were the thousands of which he had dreamed, and which +he was to have brought into the Church? . . . + +Now, he asked himself, was it the dean, or the dean's theology through +which his regeneration had come? Might not the inherent goodness of the +dean be one thing, and his theology quite another? Personality again! +He recalled one of the many things which Alison Parr had branded on his +memory,--"the belief, the authority in which the man is clothed, and not +the man!" The dean's God had remained silent on the subject of +personality. Or, at the best, he had not encouraged it; and there were +--Hodder could not but perceive--certain contradictions in his character, +which were an anomalistic blending of that of the jealous God of Moses +and of the God of Christ. There must be continuity--God could not +change. Therefore the God of infinite love must retain the wrath which +visited sins of the fathers on the children, which demanded sacrifice, +atonement,--an exact propitiation for his anger against mankind. An +innocent life of sorrow and suffering! + +And again, "You and your religion are as far apart as the poles!" Had +he, Hodder, outgrown the dean's religion, or had it ever been his own? +Was there, after all, such a thing as religion? Might it not be merely a +figment of the fertile imagination of man? He did not escape the terror +of this thought when he paused to consider his labour of the past two +years and the vanity of its results. And little by little the feeling +grew upon him, such being the state of his mind, that he ought not to +continue, for the present at least, to conduct the services. Should he +resign, or go away for a while to some quiet place before he made such a +momentous decision? There was no one to whom he could turn; no layman, +and no clergyman; not even the old bishop, whom he had more than once +mentally accused of being, too broad and too tolerant! No, he did not +wish a clergyman's solution. The significance of this thought flashed +through him--that the world itself was no longer seeking clergymen's +solutions. He must go off alone, and submit his faith to the impartial +test. + +It was in a vigil of the night, when he lay in the hot darkness, unable +to sleep, that he came at length to this resolve. And now that he had +cut the knot he was too just to blame Alison Parr for having pointed out +--with what often had seemed a pitiless cruelty--something of which he +had had a constantly growing perception yet had continually sought to +evade. And he reviewed, as the church bells recorded the silent hours, +how, little by little, his confidence had crumbled before the shocks of +the successive revelations--some of them so slight that they had passed +unnoticed: comparisons, inevitably compelled; Dalton Street; the +confessions of Eleanor Goodrich and Mrs. Constable; Mr. Plimpton and his +views of life--Eldon Parr! Even the slamming of the carriage doors in +Burton Street had had a significance! + +Might it not prove that this woman had let fall into the turbid waters of +his soul the drop that was to clear them forever? He would go away. He +would not see her again. + +Over the sleeping city, unapprehended, stole the dawn. + +He arose, but instead of falling on his knees he went to the window and +lifted his face to the whitening sky . . . . Slowly out of the +obscurity of the earth's shadow emerged the vague outlines of familiar +things until they stood sharply material, in a silence as of death. A +sparrow twittered, and suddenly the familiar, soot-grimed roofs were +bathed in light, and by a touch made beautiful . . . . + +Some hours later the city was wide awake. And Hodder, bathed and +dressed, stood staring down from his study window into the street below, +full now of young men and girls; some with set faces, hurrying, intent, +others romping and laughing as they dodged the trucks and trolley cars; +all on their way to the great shoe factory around the corner, the huge +funnels of which were belching forth smoke into the morning air. The +street emptied, a bell rang, a whistle blew, the hum of distant machinery +began . . . . + + + +II + +Later that morning Hodder sat in his study. The shutters were closed, +and the intensity of the tropical glare without was softened and diffused +by the slanting green slats. His eye wandered over the long and +comfortable room which had been his sanctuary in the feverish days of +his ministry, resting affectionately on the hospitable chairs, the wide +fireplace before which he had been wont to settle himself on winter +nights, and even on the green matting--a cooling note in summer. And +there, in the low cases along the walls, were the rows of his precious +books,--his one hobby and extravagance. He had grown to love the room. +Would he ever come back to it? + +A step sounded in the hall, a knock, and the well-known gaunt form and +spectacled face of McCrae appeared in the doorway. + +"Ye wished to see me?" he asked. + +"McCrae," said the rector, "I am going off for a while." + +His assistant regarded him a moment in silence. Although Hodder had no +intention of explaining his reasons, he had a curious conviction that it +were superfluous to do so, that McCrae had guessed them. + +"Why shouldn't ye? There's but a handful left to preach to in this +weather." + +"I wouldn't go, in this sudden way, if it were not imperative," Hodder +added, trying to speak calmly. + +"Why shouldn't ye?" McCrae repeated, almost fiercely. + +Hodder smiled in spite of himself. + +"There's no reason," he said, "except the added work put on you without +warning, and in this heat." + +"Ye'll not need to worry," his assistant assured him, "the heat's nothing +to me." McCrae hesitated, and then demanded abruptly, "Ye'll not be +visiting?" + +The question took Hodder by surprise. + +"No," he answered quickly, and not quite steadily, and hesitated in his +turn, "I shan't be visiting." + +"It's a rest ye need, I've been wanting to say it." McCrae took a step +forward, and for a moment it seemed as though he were at last about to +break the bonds of his reserve. Perhaps he detected an instinctive +shrinking on the rector's part. At any rate, there was another instant +of silence, in which the two men faced each other across the desk, and +McCrae held out his hand. "Good luck to ye," he said, as Hodder took it, +"and don't have the pariah on your mind. Stay till ye're rested, and +come back to us." + +He left the room abruptly. Hodder remained motionless, looking after +him, and then, moved apparently by a sudden impulse, started toward the +door,--only to halt and turn before he got to it. Almost he had opened +his lips to call his assistant back. He could not do it--the moment had +come and fled when it might have been possible. Did this man hide, under +his brusqueness and brevity of speech, the fund of wisdom and the wider +sympathy and understanding he suspected? Hodder could have vouched for +it, and yet he had kept his own counsel. And he was struck suddenly by +the significance of the fact, often remarked, that McCrae in his brief +and common-sense and by no means enlivening sermons had never once +referred in any way to doctrine or dogma! + +He spent half an hour in collecting and bestowing in two large valises +such articles as his simple needs would demand, and then set out for a +railroad office in the business portion of the city, where he bought his +ticket and berth. Then, after a moment of irresolution on the threshold +of the place, he turned to the right, thrusting his way through the +sluggish crowds on Tower Street until he came to the large bookstore +where he had been want to spend, from time to time, some of his leisure +moments. A clerk recognized him, and was about to lead the way to the +rear, where the precious editions were kept, when Hodder stopped him. + +In casting about for a beginning in his venture over unknown seas, there +had naturally come into his mind three or four works which were anathema +to the orthodox; one of which, in seven volumes, went back to his +seminary days, and had been the subject of a ringing, denunciatory sermon +by the dean himself. Three of them were by Germans of established +reputations, another by a professor of the University of Paris. The +habit of years is strong. + +And though he knew that many clergymen read these books, Hodder found it +impossible to overcome a nervous sense of adventure,--nay (knowing his +resolution), of apostasy, almost of clandestine guilt when he mentioned +them. And it seemed to him that the face of the clerk betrayed surprise. +One of the works was not in stock; he would send the others that +afternoon. Mr. Hodder would take them? They made a formidable parcel, +but a little handle was supplied and the rector hurried out, swinging +himself on a Tower Street car. + +It must not be thought that the whole of what is called modern criticism +was new to Hodder. This would indeed be too much of a reflection on the +open-mindedness of the seminary from which he had graduated. +But he found himself, now, pondering a little cynically on that +"open-mindedness"; on that concession--if it had been a concession--to the +methods of science. There had been in truth a course of lectures on this +subject; but he saw now, very clearly, what a concerted effort had been +put forward in the rest of the teaching to minimize and discredit it. +Even the professor who gave the lectures had had the air of deploring +them. Here it is, but on the whole one would better let it alone,--such +was the inference. And he had let it alone, through all these years. + +In the seminary, too, volumes by semi-learned clergymen had been thrust +into his hands, efforts which Hodder recalled now, in spite of his mental +state, with a smile. These invariably championed the doctrine of the +virgin birth as the pillar on which the Incarnation depended. +A favourite argument declared that although the Gospel texts in regard to +it might be proven untrustworthy, the miraculous birth must have happened +anyway! And one of these clerical authors whom he had more recently +read, actually had had the audacity to turn the weapons of the archenemy, +science, back upon itself. The virgin birth was an established fact in +nature, and had its place in the social economy of the bee. And did not +parthenogenesis occur in the silk moth? + +In brief, the conclusion impressed upon him by his seminary instruction +was this: that historical criticism had corrected some ideas and put +some things in their right place. What these things were remained +sufficiently vague. But whenever it attacked a cherished dogma it was, +on general principles, wrong. + +Once again in his cool study, he cut the cord with a trembling hand, and +while he was eating the lunch his housekeeper had prepared, dipped into +one of the larger volumes. As he read again the critical disproofs he +felt an acute, almost physical pain, as though a vital part of him were +being cut away, as his mind dwelt upon those beautiful legends to which +he had so often turned, and which had seemed the very fountain of his +faith. Legends! . . . . + +He closed the book. The clock on the mantel struck three; his train was +to leave at five. He rose and went down into the silent church he had +grown to love, seating himself in one of the carved stalls of the choir, +his eye lingering in turn on each beautiful object: on the glowing +landscape in the window in memory of Eliza Parr, portraying the +delectable country, with the bewildered yet enraptured faces of the +pilgrims in the foreground; on the graceful, shining lectern, the +aspiring arches, the carved marble altar behind the rail, and above +it the painting of the Christ on the cross. + +The hours of greatest suffering are the empty hours. 'Eloi, Eloi, lama +sabachthani?' The hours when the mysterious sustaining and driving force +is withdrawn, and a lassitude and despair comes over us like that of a +deserted child: the hours when we feel we have reached the limit of +service, when our brief span of usefulness is done. Had God brought him, +John Hodder, to the height of the powers of his manhood only to abandon +him, to cast him adrift on the face of the waters--led him to this great +parish, with all its opportunities, only that he might fail and flee? + +He sat staring at the face of the Man on the cross. Did he, in his +overwrought state, imagine there an expression he had never before +remarked, or had the unknown artist of the seventies actually risen above +the mediocrity of the figure in his portrayal of the features of the +Christ? The rector started, and stared again. There was no weakness in +the face, no meekness, no suggestion of the conception of the sacrificed +Lamb, no hint of a beatific vision of opening heavens--and yet no +accusation, no despair. A knowing--that were nearer--a knowing of all +things through the experiencing of all things, the suffering of all +things. For suffering without revelation were vain, indeed! A perfected +wisdom that blended inevitably with a transcendent love. Love and wisdom +were one, then? To reach comprehension through conquering experience was +to achieve the love that could exclaim, "they know not what they do!" + +Human or divine? Man or God? Hodder found himself inwardly repeating +the words, the controversy which had raged for nineteen hundred years, +and not yet was stilled. Perfection is divine. Human! Hodder repeated +the word, as one groping on the threshold of a great discovery . . . . + + + +III + +He was listening--he had for a long time been listening to a sound which +had seemed only the natural accompaniment of the drama taking place in +his soul, as though some inspired organist were expressing in exquisite +music the undercurrent of his agony. Only gradually did he become aware +that it arose from the nave of the church, and, turning, his eyes fell +upon the bowed head and shoulders of a woman kneeling in one of the pews. +She was sobbing. + +His movement, he recalled afterward, did not come of a conscious +volition, as he rose and descended the chancel steps and walked toward +her; he stood for what seemed a long time on the white marble of the +aisle looking down on her, his heart wrung by the violence of her grief, +which at moments swept through her like a tempest. She seemed still +young, but poverty had marked her with unmistakable signs. The white, +blue-veined hands that clung to the railing of the pew were thin; and the +shirtwaist, though clean, was cheap and frayed. At last she rose from +her knees and raised a tear-stained face to his, staring at him in a dumb +bewilderment. + +"Can I do anything for you?" he said gently, "I am the rector here." +She did not answer, but continued to stare uncomprehendingly. He sat +down beside her in the pew. + +"You are in trouble," he said. "Will you let me try to help you?" +A sob shook her--the beginning of a new paroxysm. He waited patiently +until it was over. Suddenly she got rather wildly and unsteadily to her +feet. + +"I must go!" she cried. "Oh, God, what would I do if--if he wasn't +there?" + +Hodder rose too. She had thrust herself past him into the aisle, but if +he had not taken her arm she would have fallen. Thus they went together +to the door of the church, and out into the white, burning sunlight. In +spite of her weakness she seemed actually to be leading him, impelled by +a strange force and fled down the steps of the porch to the sidewalk. +And there she paused, seeing him still beside her. Fortunately he had +his hat in his hand. + +"Where are you going?" she asked. + +"To take you home," he replied firmly, "you ought not to go alone." + +A look of something like terror came into her eyes. + +"Oh, no!" she protested, with a vehemence that surprised him. "I am +strong. Oh, thank you, sir,--but I can go alone. It's Dicky--my little +boy. I've never left him so long. I had gone for the medicine and I saw +the church. I used to go to church, sir, before we had our troubles--and +I just went in. It suddenly came over me that God might help me--the +doctor can do nothing." + +"I will go with you," he said. + +She ceased to resist, as one submitting to the fatality of a superior +will. + +The pavements that afternoon, as Hodder and the forlorn woman left the +cool porticoes of St. John's, were like the floor of a stone oven, and +the work horses wore little bonnets over their heads. Keeping to the +shady side, the rector and his companion crossed Tower Street with its +trolley cars and its awninged stores, and came to that depressing +district which had reproached him since the first Sunday of his ministry +when he had traversed it with Eldon Parr. They passed the once +prosperous houses, the corner saloons pandering to two vices, decked with +the flamboyant signs of the breweries. The trees were dying along the +asphalt and in the yards, the iron fences broken here and there, the +copings stained with rust and soot. Hodder's thoughts might have been +likened to the heated air that simmered above the bricks. + +They were in Dalton Street! She seemed to have forgotten his presence, +her pace quickened as she turned into a gate and flew up a flight of +dirty stone steps, broken and sagging. Hodder took in, subconsciously, +that the house was a dingy grey, of three stories and a Mansard roof, +with a bay window on the yard side, and a fly-blown sign, "Rooms to Rent" +hanging in one window. Across the street, on a lot that had once held a +similar dignified residence, was the yellow brick building of the "Albert +Hotel," and next door, on the east, a remodelled house of "apartments" +with speaking tubes in the doorway. + +The woman led him up another flight of steps to the open door of +the house, through a hallway covered with a ragged carpet, where a +dilapidated walnut hat-rack stood, up the stairs, threading a dark +passage that led into a low-ceiled, stifling room at the very back. +A stout, slatternly person in a wrapper rose as they entered, but the +mother cast herself down beside the lounge where the child was. Hodder +had a moment of fear that she was indeed too late, so still the boy lay, +so pathetically wan was the little face and wasted the form under the +cotton nightgown. The mother passed her hand across his forehead. + +"Dicky!" she whispered fearfully, "Dicky!" + +He opened his eyes and smiled at her; feebly. + +The, stout woman, who had been looking on with that intensity of sympathy +of which the poor are capable, began waving gently the palm-leaf fan. +She was German. + +"He is so good, is Dicky. He smile at me when I fan him--once, twice. +He complains not at all." + +The mother took the fan from her, hand. + +"Thank you for staying with him, Mrs. Breitmann. I was gone longer than +I expected." The fact that the child still lived, that she was again in +his presence, the absorbing act of caring for him seemed to have calmed +her. + +"It is nothing, what I do," answered Mrs. Breitmann, and turned away +reluctantly, the tears running on her cheeks. "When you go again, I come +always, Mrs. Garvin. Ach!" + +Her exclamation was caused by the sight of the tall figure and black coat +of the rector, and as she left the room, Mrs. Garvin turned. And he +noticed in her eyes the same expression of dread they had held when she +had protested against his coming. + +"Please don't think that I'm not thankful--" she faltered. + +"I am not offering you charity," he said. "Can you not take from other +human beings what you have accepted from this woman who has just left?" + +"Oh, sir, it isn't that!" she cried, with a look of trust, of appeal that +was new, "I would do anything--I will do anything. But my husband--he is +so bitter against the church, against ministers! If he came home and +found you here--" + +"I know--many people feel that way," he assented, "too many. But you +cannot let a prejudice stand in the way of saving the boy's life, Mrs. +Garvin." + +"It is more than that. If you knew, sir--" + +"Whatever it is," he interrupted, a little sternly, "it must not +interfere. I will talk to your husband." + +She was silent, gazing at him now questioningly, yet with the dawning +hope of one whose strength is all but gone, and who has found at last a +stronger to lean upon. + +The rector took the fan from her arrested hand and began to ply it. + +"Listen, Mrs. Garvin. If you had come to the church half an hour later, +I should have been leaving the city for a place far distant." + +"You were going away? You stayed on my account?" + +"I much prefer to stay, if I can be of any use, and I think I can. I am +sure I can. What is the matter with the child?" + +"I don't know, sir--he just lies there listless and gets thinner and +thinner and weaker and weaker. Sometimes he feels sick, but not often. +The doctor don't seem to know." + +What doctor have you?" + +"His name is Welling. He's around the corner." + +"Exactly," said the rector. "This is a case for Dr. Jarvis, who is the +best child specialist in the city. He is a friend of mine, and I intend +to send for him at once. And the boy must go to a hospital--" + +"Oh, I couldn't, sir." + +He had a poignant realization of the agony behind the cry. She breathed +quickly through her parted lips, and from the yearning in her tired eyes +--as she gazed at the poor little form--he averted his glance. + +"Now, Mrs. Garvin, you must be sensible," he said. "This is no place for +a sick child. And it is such a nice little hospital, the one I have in +mind, and so many children get well and strong there," he added, +cheerfully. + +"He wouldn't hear of it." Hodder comprehended that she was referring to +her husband. She added inconsequently: "If I let him go, and he never +came back! Oh, I couldn't do it--I couldn't." + +He saw that it was the part of wisdom not to press her, to give her time +to become accustomed to the idea. Come back--to what? His eye wandered +about the room, that bespoke the last shifts of poverty, for he knew that +none but the desperate were driven to these Dalton Street houses, once +the dwellings of the well-to-do, and all the more pitiful for the +contrast. The heated air reeked with the smell of stale cooking. +There was a gas stove at one side, a linoleum-covered table in the +centre, littered with bottles, plates, and pitchers, a bed and chairs +which had known better days, new obviously bruised and battered by many +enforced movings. In one corner was huddled a little group of toys. + +He was suddenly and guiltily aware that the woman had followed his +glance. + +"We had them in Alder Street," she said. "We might have been there yet, +if we hadn't been foolish. It's a pretty street, sir--perhaps you know +it--you take the Fanshawe Avenue cars to Sherman Heights. The air is +like the country there, and all the houses are new, and Dicky had a yard +to play in, and he used to be so healthy and happy in it. . . We were +rich then,--not what you'd call rich," she added apologetically, "but we +owned a little home with six rooms, and my husband had a good place as +bookkeeper in a grocery house, and every year for ten years we put +something by, and the boy came. We never knew how well off we were, +until it was taken away from us, I guess. And then Richard--he's my +husband--put his savings into a company--he thought it was so safe, and +we were to get eight per cent--and the company failed, and he fell sick +and lost his place, and we had to sell the house, and since he got well +again he's been going around trying for something else. Oh, he's tried +so hard,--every day, and all day long. You wouldn't believe it, sir. +And he's so proud. He got a job as porter, but he wasn't able to hold +it--he wasn't strong enough. That was in April. It almost broke my +heart to see him getting shabby--he used to look so tidy. And folks +don't want you when you're shabby." . . . + +There sprang to Hodder's mind a sentence in a book he had recently read: +"Our slums became filled with sick who need never have been sick; with +derelicts who need never have been abandoned." + +Suddenly, out of the suffocating stillness of the afternoon a woman's +voice was heard singing a concert-hall air, accompanied by a piano played +with vigour and abandon. And Hodder, following the sound, looked out +across the grimy yard--to a window in the apartment house opposite. + +"There's that girl again," said the mother, lifting her head. "She does +sing nice, and play, poor thing! There was a time when I wouldn't have +wanted to listen. But Dicky liked it so . . . . It's the very tune +he loved. He don't seem to hear it now. He don't even ask for Mr. +Bentley any more." + +"Mr. Bentley?" the rector repeated. The name was somehow familiar to +him. + +The piano and the song ceased abruptly, with a bang. + +"He lives up the street here a way--the kindest old gentleman you ever +saw. He always has candy in his pockets for the children, and it's a +sight to see them follow him up and down the sidewalk. He takes them to +the Park in the cars on Saturday afternoons. That was all Dicky could +think about at first--would he be well enough to go with Mr. Bentley by +Saturday? And he was forever asking me to tell Mr. Bentley he was sick. +I saw the old gentleman on the street to-day, and I almost went up to +him. But I hadn't the courage." + +The child moaned, stirred, and opened his eyes, gazing at them +feverishly, yet without seeming comprehension. She bent over him, +calling his name . . . . Hodder thrust the fan into her hand, and +rose. + +"I am going to telephone Dr. Jarvis," he said, "and then I shall come +back, in order to be here when he arrives." + +She looked up at him. + +"Oh, thank you, sir,--I guess it's for the best--" + +Her voice died away, and the rector, seeking for the cause, saw that a +man had entered the room. He walked up to the couch and stood for a +moment staring moodily at the child, while the woman watched him, +transfixed. + +"Richard!" she said. + +He paid no attention to her. She turned to Hodder. "This is my husband, +sir. . . . Richard, I went into the church--just for a moment--I--I +couldn't help it, and this gentleman--the minister--came home with me. +He wanted to--he thought I was sick. And now he's going out to get the +best doctor in the city for Dicky." + +The man turned suddenly and confronted the rector. + +"Why don't you let him die, you and your church people?" he asked. +"You've done your worst to kill him." + +The woman put her hand fearfully, imploringly on the man's arm. + +"Richard!" she whispered. + +But as Hodder glanced from the derelict beside him a wave of +comprehension passed through him that swept him clean of indignation, +of resentment. And this man had been prosperous and happy! + +"There is but one way to save the boy's life, Mr. Garvin," he said, "and +that is to put him in charge of Dr. Jarvis." + +The man made no reply, but went over to the window, staring out into the +yard. There was something vaguely ominous in his attitude. The rector +watched him a moment, and then turned to the mother. + +"You must not lose hope," he told her. + +She looked at him with terror-stricken eyes that sought to be grateful. +He had picked up his hat from a corner of the littered table, and started +to leave, when Garvin, by a sudden movement, planted himself in the +doorway. Whether he had been drinking, or whether he were merely crazed +by misfortune and the hopeless search in the heat for employment, and by +lack of proper nourishment, Hodder could not say. There was a light in +his eyes like that in a wounded animal's; and although he was thin and +slight, he had the concentrated power of desperation. + +"Say, what church do you come from?" he demanded. + +"From St. John's," said the rector. + +"Eldon Parr's church?" + +Hodder started, in spite of himself, at the name. + +"Mr. Parr is a member of the congregation." + +"Come off! He owns it and runs it, the same as he does everything else +in this town. Maybe you don't think I read the Sunday papers. Say, I +was respectable once, and had a good place. You wouldn't believe it, +would you?" + +Hodder hesitated. There was obviously no way to pass the man except by +using physical force. + +"If you have anything to say to me, Mr. Garvin, I shall be glad to talk +to you later. You must not stop me now," he said with a touch of +severity. + +"You'll listen to me, right here and now," cried Garvin. "If you think I +am going to let Eldon Parr's minister, or any one else belonging to him, +save that boy's life, you've got another guess comin'. That's all. I'd +rather have him die--d'ye hear? I'd rather have him die." + +The woman behind them whimpered . . . . The name was ringing like a +knell in Hodder's head--Eldon Parr! Coming, as it had, like a curse from +the lips of this wretched, half-demented creature, it filled his soul +with dismay. And the accusation had in it the profound ring of truth. +He was Eldon Parr's minister, and it was Eldon Parr who stood between him +and his opportunity. + +"Why do you speak of Mr. Parr?" he asked, though the question cost him a +supreme effort. + +"Why do I speak of him? My God, because he ruined me. If it hadn't been +for him, damn him, I'd have a home, and health and happiness to-day, and +the boy would be well and strong instead of lying there with the life all +but gone out of him. Eldon Parr did for me, and now he's murdered my +son--that's why I mention him." + +In the sudden intensity of his feeling, Hodder seized Garvin by the arms +--arms that were little more than skin and bone. The man might be +crazed, he might be drunk: that he believed what he was saying there +could be no question. He began to struggle violently, but the rector was +strong. + +"Be still," he commanded. And suddenly, overcome less by the physical +power than by the aspect of the clergyman, an expression of bewilderment +came into his eyes, and he was quiet. Hodder dropped his arms. "I do +not intend to go until I hear what you have to say. It would be useless, +at any rate, since your child's life is at stake. Tell me how Mr. Parr +has ruined you." + +Garvin stared at him, half in suspicion, half in amazement. + +"I guess you never knew of his ruining anybody, did you?" he demanded +sullenly. "Well, I'll tell you all right, and you can go and tell him. +He won't care much--he's used to it by this time, and he gets square with +God by his churches and charities. Did you ever hear of a stock called +Consolidated Tractions?" + +Consolidated Tractions! In contrast to the sordid misery and degradation +of this last refuge of the desperate Hodder saw the lofty, panelled +smoking room at Francis Ferguson's, and was listening again to Wallis +Plimpton's cynical amusement as to how he and Everett Constable and Eldon +Parr himself had "gat out" before the crash; "got out" with all the money +of the wretch who now stood before him! His parishioners! his +Christians! Oh God! + +The man was speaking in his shrill voice. + +"Well, I was a Traction sucker, all right, and I guess you wouldn't have +to walk more than two blocks to find another in this neighbourhood. You +think Eldon Parr's a big, noble man, don't you? You're proud to run his +church, ain't you? You wouldn't believe there was a time when I thought +he was a big man, when I was kind of proud to live in the same city with +him. She'll tell you how I used to come home from the store and talk +about him after supper, and hope that the kid there would grow up into a +financier like Eldon Parr. The boys at the store talked about him: he +sort of laid hold on our imaginations with the library he gave, and +Elmwood Park, and the picture of the big organ in your church in the +newspapers--and sometimes, Mary and me and the boy, in the baby carriage, +on Sunday afternoons we used to walk around by his house, just to look at +it. You couldn't have got me to believe that Eldon Parr would put his +name to anything that wasn't straight. + +"Then Consolidated Tractions came along, with Parr's, name behind it. +Everybody was talking about it, and how it was payin' eight per cent. +from the start, and extra dividends and all, and what a marvel of finance +it was. Before the kid came, as soon as I married her, we began to save +up for him. We didn't go to the theatres or nothing. Well, I put it +all, five thousand dollars, into Consolidated. She'll tell you how we +sat up half the night after we got the first dividend talking about how +we'd send the kid to college, and after we went to bed we couldn't sleep. +It wasn't more than a year after that we began to hear things--and we +couldn't sleep for sure, and the dividends stopped and the stock tumbled. +Even then I wouldn't believe it of him, that he'd take poor people's +money that way when he had more than he knew what to do with. I made up +my mind if I went down to see him and told him about it, he'd make it +right. I asked the boss for an hour off, and headed for the Parr +building--I've been there as much as fifty times since--but he don't +bother with small fry. The clerks laugh when they see me comin' . . . +I got sick worryin', and when I was strong enough to be around they'd +filled my job at the grocery, and it wasn't long before we had to move +out of our little home in Alder Street. We've been movin' ever since," +he cried, and tears of weakness were in his eyes, "until we've come to +this, and we'll have to get out of here in another week. God knows where +we'll go then." + +Hodder shuddered. + +"Then I found out how he done it--from a lawyer. The lawyer laughed at +me, too. Say, do you wonder I ain't got much use for your church people? +Parr got a corporation lawyer named Langmaid--he's another one of your +millionnaire crooks--to fix it up and get around the law and keep him out +of jail. And then they had to settle with Tim Beatty for something like +three hundred thousand. You know who Beatty is--he owns this city--his +saloon's around here on Elm Street. All the crooks had to be squared. +Say," he demanded aggressively, "are Parr and Langmaid any better than +Beatty, or any of the hold-up men Beatty covers? There's a street-walker +over there in those flats that's got a million times more chance to get +to heaven--if there is any--than those financiers, as they call 'emselves +--I ain't much on high finance, but I've got some respect for a second +story man now--he takes some risks! I'll tell you what they did, they +bought up the short car lines that didn't pay and sold 'em to themselves +for fifty times as much as they were worth; and they got controlling +interests in the big lines and leased 'em to themselves with dividends +guaranteed as high as eighteen per cent. They capitalized the +Consolidated for more millions than a little man like me can think of, +and we handed 'em our money because we thought they were honest. We +thought the men who listed the stock on the Exchange were honest. And +when the crash came, they'd got away with the swag, like any common +housebreakers. There were dummy directors, and a dummy president. Eldon +Parr didn't have a share--sold out everything when she went over two +hundred, but you bet he kept his stock in the leased lines, which +guarantee more than they earn. He cleaned up five million, they say.... +My money--the money that might give that boy fresh air, and good doctors +....Say, you believe in hell, don't you? You tell Eldon Parr to keep his +charity,--he can't send any of it in here. And you'd better go back to +that church of his and pray to keep his soul out of hell." . . . + +His voice, which had risen even to a higher pitch, fell silent. And all +at once, without warning, Garvin sank, or rather tumbled upon the bed, +sobbing in a way that was terrible to see. The wife stole across the +room, sat down beside him, and laid her hand on his shoulder. . . . + +In spite of the intensity of his own anguish, Hodder was conscious of a +curious detachment; and for months afterward particular smells, the sight +of a gasoline stove, a certain popular tune gave him a sharp twinge of +pain. The acid distilling in his soul etched the scene, the sounds, the +odours forever in his memory: a stale hot wind from the alley rattled the +shutter-slats, and blew the door to; the child stirred; and above the +strident, irregular weeping rose main, in ironical contrast, the piano +and the voice across the yard. In that glimpse he had into the heart of +life's terrible mystery he momentarily understood many things: he knew +that behind the abandon of the woman's song was the same terror which +reigned in the room in which he stood . . . . + +There were voices in the passageway without, a woman saying in a German +accent,--"It is here, sir." + +There was a knock at the door . . . . + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE LOST PARISHIONER + + +I + +Hodder opened the door. In the dingy passageway he perceived a tall +figure which immediately turned out to be that of an old gentleman. In +spite of the heat, he wore a long coat and an old-fashioned, high collar, +a black tie, under which was exposed a triangle of immaculate, pleated +linen. In one hand he held a gold-headed stick, a large tall hat of +which the silk nap was a little rubbed, a string sustaining a parcel, the +brown paper wrapping of which was soaked: in the other, a manila bag +containing lemons. + +His head was bent forward a little, the high dome of it was bald, +but the white hair clustered thickly behind the temples. The face was +clean-shaven, the cheeks touched with red, the nose high and dominating, +distinctly philanthropic. And the blue eyes rested on the clergyman with +a benevolence unfeigned. + +"Good afternoon, sir," the old gentleman said; "I am told Mrs. Garvin +lives here." + +Before the rector could reply Mrs. Garvin herself stood between them. + +"It's Mr. Bentley!" she exclaimed. + +"I fear I'm intruding, ma'am," he said. "But some of Dicky's little +friends have just informed me that he is ill, and I have taken the +liberty of calling to inquire." + +Mr. Bentley entered the room,--simple words to express that which was +in some sort an event. He laid his parcels on the table, his hat and +stick on a chair, and stood looking down in silence at the thin little +form on the couch. Presently he turned. + +"I'm afraid he's very ill, ma'am," he said gently. "You have your own +doctor, no doubt. But if you will permit me, as a friend, to make a +suggestion, we have in the city one of the best child specialists in the +United States, who is never weary of curing these little ones,--Dr. +Jarvis, and I shall be happy to ask him to come and see Dicky." + +Mrs. Garvin glanced at Hodder, who came forward. + +"I was just about to telephone for Dr. Jarvis, Mr. Bentley, when you +arrived. I am Mr. Hodder, of St. John's." + +"How do you do, sir?" The kindly eyes, alight with a gentle flame, rested +upon the rugged figure of the rector. "I am glad that you, too, agree +that Dr. Jarvis is advisable, Mr. Hodder." + +There was a sound from the bed. Garvin had got to his feet and was +staring wildly, with reddened lids. + +"Are you Horace Bentley?" he demanded. + +"That is my name, sir," Mr. Bentley replied. His expression of surprise +was only momentary. And in all his life Hodder had never beheld a +greater contrast in human beings than between that gracious and courtly +old man and the haggard, unkempt, unshaved, and starving outcast facing +him. Something like a film came over Garvin's eyes. + +"He ruined you, too, twenty years back--Eldon Parr did for you, too. Oh, +I know his record, I've followed his trail--he got all the Grantham stock +that would have made you a millionnaire!" + +"Ah," replied Mr. Bentley, smiling to humour him, "that's something I +have no wish to be, sir,--a millionaire." He met the frightened gaze of +the wife. "Good day, ma'am. If you will allow me, I'll come to-morrow +morning to learn what Dr. Jarvis will have had to say. Have courage, +ma'am, have courage. You may have faith in Dr. Jarvis." + +The poor woman was incapable of speech. Mr. Bentley picked up his hat +and stick. + +"I've taken the liberty of bringing Dicky a little ice and a few lemons." +His eyes rested again on the couch by the window. Then he turned to +Garvin, who stood mutely, staring. "Good evening, sir," he said. +"We must look for the best." + + + +II + +They went down the stairs of the shabby and battered house, stairs by the +side of which holes had been knocked through the faded wall-paper--scars +of frequent movings. The sound and smell of frying came out of the open +door of what once had been the parlour, and on the front steps a little +girl darted past them with a pitcher of beer. When they reached the +sidewalk Mr. Bentley halted. + +"If you were intending to telephone Dr. Jarvis, Mr. Hodder, there is a +public station in the drug store just above here. I know that clergymen +are busy persons, and I am passing it, if you are pressed for time." + +"My only concern is to get Jarvis here," said the rector. +"If I may go with you--" + +Once again in the hot sunlight, reaction had set in. Hodder was suddenly +unstrung, and the kindly old gentleman beside him seemed for the instant +the only fixture in a chaotic universe. It was not until later +reflection that he realized Mr. Bentley might, by an intuitive sympathy, +a depth of understanding, have drained something of his state, since the +incidents which followed were to be accounted for on no other grounds. +In such elemental moments the frail conventions are swept away: Mr. +Bentley, whoever he might be, was no longer a stranger; and it seemed +wholly natural to be walking with him up the street, to hear him saying, +--not with perfunctory politeness but in a tone that was itself an +invitation,--"With pleasure, sir, we'll go together. And let us trust +that the doctor will be at home." + +Nor did Hodder stop to wonder, then, why Mr. Bentley should have sought +in his conversation to dissipate something of the hideous blackness of a +tragedy which must have moved him profoundly. How fortunate, he +declared, that they should have arrived before it was too late! For +it was plain to be seen that these Garvins were good people who had been +broken by adversity . . . . The boy had struck him particularly--a +lovable, merry little fellow whose clothes, Mr. Bentley observed, were +always neatly mended, betokening a mother with self-respect and +character. He even spoke of Garvin: adversity, worry, the heat, constant +brooding over a happier past and an uncertain future--was it surprising +that the poor man's mind had become unhinged? They must make some plan +for Garvin, said Mr. Bentley, get the man and his wife into the country +for a while amongst kindly people. This might no doubt be arranged.... + +"Here we are, sir." + +The familiar smell of drugs, the sound of the trickling water in the soda +fountain roused Hodder to reality, to action, and he hurried into the +telephone booth, fumbled in the dog-eared book, got Dr. Jarvis's number +and called it. An eternity seemed to elapse before he had a reply, heard +his coin jangling in the bog, recognized the voice of the great doctor's +secretary. Yes, the doctor was in would he speak to Mr. Hodder, of St. +John's? . . . An interval, during which Hodder was suddenly struck +with this designation of himself. Was he still of St. John's, then? An +aeon might have elapsed since he had walked down the white marble of its +aisle toward the crouching figure in the pew. He was not that man, but +another--and still Mr. Hodder, of St. John's. . . . Then he heard the +specialist say, "Hello, Mr. Hodder, what can I do for you?" Heard his +own voice in reply, explaining the case. Could the doctor find time? +The doctor could: he was never too busy to attend to the poor,--though he +did not say so: he would be there--by half-past six. The rector hung up +the receiver, opened the door of the booth and mopped his brow, for the +heat was stifling. + +"The doctor will go," he explained in answer to Mr. Bentley's inquiring +look. + +"Now, sir," said the old gentleman, when they were out of the store, "we +have done all that we can for the time being. I do not live far from +here. Perhaps you would give me the pleasure of taking supper with me, +if you have no other engagement." + +No other engagement! Not until then did Hodder remember his empty rooms +in the parish house, and the train which was to have borne him away from +all this already speeding northward. He accepted gratefully, nor did he +pause to speculate upon the mystery by which the stream of his life +seemed so suddenly to have been diverted. He had, indeed, no sense of +mystery in the presence of this splendidly sane, serene old man, any more +than the children who ran after him from the dingy yards and passages, +calling his name, clinging to the skirts of his coat. These accepted +him simply as an anomalous fact in their universe, grinned at his +pleasantries, and held up grimy little hands for the kidney-shaped candy +beans he drew forth from his capacious pockets. In the intervals he +reminisced to the rector about the neighbourhood. + +"It seems but a short while ago when the trees met overhead--magnificent +trees they were. The asphalt and the soot killed them. And there were +fruit trees in that yard"--he pointed with his stick to a littered sun +parched plot adjoining a battered mansion--"all pink and white with +blossoms in the spring. Mr. Hadley lived there--one of our forgotten +citizens. He is dead and gone now and his family scattered. That other +house, where the boy lies, belonged to Mr. Villars, a relation of the +Atterbury family, and I can recall very well a little girl with a pink +sash and a white dress who used to come running out to meet me with +flowers in her hands. Incredible as it may seem, she picked them in that +yard. I thought of her as I went in, how fresh and happy she used to be, +and what a different place this was for children then. She must have +some of her own by this time." + +The character of the street had changed to what might be called +shabby-genteel, and they stopped before a three-story brick house--one +of a row--that showed signs of scrupulous care. The steps were newly +scrubbed, the woodwork neatly painted. + +"This is where I live, sir," said Mr. Bentley, opening the door with a +latchkey and leading the way into a high room on the right, darkened and +cool, and filled with superb, old-fashioned rosewood furniture. It was +fitted up as a library, with tall shelves reaching almost to the ceiling. + +An old negro appeared, dressed in a swallow-tailed coat. His hair was as +white as his master's, and his face creased with age. + +"Sam," said Mr. Bentley, "I have brought home a gentleman for supper." + +"Yassah, Misteh Ho'ace. I was jest agwine to open up de blin's." + +He lifted the wire screens and flung back the shutters, beamed +on the rector as he relieved him of his hat, and noiselessly retired. +Curiosity, hitherto suppressed by more powerful feelings, awoke in Hodder +speculations which ordinarily would have been aroused before: every +object in the room bespoke gentility, was eloquent of a day when wealth +was honoured and respected: photographs, daguerreotypes in old-fashioned +frames bore evidence of friendships of the past, and over the marble +mantel hung a portrait of a sweet-faced woman in the costume of the +thirties, whose eyes reminded Hodder of Mr. Bentley's. Who was she? + +Hodder wondered. Presently he found himself before a photograph on the +wall beyond, at which he had been staring unconsciously. + +"Ah, you recognize it," said Mr. Bentley. + +"St. John's!" + +"Yes," Mr. Bentley repeated, "St. John's." He smiled at Hodder's glance +of bewilderment, and put his hand on the younger man's arm. "That +picture was taken before you were born, sir, I venture to say--in 1869. +I am very fond of it, for it gives the church in perspective, as you see. +That was Mr. Gore's house"--he indicated a square, heavily corniced +mansion--"where the hotel now stands, and that was his garden, next the +church, where you see the trees above the wall." + +The rector turned again and looked at his host, who, was gazing at the +picture thoughtfully. + +"I ought to have remembered," he said. "I have seen your name in the +church records, sir, and I have heard Mr. Waring speak of you." + +"My dear Mr. Hodder, there is no reason why you should have known me. +A great many years have passed since I was a parishioner of St. John's +--a great many years." + +"But it was you," the rector began, uncertainly, and suddenly spoke with +conviction, "it was you who chose the architect, who did more than other +men to make the church what it is." + +"Whatever I may have done," replied Mr. Bentley, with simple dignity, +"has brought its reward. To this day I have not ceased to derive +pleasure from it, and often I go out of my way, through Burton Street, +although the view is cramped. And sometimes," he added, with the hint of +a twinkle in his eye, "I go in. This afternoon is not the first time I +have seen you, Mr. Hodder." + +"But--?" said the rector. He stared at the other's face, and the +question died on his lips. + +"You wonder why I am no longer a parishioner. The time came when +I could not afford to be." There was no hint of reproach in his voice, +of bitterness. He spoke regretfully, indeed, but as one stating an +incontrovertible fact. "I lost my fortune, I could not keep my pew, +so I deeded it back to the church. My old friends, Mrs. Dimock and Asa +Waring, and others, too, were very kind. But I could not accept their +hospitality." + +Hodder bowed his head in silence. What thundered indictment of the +Church of Christ could have been as severe, as wholly condemning as these +few words so dispassionately uttered by the man beside him? + +The old darky entered, and announced supper. + +Hodder had lost his way, yet a hand had been held out to him, and he +seized it. With a sense of being led, psychically as well as physically, +he followed Mr. Bentley into a large bedroom, where a high, four-posted +bed lifted a pleated canopy toward the ceiling. And after he had washed +his hands they entered a dining-room looking out upon a little yard in +the rear, which had been transformed into a garden. Roses, morning +glories, and nasturtiums were growing against the walls; a hose lay +coiled upon the path; the bricks, baked during the day, were splashed +with water; the leaves and petals were wet, and the acrid odour of moist +earth, mingling with perfumes, penetrated the room. Hodder paused in the +window. + +"Sam keeps our flowers alive," he heard Mr. Bentley say, "I don't know +how." + +"I scrubs 'em, sah," said Sam. "Yassah, I washes 'em like chilluns." + +He found himself, at Mr. Bentley's request, asking grace, the old darky +with reverently bent head standing behind his master; sitting down at a +mahogany table that reflected like a mirror the few pieces of old silver, +to a supper of beaten biscuits that burned one's fingers, of 'broiled +chicken and coffee, and sliced peaches and cream. Mr. Bentley was +talking of other days--not so long gone by when the great city had been a +village, or scarcely more. The furniture, it seemed, had come from his +own house in what was called the Wilderness Road, not far from the river +banks, over the site of which limited trains now rolled on their way +eastward toward the northernmost of the city's bridges. He mentioned +many names, some remembered, some forgotten, like his own; dwelt on +pleasures and customs gone by forever. + +"A little while after I moved in here, I found that one old man could not +fill the whole of this house, so I let the upper floors," he explained, +smilingly. "Some day I must introduce you to my tenants, Mr. Hodder." + +By degrees, as Hodder listened, he became calm. Like a child, he found +himself distracted, talking, asking questions: and the intervals grew +longer between the recurrent surges of fear when the memory rose before +him of the events of the day,--of the woman, the child, and the man: of +Eldon Parr and this deed he had done; hinting, as it did, of closed +chambers of other deeds yet to be opened, of countless, hidden miseries +still to be revealed: when he heard once more the tortured voice of the +banker, and the question: "How would you like to live in this house +--alone?" In contrast, now he beheld the peace in the face of the man +whose worldly goods Eldon Parr had taken, and whom he had driven out of +the church. Surely, this man had found a solution! . . . What was it? + +Hodder thought of the child, of the verdict of Dr. Jarvis, but he +lingered on, loth to leave,--if the truth be told--afraid to leave; +drawing strength from his host's calm, wondering as to the source of it, +as to the life which was its expression; longing, yet not presuming, to +question. The twilight deepened, and the old darky lit a lamp and led +the way back to the library. + +"Sam," said Mr. Bentley, "draw up the armchair for Mr. Hodder beside the +window. It is cooler there." + +"I ought to go," Hodder said. "I ought to see how the child is. Jarvis +will have been there by this time, and there may be necessaries--" + +"Jarvis will have attended to that," Mr. Bentley replied. "Sit down, Mr. +Hodder. I am not sure that, for the present, we have not done all in +this case that is humanly possible." + +"You mean," said the rector, "that they will accept nothing from me." +It came from him, spontaneously, like a cry. He had not meant to say it. +"I don't blame them. I don't blame them for losing their faith in God +and man, in the Church. I ought to have seen it before, but I was blind, +incredibly blind--until it struck me in the face. You saw it, sir, and +you left a church from which the poor are thrust out, which refuses to +heed the first precept of its Master." + +"I saw it," answered Mr. Bentley, "but I could do nothing. Perhaps you +can do--something." + +"Ah!" Hodder exclaimed sharply, "why do you say that? The Church is +paralyzed, chained. How can she reach these wretched people who are the +victims of the ruthless individualism and greed of those who control her? +You know--that man, Mr. Bentley." (Hodder could not bring himself to +pronounce Eldon Parr's name.) "I had an affection for him, I pitied him, +because he suffers--" + +"Yes," echoed Mr. Bentley, "he suffers." + +Hodder was momentarily arrested by the sadness of his tone. + +"But he doesn't know why he suffers--he cannot be made to see," the +rector went on. "And he is making others suffer,--hideously, while he +imagines himself a Christian. He is the Church to that miserable, +hopeless wretch we saw to-day, and to hundreds of the same kind whom he +has driven to desperation. And I--who am supposed to be the vicar of +God--I am powerless. They have a contempt for me, a just contempt. They +thrust me out of their doors, bid me to return and minister to their +oppressors. You were right to leave, and I should have left long since." + +He had not spoken with violence, or with a lack of control. He seemed +rather to have regained a mastery of himself, and felt as a man from whom +the shackles have been struck, proclaiming his freedom. Mr. Bentley's +eyes lighted in involuntary response as he gazed at the figure and face +before him. He pressed his hands together. + +"If you will forgive a curiosity, Mr. Hodder, that is somewhat due to my +interest in a church with which I have many precious associations, may I +ask if this is a sudden determination on your part?" + +"No," Hodder said. "I have known ever since I came here that something +was wrong, but at first I couldn't see it, and after that I wouldn't see +it. That is about what happened, as I look back on it. + +"But the farther in I went," Hodder continued, "the more tangled and +bewildered I became. I was hypnotized, I think," he added with a +gesture,--"hypnotized, as a man is who never takes his eyes from a +pattern. I wanted to get at this neighbourhood--Dalton Street--I mean, +and finally I agreed to the establishment of a settlement house over +here, to be paid for largely by Eldon Parr and Francis Ferguson. I +couldn't see the folly of such an undertaking--the supreme irony of it, +until--until it was pointed out to me." He hesitated; the remembrance of +Alison Parr ran through him, a thread of pain. "And even then I tried to +dodge the issue, I tried to make myself believe that good might flow out +of evil; that the Church, which is supposed to be founded on the highest +ideal ever presented to man, might compromise and be practical, that +she might accept money which had been wrung from a trusting public by +extortion, by thinly disguised thievery such as this Consolidated +Tractions Company fraud, and do good with it! And at last I made up +my mind to go away, to-day, to a quiet place where I might be alone, +and reflect, when by a singular circumstance I was brought into contact +with this man, Garvin. I see now, clearly enough, that if I had gone, +I should never have come back." + +"And you still intend to go?" Mr. Bentley asked. + +Hodder leaned his elbow against the mantel. The lamplight had a curious +effect on Mr. Bentley's face. + +"What can I do?" he demanded. The question was not aimed directly at his +host--it was in the nature of a renewed appeal to a tribunal which had +been mute, but with which he now seemed vaguely aware of a certain +contact. "Even supposing I could bring myself to accept the compromise +--now that I see it clearly, that the end justifies the means--what good +could I accomplish? You saw what happened this afternoon--the man would +have driven me out if, it hadn't been for you. This whole conception of +charity is a crime against civilization--I had to have that pointed out +to me, too,--this system of legalized or semi-legalized robbery and the +distribution of largesse to the victims. The Church is doing wrong, +is stultifying herself in encouraging it. She should set her face +rigidly against it, stand for morality and justice and Christianity in +government, not for pauperizing. It is her mission to enlighten these +people, all people--to make them self-respecting, to give them some +notion of the dignity of their souls and their rights before God and +man." + +"Aren't you yourself suggesting," said Mr. Bentley, "the course which +will permit you to remain?" + +Hodder was silent. The thought struck him with tremendous force. Had he +suggested it? And how--why? Could it be done? Could he do it or begin +it? + +"We have met at last in a singular way," he heard Mr. Bentley going on, +"in a way that has brushed aside the conventions, in a way--I am happy to +say--that has enabled you to give me your confidence. And I am an old +man,--that has made it easier. I saw this afternoon, Mr. Hodder, that +you were troubled, although you tried to hide it." + +"I knew that you saw it," Hodder said. + +"Nor was it difficult for me to guess something of the cause of it. The +same thing has troubled me." + +"You?" + +"Yes," Mr. Bentley answered. "I left St. John's, but the habits and +affections of a lifetime are not easily severed. And some time before +I left it I began to have visions of a future for it. There was a +question, many years ago, as to whether a new St. John's should not be +built in the West End, on a site convenient to the parishioners, and this +removal I opposed. Mr. Waring stood by me. We foresaw the day when +this district would be--what it is now--the precarious refuge of the +unfortunate in the battle of life, of just such unhappy families as the +Garvins, of miserable women who sell themselves to keep alive. I thought +of St. John's, as you did, as an oasis in a desert of misery and vice. +At that time I, too, believed in the system of charities which you have +so well characterized as pauperizing." + +"And now?" + +Mr. Bentley smiled, as at a reminiscence. + +"My eyes were opened," he replied, and in these simple words summed up +and condemned it all. "They are craving bread, and we fling them atones. +I came here. It was a house I owned, which I saved from the wrecks, and +as I look back upon what the world would call a misfortune, sir, I can +see that it was a propitious event, for me. The street 'ran down,' +as the saying goes. I grew gradually to know these people, my new +neighbours, largely through their children, and I perceived many things +I had not dreamed of--before then. I saw how the Church was hampered, +fettered; I saw why they disliked and distrusted it." + +"And yet you still believed that it had a mission?" Hodder interrupted. +He had been listening with rapt attention. + +"I still believed it," said Mr. Bentley. "My conception of that mission +changed, grew, and yet it seemed further and further from fulfilment. +And then you came to St. John's." + +"I!" The cry was involuntary. + +"You," Mr. Bentley repeated. "Sometimes," he added whimsically, "I go +there, as I have told you. I saw you, I heard you preach. I talked to +my friend Waring about you. I saw that your eyes were not opened, but I +think I had a certain presentiment, for which I do not pretend to +account, that they would be opened." + +"You mean," said the rector, "that if I believe in the mission of the +Church as I have partially stated it here tonight, I--should stay and +fight for it." + +"Precisely," Mr. Bentley replied. + +There was a note of enthusiasm, almost of militancy in the old +gentleman's tone that surprised and agitated Hodder. He took a turn +up and down the room before he answered. + +"I ought to tell you that the view I expressed a moment ago is new to me. +I had not thought of it before, and it is absolutely at variance with any +previous ideas I have held. I can see that it must involve, if carried +to its logical conclusion, a change in the conception of Christianity I +have hitherto held." + +He was too intent upon following up the thought to notice Mr. Bentley's +expression of assent. + +"And suppose," he asked, "I were unable to come to any conclusion? +I will be frank, Mr. Bentley, and confess to you that at present I cannot +see my way. You have heard me preach--you know what my beliefs have +been. They are shattered. And, while I feel that there is some definite +connection between the view of the Church which I mentioned and her +message to the individual, I do not perceive it clearly. I am not +prepared at present to be the advocate of Christianity, because I do +not know what Christianity is. I thought I knew. + +"I shall have to begin all over again, as though I had never taken +orders, submit to a thorough test, examine the evidence impartially. It +is the only way. Of this much I am sure, that the Church as a whole has +been engaged in a senseless conflict with science and progressive +thought, that she has insisted upon the acceptance of facts which are in +violation of reason and which have nothing to do with religion. She has +taught them to me--made them, in fact, a part of me. I have clung to +them as long as I can, and in throwing them over I don't know where I +shall land." + +His voice was measured, his words chosen, yet they expressed a withering +indignation and contempt which were plainly the culmination of months of +bewilderment--now replaced by a clear-cut determination. + +"I do not blame any individual," he continued, "but the system by which +clergymen are educated. + +"I intend to stay here, now, without conducting any services, and find +out for myself what the conditions are here in Dalton Street. You know +those people, Mr. Bentley, you understand them, and I am going to ask you +to help me. You have evidently solved the problem." + +Mr. Bentley rose. And he laid a hand, which was not quite steady, on the +rector's shoulder. + +"Believe me, sir," he replied, "I appreciate something of what such a +course must mean to you--a clergyman." He paused, and a look came upon +his face, a look that might scarce have been called a smile--Hodder +remembered it as a glow--reminiscent of many things. In it a life was +summed ups in it understanding, beneficence, charity, sympathy, were all +expressed, yet seemingly blended into one. "I do not know what my +testimony may be worth to you, my friend, but I give it freely. I +sometimes think I have been peculiarly fortunate. But I have lived a +great many years, and the older I get and the more I see of human nature +the firmer has grown my conviction of its essential nobility and +goodness." + +Hodder marvelled, and was silent. + +"You will come here, often,--every day if you can. There are many men +and women, friends of mine, whom I should like you to know, who would +like to know you." + +"I will, and thank you," Hodder answered. Words were inadequate for the +occasion . . . . + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE WOMAN OF THE SONG + +On leaving Mr. Bentley, Hodder went slowly down Dalton Street, wondering +that mere contact with another human being should have given him the +resolution to turn his face once again toward the house whither he was +bound. And this man had given him something more. It might hardly have +been called faith; a new courage to fare forth across the Unknown--that +was it; hope, faint but revived. + +Presently he stopped on the sidewalk, looked around him, and read a sign +in glaring, electric letters, Hotel Albert. Despite the heat, the place +was ablaze with lights. Men and women were passing, pausing--going in. +A motor, with a liveried chauffeur whom he remembered having seen before, +was standing in front of the Rathskeller. The nightly carousal was +beginning. + +Hodder retraced his steps, crossed the street diagonally, came to the +dilapidated gate he remembered so well, and looked up through the dusk at +the house. If death had entered it, there was no sign: death must be a +frequent visitor hereabouts. On the doorsteps he saw figures outlined, +slatternly women and men in shirt-sleeves who rose in silence to make way +for him, staring at him curiously. He plunged into the hot darkness of +the hall, groped his way up the stairs and through the passage, and +hesitated. A single gas jet burned low in the stagnant air, and after a +moment he made out, by its dim light, a woman on her knees beside the +couch, mechanically moving the tattered palm-leaf over the motionless +little figure. The child was still alive. He drew a deep breath, and +entered; at the sound of his step Mrs. Garvin suddenly started up. + +"Richard!" she cried, and then stood staring at the rector. "Have you +seen my husband, sir? He went away soon after you left." + +Hodder, taken by surprise, replied that he had not. Her tone, her +gesture of anxiety he found vaguely disquieting. + +"The doctor has been here?" he asked. + +"Yes," she answered absently. "I don't know where he can be--Richard. +He didn't even wait to see the doctor. And he thinks so much of Dicky, +sir, he sits here of an evening--" + +Hodder sat down beside her, and taking the palm-leaf from her hand, began +himself to fan the child. Something of her misgiving had communicated +itself to him. + +"Don't worry," he said. "Remember that you have been through a great +deal, and it is natural that you should be overwrought. Your husband +feels strongly. I don't blame him. And the sight of me this afternoon +upset him. He has gone out to walk." + +"Richard is proud," she answered simply. "He used to say he'd rather +die than take charity--and now he's come to it. And it's--that man, sir, +who's got on his brain, and changed him. He wasn't always like this, but +now he can't seem to think of anything else. He wakes up in the night +. . . . And he used to have such a sweet nature--you wouldn't have +known him . . . and came home so happy in the evenings in Alder +Street, often with a little fruit, or something he'd bought for us, and +romp with Dicky in the yard, and I'd stand and laugh at them. Even after +we'd lost our money, when he was sick that time, he didn't feel this way. +It grew on him when he couldn't get work, and then he began to cut things +out of the papers about Mr. Parr. And I have sometimes thought that +that's kept him from getting work. He talks about it, and people don't +know what to make of him. They don't know how hard he'd try if they'd +give him something.". . . . + +"We shall find something," said the rector, striving to throw into his +voice confidence and calm. He did not dare to look at her, but continued +to move the fan. + +The child stirred a little. Mrs. Garvin put out her hand. + +"Yes, the doctor was here. He was very kind. Oh, sir," she exclaimed, +"I hope you won't think us ungrateful--and that Mr. Bentley won't. +Dr. Jarvis has hopes, sir,--he says--I forget the name he called it, what +Dicky has. It's something uncommon. He says it was--brought on by the +heat, and want of food--good food. And he's coming himself in the +morning to take him out to that hospital beyond the park--in an +automobile, sir. I was just thinking what a pity it is Dicky wouldn't +realize it. He's always wanted to ride in one." Suddenly her tears +flowed, unheeded, and she clung to the little hand convulsively. +"I don't know what I shall do without him, Sir, I don't . . . . I've +always had him . . . and when he's sick, among strangers." . . . + +The rector rose to the occasion. + +"Now, Mrs. Garvin," he said firmly, "you must remember that there is only +one way to save the boy's life. It will be easy to get you a room near +the hospital, where you can see him constantly." + +"I know--I know, sir. But I couldn't leave his father, I couldn't leave +Richard." She looked around distractedly. "Where is he?" + +"He will come back presently," said the rector. "If not, I will look for +him." + +She did not reply, but continued to weep in silence. Suddenly, above the +confused noises of the night, the loud notes of a piano broke, and the +woman whose voice he had heard in the afternoon began once more with +appalling vigour to sing. The child moaned. + +Mrs. Garvin started up hysterically. + +"I can't stand it--I can't stand her singing that now," she sobbed. + +Thirty feet away, across the yard, Hodder saw the gleaming window from +which the music came. He got to his feet. Another verse began, with +more of the brazen emphasis of the concert-hall singer than ever. +He glanced at the woman beside him, irresolutely. + +"I'll speak to her," he said. + +Mrs. Garvin did not appear to hear him, but flung herself down beside the +lounge. As he seized his hat and left the room he had the idea of +telephoning for a nurse, when he almost ran into some one in the upper +hall, and recognized the stout German woman, Mrs. Breitmann. + +"Mrs. Garvin"--he said, "she ought not to be left--" + +"I am just now going," said Mrs. Breitmann. "I stay with her until her +husband come." + +Such was the confidence with which, for some reason, she inspired him, +that he left with an easier mind. + +It was not until the rector had arrived at the vestibule of the apartment +house next door that something--of the difficulty and delicacy of the +errand he had undertaken came home to him. Impulse had brought him thus +far, but now he stood staring helplessly at a row of bells, speaking +tubes, and cards. Which, for example, belonged to the lady whose soprano +voice pervaded the neighbourhood? He looked up and down the street, in +the vain hope of finding a messenger. The song continued: he had +promised to stop it. Hodder accused himself of cowardice. + +To his horror, Hodder felt stealing over him, incredible though it seemed +after the depths through which he had passed, a faint sense of +fascination in the adventure. It was this that appalled him--this +tenacity of the flesh,--which no terrors seemed adequate to drive out. +The sensation, faint as it was, unmanned him. There were still many +unexplored corners in his soul. + +He turned, once more contemplated the bells, and it was not until +then he noticed that the door was ajar. He pushed it open, climbed the +staircase, and stood in the doorway of what might be called a sitting +room, his eyes fixed on a swaying back before an upright piano against +the wall; his heart seemed to throb with the boisterous beat of the +music. The woman's hair, in two long and heavy plaits falling below her +waist, suddenly fascinated him. It was of the rarest of russet reds. +She came abruptly to the end of the song. + +"I beg your pardon--" he began. + +She swung about with a start, her music dropping to the floor, and stared +at him. Her tattered blue kimono fell away at her elbows, her full +throat was bare, and a slipper she had kicked off lay on the floor beside +her. He recoiled a little, breathing deeply. She stared at him. + +"My God, how you scared me!" she exclaimed. Evidently a second glance +brought to her a realization of his clerical costume. "Say, how did you +get in here?" + +"I beg your pardon," he said again, "but there is a very sick child in +the house next door and I came to ask you if you would mind not playing +any more to-night." + +She did not reply at once, and her expression he found unsolvable. Much +of it might be traced to a life which had contracted the habit of taking +nothing on trust, a life which betrayed itself in unmistakable traces +about the eyes. And Hodder perceived that the face, if the stamp of this +expression could have been removed, was not unpleasing, although +indulgence and recklessness were beginning to remould it. + +"Quit stringin' me," she said. + +For a moment he was at a loss. He gathered that she did not believe him, +and crossed to the open window. + +"If you will come here," he said, "I will show you the room where he +lies. We hope to be able to take him to the hospital to-morrow." He +paused a moment, and added: "He enjoyed your music very much when he was +better." + +The comment proved a touchstone. + +"Say," she remarked, with a smile that revealed a set of surprisingly +good teeth, "I can make the box talk when I get a-goin'. There's no +stopping me this side of grand opera,--that's no fable. I'm not so bad +for an enginoo, am I?" + +Thus directly appealed to, in common courtesy he assented. + +"No indeed," he said. + +"That's right," she declared. "But the managers won't have it at any +price. Those jays don't know anything, do they? They've only got a +dream of what the public wants. You wouldn't believe it, but I've sung +for 'em, and they threw me out. You wouldn't believe it, would you?" + +"I must own," said the rector, "that I have never had any experience with +managers." + +She sat still considering him from the piano stool, her knees apart, her +hands folded in her lap. Mockery came into her eyes. + +"Say, what did you come in here for, honest injun?" she demanded. + +He was aware of trying to speak sternly, and of failing. To save his +life he could not, then, bring up before himself the scene in the little +back room across the yard in its full terror and reality, reproduce his +own feelings of only a few minutes ago which had impelled him hither. +A month, a year might have elapsed. Every faculty was now centred on +the woman in front of him, and on her life. + +"Why do you doubt me?" he asked. + +She continued to contemplate him. Her eyes were strange, baffling, +smouldering, yellow-brown, shifting, yet not shifty: eyes with a history. +Her laugh proclaimed both effrontery and uneasiness. + +"Don't get huffy," she said. "The kid's sick--that's on the level, is +it? You didn't come 'round to see me?" The insinuation was in her voice +as well as in her words. He did not resent it, but felt an odd thrill of +commingled pity and--fear. + +"I came for the reason I have given you," he replied; and added, more +gently: "I know it is a good deal to ask, but you will be doing a great +kindness. The mother is distracted. The child, as I told you, will be +taken to the hospital in the morning." + +She reached out a hand and closed the piano softly. + +"I guess I can hold off for to-night," she said. "Sometimes things get +kind of dull--you know, when there's nothing doing, and this keeps me +lively. How old is the kid?" + +"About nine," he estimated. + +"Say, I'm sorry." She spoke with a genuineness of feeling that surprised +him. He went slowly, almost apologetically toward the door. + +"Good night," he said, "and thank you." + +Her look halted him. + +"What's your hurry?" she demanded. + +"I'm sorry," he said hastily, "but I must be going." He was, in truth, +in a panic to leave. + +"You're a minister, ain't you?" + +"Yes," he said. + +"I guess you don't think much of me, do you?" she demanded. + +He halted abruptly, struck by the challenge, and he saw that this woman +had spoken not for herself, but for an entire outlawed and desperate +class. The fact that the words were mocking and brazen made no +difference; it would have been odd had they not been so. With a shock +of surprise he suddenly remembered that his inability to reach this +class had been one of the causes of his despair! And now? With the +realization, reaction set in, an overpowering feeling of weariness, a +desire--for rest--for sleep. The electric light beside the piano danced +before his eyes, yet he heard within him a voice crying out to him to +stay. Desperately tired though he was, he must not leave now. He walked +slowly to the table, put his hat on it and sat down in a chair beside it. + +"Why do you say that?" he asked. + +"Oh, cut it out!" said the woman. "I'm on to you church folks." She +laughed. "One of 'em came in here once, and wanted to pray. I made a +monkey of him." + +"I hope," said the rector, smiling a little, "that is not the reason why +you wish me to stay." + +She regarded him doubtfully. + +"You're not the same sort," she announced at length. + +"What sort was he?" + +"He was easy,--old enough to know better--most of the easy ones are. He +marched in sanctimonious as you please, with his mouth full of salvation +and Bible verses." She laughed again at the recollection. + +"And after that," said the rector, "you felt that ministers were a lot of +hypocrites." + +"I never had much opinion of 'em," she admitted, "nor of church people, +either," she added, with emphasis. + +"There's Ferguson, who has the department store,--he's 'way up' in church +circles. I saw him a couple of months ago, one Sunday morning, driving +to that church on Burton Street, where all the rich folks go. I forget +the name--" + +"St. John's," he supplied. He had got beyond surprise. + +"St. John's--that's it. They tell me he gives a lot of money to it +--money that he steals from the girls he hires. Oh, yes, he'll get to +heaven--I don't think." + +"How do you mean that he steals money from the girls?" + +"Say, you are innocent--ain't you! Did you ever go down to that store? +Do you know what a floorwalker is? Did you ever see the cheap guys +hanging around, and the young swells waiting to get a chance at the girls +behind the counters? Why do you suppose so many of 'em take to the easy +life? I'll put you next--because Ferguson don't pay 'em enough to live +on. That's why. He makes 'em sign a paper, when he hires 'em, that they +live at home, that they've got some place to eat and sleep, and they sign +it all right. That's to square up Ferguson's conscience. But say, if +you think a girl can support herself in this city and dress on what he +pays, you've got another guess comin'." + +There rose up before him, unsummoned, the image of Nan Ferguson, in all +her freshness and innocence, as she had stood beside him on the porch in +Park Street. He was somewhat astonished to find himself defending his +parishioner. + +"May it not be true, in order to compete with other department stores, +that Mr. Ferguson has to pay the same wages?" he said. + +"Forget it. I guess you know what Galt House is? That's where women +like me can go when we get all played out and there's nothing left in the +game--it's on River Street. Maybe you've been there." + +Hodder nodded. + +"Well," she continued, "Ferguson pays a lot of money to keep that going, +and gets his name in the papers. He hands over to the hospitals where +some of us die--and it's all advertised. He forks out to the church. +Now, I put it to you, why don't he sink some of that money where it +belongs--in living wages? Because there's nothing in it for him +--that's why." + +The rector looked at her in silence. He had not suspected her of so much +intellect. He glanced about the apartment, at the cheap portiere flung +over the sofa; at the gaudy sofa cushions, two of which bore the names +and colours of certain colleges. The gas log was almost hidden by dried +palm leaves, a cigarette stump lay on the fender; on the mantel above +were several photographs of men and at the other side an open door +revealed a bedroom. + +"This is a nice place, ain't it?" she observed. "I furnished it when I +was on velvet--nothing was too good for me. Money's like champagne when +you take the cork out, it won't keep. I was rich once. It was lively +while it lasted," she added, with a sigh: "I've struck the down trail. +I oughtn't, by rights, to be here fooling with you. There's nothing in +it." She glanced at the clock. "I ought to get busy." + +As the realization of her meaning came to him, he quivered. + +"Is there no way but that?" he asked, in a low voice. + +"Say, you're not a-goin' to preach, are you?" + +"No," he answered, "God forbid! I was not asking the question of you." + +She stared at him. + +"Of who, then?" + +He was silent. + +"You've left me at the station. But on the level, you don't seem to know +much, that's a fact. You don't think the man who owns these flats is in +it for charity, do you? 'Single ladies,' like me, have to give up. And +then there are other little grafts that wouldn't interest you. What +church do you come from anyway?" + +"You mentioned it a little while ago." + +"St. John's!" She leaned back against the piano and laughed +unrestrainedly. "That's a good one, to think how straight I've been +talking to you." + +"I'm much obliged to you," he said. + +Again she gazed at him, now plainly perplexed. + +"What are you giving me?" + +"I mean what I say," he answered. "I am obliged to you for telling me +things I didn't know. And I appreciate--your asking me to stay." + +She was sitting upright now, her expression changed, her breath came more +rapidly, her lips parted as she gazed at him. + +"Do you know," she said, "I haven't had anybody speak to me like that +for four years." Her voice betrayed excitement, and differed in tone, +and she had cast off unconsciously the vulgarity of speech. At that +moment she seemed reminiscent of what she must once have been; and he +found himself going through an effort at reconstruction. + +"Like what?" he asked. + +"Like a woman," she answered vehemently. + +"My name is John Hodder," he said, "and I live in the parish house, next +door to the church. I should like to be your friend, if you will let me. +If I can be of any help to you now, or at any other time, I shall feel +happy. I promise not to preach," he added. + +She got up abruptly, and went to the window. And when she turned to him +again, it was with something of the old bravado. + +"You'd better leave me alone, I'm no good;" she said. "I'm much obliged +to you, but I don't want any charity or probation houses in mine. And +honest work's a thing of the past for me--even if I could get a job. +Nobody would have me. But if they would, I couldn't work any more. +I've got out of the hang of it." With a swift and decisive movement she +crossed the room, opened a cabinet on the wall, revealing a bottle and +glasses. + +"So you're bent upon going--downhill?" he said. + +"What can you do to stop it?" she retorted defiantly, "Give me religion +---I guess you'd tell me. Religion's all right for those on top, but +say, it would be a joke if I got it. There ain't any danger. But if I +did, it wouldn't pay room-rent and board." + +He sat mute. Once more the truth overwhelmed, the folly of his former +optimism arose to mock him. What he beheld now, in its true aspect, was +a disease of that civilization he had championed. . . + +She took the bottle from the cupboard and laid it on the table. + +"What's the difference?" she demanded. "It's all over in a little while, +anyway. I guess you'd tell me there was a hell. But if that's so, some +of your church folks'll broil, too. I'll take my chance on it, if they +will." She looked at him, half in defiance, half in friendliness, across +the table. "Say, you mean all right, but you're only wastin' time here. +You can't do me any good, I tell you, and I've got to get busy." + +"May we not at least remain friends?" he asked, after a moment. + +Her laugh was a little harsh. + +"What kind of friendship would that be? You, a minister, and me a woman +on the town?" + +"If I can stand it, I should think you might." + +"Well, I can't stand it," she answered. + +He got up, and held out his hand. She stood seemingly irresolute, and +then took it. + +"Good night," he said. + +"Good night," she repeated nonchalantly. + +As he went out of the door she called after him: + +"Don't be afraid I'll worry the kid!" + +The stale odour of cigarette smoke with which the dim corridor was +charged intoxicated, threatened to overpower him. It seemed to be the +reek of evil itself. A closing door had a sinister meaning. He hurried; +obscurity reigned below, the light in the lower hall being out; fumbled +for the door-knob, and once in the street took a deep breath and mopped +his brow; but he had not proceeded half a block before he hesitated, +retraced his steps, reentered the vestibule, and stooped to peer at the +cards under the speaking tubes. Cheaply printed in large script, was the +name of the tenant of the second floor rear,--MISS KATE MARCY. . . . + +In crossing Tower Street he was frightened by the sharp clanging of a +great electric car that roared past him, aflame with light. His brain +had seemingly ceased to work, and he stumbled at the curb, for he was +very tired. The events of the day no longer differentiated themselves +in his mind but lay, a composite weight, upon his heart. At length he +reached the silent parish house, climbed the stairs and searched in his +pocket for the key of his rooms. The lock yielded, but while feeling for +the switch he tripped and almost fell over an obstruction on the floor. + +The flooding light revealed his travelling-bags, as he had piled them, +packed and ready to go to the station. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Inside of the Cup, Volume 3 +by Winston Churchill + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INSIDE OF THE CUP, VOLUME 3 *** + +***** This file should be named 5358.txt or 5358.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/5/5358/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: The Inside of the Cup, Volume 3. + +Author: Winston Churchill (USA author, not Sir Winston Churchill) + +Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5358] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 24, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INSIDE OF THE CUP, V3, BY CHURCHILL *** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + + +THE INSIDE OF THE CUP + +By Winston Churchill + + + +Volume 3. + +IX. THE DIVINE DISCONTENT +X. THE MESSENGER IN THE CHURCH +XI. THE LOST PARISHIONER +XII. THE WOMAN OF THE SONG + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE DIVINE DISCONTENT + +I + +It was the last Sunday in May, and in another week the annual flight to +the seashore and the mountains would have begun again. The breezes +stealing into the church through the open casements wafted hither and +thither the odours of the chancel flowers, and mingled with those fainter +and subtler perfumes set free by the rustling of summer gowns. + +As on this day he surveyed his decorous and fashionable congregation, +Hodder had something of that sense of extremity which the great apostle +to the Gentiles himself must have felt when he stood in the midst of the +Areopagus and made his vain yet sublime appeal to Athenian indifference +and luxury. "And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now +commandeth all men everywhere to repent." . . Some, indeed, stirred +uneasily as the rector paused, lowering their eyes before the intensity +of his glance, vaguely realizing that the man had flung the whole passion +of his being into the appeal. + +Heedlessness--that was God's accusation against them, against the age. +Materialism, individualism! So absorbed were they in the pursuit of +wealth, of distraction, so satisfied with the current philosophy, so +intent on surrounding themselves with beautiful things and thus shutting +out the sterner view, that they had grown heedless of the divine message. +How few of them availed themselves of their spiritual birthright to renew +their lives at the altar rail! And they had permitted their own children +to wander away . . . . Repent! + +There was a note of desperation in his appeal, like that of the hermit +who stands on a mountain crag and warns the gay and thoughtless of the +valley of the coming avalanche. Had they heard him at last? There were +a few moments of tense silence, during which he stood gazing at them. +Then he raised his arm in benediction, gathered up his surplice, +descended the pulpit steps, and crossed swiftly the chancel . . . . + +He had, as it were, turned on all the power in a supreme effort to reach +them. What if he had failed again? Such was the misgiving that beset +him, after the service, as he got out of his surplice, communicated by +some occult telepathy . . . . Mr. Parr was awaiting him, and +summoning his courage, hope battling against intuition, he opened the +door into the now empty church and made his way toward the porch, where +the sound of voices warned him that several persons were lingering. The +nature of their congratulations confirmed his doubts. Mrs. Plimpton, +resplendent and looking less robust than usual in one of her summer Paris +gowns, greeted him effusively. + +"Oh, Mr. Hodder, what a wonderful sermon!" she cried. "I can't express +how it made me feel--so delinquent! Of course that is exactly the effect +you wished. And I was just telling Wallis I was so glad I waited until +Tuesday to go East, or I should have missed it. You surely must come on +to Hampton and visit us, and preach it over again in our little stone +church there, by the sea. Good-by and don't forget! I'll write you, +setting the date, only we'd be glad to have you any time." + +"One of the finest I ever heard--if not the finest," Mr. Plimpton +declared, with a kind of serious 'empressement', squeezing his hand. + +Others stopped him; Everett Constable, for one, and the austere Mrs. +Atterbury. Hodder would have avoided the ever familiar figure of her +son, Gordon, in the invariable black cutaway and checked trousers, +but he was standing beside Mr. Parr. + +"Ahem! Why, Mr. Hodder," he exclaimed, squinting off his glasses, +"that was a magnificent effort. I was saying to Mr. Parr that it isn't +often one hears a sermon nowadays as able as that, and as sound. Many +clergymen refrain from preaching them, I sometimes think, because they +are afraid people won't like them." + +"I scarcely think it's that," the rector replied, a little shortly. +"We're afraid people won't heed them." + +He became aware, as he spoke, of a tall young woman, who had cast an +enigmatic glance first at Gordon Atterbury, and then at himself. + +"It was a good sermon," said Mr. Parr. "You're coming to lunch, Hodder?" + +The rector nodded. "I'm ready when you are," he answered. + +"The motor's waiting," said the banker, leading the way down the steps to +the sidewalk, where he turned. "Alison, let me introduce Mr. Hodder. +This is my daughter," he added simply. + +This sudden disclosure of the young woman's identity had upon Hodder a +certain electric effect, and with it came a realization of the extent to +which--from behind the scenes, so to speak--she had gradually aroused him +to a lively speculation. She seemed to have influenced, to a greater or +less degree, so many lives with which he had come into touch! Compelled +persons to make up their minds about her! And while he sympathized +with Eldon Parr in his abandonment, he had never achieved the full +condemnation which he felt--an impartial Christian morality would have +meted out. + +As he uttered the conventional phrase and took her hand, he asked himself +whether her personality justified his interest. Her glance at Gordon +Atterbury in the midst of that gentleman's felicitations on the sermon +had been expressive, Hodder thought, of veiled amusement slightly +tinctured with contempt; and he, Hodder, felt himself to have grown warm +over it. He could not be sure that Alison Parr had not included, in her +inner comment, the sermon likewise, on which he had so spent himself. +What was she doing at church? As her eyes met his own, he seemed to +read a challenge. He had never encountered a woman--he decided--who +so successfully concealed her thought, and at the same time so incited +curiosity about it. + +The effect of her reappearance on Gordon Atterbury was painfully +apparent, and Mrs. Larrabbee's remark, "that he had never got over it," +recurred to Hodder. He possessed the virtue of being faithful, at least, +in spite of the lady's apostasy, and he seemed to be galvanized into a +tenfold nervousness as he hustled after them and handed her, with the +elaborate attention little men are apt to bestow upon women, into the +motor. + +"Er--how long shall you be here, Alison?" he asked. "I don't know," she +answered, not unkindly, but with a touch of indifference. + +"You treat us shamefully," he informed her, "upon my word! But I'm +coming to call." + +"Do," said Alison. Hodder caught her eye again, and this time he was +sure that she surprised in him a certain disdain of Mr. Atterbury's zeal. +Her smile was faint, yet unmistakable. + +He resented it. Indeed, it was with a well-defined feeling of antagonism +that he took his seat, and this was enhanced as they flew westward, Mr. +Parr wholly absorbed with the speaking trumpet, energetically rebuking at +every bounce. In the back of the rector's mind lay a weight, which he +identified, at intervals, with what he was now convinced was the failure +of his sermon. . . Alison took no part in the casual conversation that +began when they reached the boulevard and Mr. Parr abandoned the trumpet, +but lay back in silence and apparently with entire comfort in a corner of +the limousine. + +At the lunch-table Mr. Parr plunged into a discussion of some of the +still undecided details of the new settlement house, in which, as the +plan developed, he had become more and more interested. He had made +himself responsible, from time to time, for additional sums, until the +original estimate had been almost doubled. Most of his suggestions had +come from Hodder, who had mastered the subject with a thoroughness that +appealed to the financier: and he had gradually accepted the rector's +idea of concentrating on the children. Thus he had purchased an +adjoining piece of land that was to be a model playground, in connection +with the gymnasium and swimming-pool. The hygienic department was to be +all that modern science could desire. + +"If we are going to do the thing," the banker would, remark, "we may as +well do it thoroughly; we may as well be leaders and not followers." + +So, little by little, the scheme had grown to proportions that sometimes +appalled the rector when he realized how largely he had been responsible +for the additions,--in spite of the lukewarmness with which he had begun. +And yet it had occasionally been Mr. Parr who, with a sweep of his hand, +had added thousands to a particular feature: thus the dance-hall had +become, in prospect, a huge sun-parlour at the top of the building, where +the children were to have their kindergartens and games in winter; and +which might be shaded and opened up to the breezes in summer. What had +reconciled Hodder to the enterprise most of all, however, was the chapel +--in the plan a beautiful Gothic church--whereby he hoped to make the +religious progress keep pace with the social. Mr. Parr was decidedly in +sympathy with this intention, and referred to it now. + +"I was much impressed by what you said in your sermon to-day as to the +need of insisting upon authority in religious matters," he declared, "and +I quite agree that we should have a chapel of some size at the settlement +house for that reason. Those people need spiritual control. It's what +the age needs. And when I think of some of the sermons printed in the +newspapers to-day, and which are served up as Christianity, there is only +one term to apply to them--they are criminally incendiary." + +"But isn't true Christianity incendiary, in your meaning of the word?" + +It was Alison who spoke, in a quiet and musical voice that was in +striking contrast to the tone of Mr. Parr, which the rector had thought +unusually emphatic. It was the first time she had shown an inclination +to contribute to the talk. But since Hodder had sat down at the table +her presence had disturbed him, and he had never been wholly free from an +uncomfortable sense that he was being measured and weighed. + +Once or twice he had stolen a glance at her as she sat, perfectly at +ease, and asked himself whether she had beauty, and it dawned upon him +little by little that the very proportion she possessed made for physical +unobtrusiveness. She was really very tall for a woman. At first he +would have said her nose was straight, when he perceived that it had a +delicate hidden curve; her eyes were curiously set, her dark hair parted +in the middle, brought down low on each side of the forehead and tied in +a Grecian knot. Thus, in truth, he observed, were seemingly all the +elements of the classic, even to the firm yet slender column of the neck. +How had it eluded him? + +Her remark, if it astonished Hodder, had a dynamic effect on Eldon Parr. +And suddenly the rector comprehended that the banker had not so much been +talking to him as through him; had been, as it were, courting opposition. + +"What do you mean by Christianity being incendiary?" he demanded. + +"Incendiary, from your point of view--I made, the qualification," +Alison replied, apparently unmoved by his obvious irritation. "I don't +pretend to be a Christian, as you know, but if there is one element +in Christianity that distinguishes it, it is the brotherhood of man. +That's pure nitroglycerin, though it's been mixed with so much sawdust. +Incendiary is a mild epithet. I never read the sermons you refer to; +I dare say they're crude, but they're probably attempts to release an +explosive which would blow your comfortable social system and its +authority into atoms." + +Hodder, who had listened in amazement, glanced at the banker. He had +never before heard him opposed, or seen him really angry. + +"I've heard that doctrine," cried Mr. Parr. "Those who are dissatisfied +with things as they are because they have been too stupid or too weak +or self-indulgent to rise, find it easy to twist the principles of +Christianity into revolutionary propaganda. It's a case of the devil +quoting Scripture. The brotherhood of man! There has never been an age +when philanthropy and organized charity were on such a scale as to-day." + +A certain gallant, indomitable ring crept into Alison's voice; she did +not seem in the least dismayed or overborne. + +"But isn't that just where most so-called Christians make their mistake?" +she asked. "Philanthropy and organized charity, as they exist to-day, +have very little to do with the brotherhood of man. Mightn't it be you +who are fooling yourselves instead of the incendiaries fooling themselves +So long as you can make yourselves believe that this kind of charity is +a logical carrying out of the Christian principles, so long are your +consciences satisfied with the social system which your class, very +naturally, finds so comfortable and edifying. The weak and idiotic ought +to be absurdly grateful for what is flung to them, and heaven is gained +in the throwing. In this way the rich inevitably become the elect, both +here and hereafter, and the needle's eye is widened into a gap." + +There was on Mr. Parr's lips a smile not wholly pleasant to see. Indeed, +in the last few minutes there had been revealed to Hodder a side of the +banker's character which had escaped him in the two years of their +acquaintance. + +"I suppose," said Mr. Parr, slowly, drumming on the table, "you would say +that of the new settlement house of St. John's, whereby we hope to raise +a whole neighbourhood." + +"Yes, I should," replied Alison, with spirit. "The social system by +which you thrive, and which politically and financially you strive to +maintain, is diametrically opposed to your creed, which is supposed to be +the brotherhood of man. But if that were really your creed, you would +work for it politically and financially. You would see that your Church +is trying to do infinitesimally what the government, but for your +opposition, might do universally. Your true creed is the survival of the +fittest. You grind these people down into what is really an economic +slavery and dependence, and then you insult and degrade them by inviting +them to exercise and read books and sing hymns in your settlement house, +and give their children crackers and milk and kindergartens and sunlight! +I don't blame them for not becoming Christians on that basis. Why, the +very day I left New York a man over eighty, who had been swindled out +of all he had, rather than go to one of those Christian institutions +deliberately forged a check and demanded to be sent to the penitentiary. +He said he could live and die there with some self-respect." + +"I might have anticipated that you would ultimately become a Socialist, +Alison," Mr. Parr remarked--but his voice trembled. + +"I don't know whether I'm a Socialist or an Anarchist," she answered. +Hodder thought be detected a note of hopelessness in her voice, and the +spirit in it ebbed a little. Not only did she seem indifferent to her +father's feeling--which incidentally added fuel to it--but her splendid +disregard of him, as a clergyman, had made an oddly powerful appeal. +And her argument! His feelings, as he listened to this tremendous +arraignment of Eldon Parr by his daughter, are not easily to be +described. To say that she had compelled him, the rector of St. John's, +at last to look in the face many conditions which be had refused to +recognize would be too definite a statement. Nevertheless, some such +thing had occurred. Refutations sprang to his lips, and died there, +though he had no notion of uttering them. He saw that to admit her +contentions would be to behold crumble into ruins the structure that +he had spent a life in rearing; and yet something within him responded +to her words--they had the passionate, convincing ring of truth. + +By no means the least of their disturbing effects was due to the fact +that they came as a climax to, as a fulfilment of the revelation he had +had at the Fergusons', when something of the true nature of Mr. Plimpton +and others of his congregation had suddenly been laid bare. And now +Hodder looked at Eldon Parr to behold another man from the one he had +known, and in that moment realized that their relationship could never +again be the same. . . Were his sympathies with the daughter? + +"I don't know what I believe," said Alison, after a pause. "I've ceased +trying to find out. What's the use!" She appeared now to be addressing +no one in particular. + +A servant entered with a card, and the banker's hand shook perceptibly +as he put down his claret and adjusted his glasses. + +"Show him into my office upstairs, and tell him I'll see him at once," he +said, and glanced at the rector. But it was Alison whom he addressed. +"I must leave Mr. Hodder to answer your arguments," he added, with an +attempt at lightness; and then to the rector: "Perhaps you can convince +her that the Church is more sinned against than sinning, and that +Christians are not such terrible monsters after all. You'll excuse me?" + +"Certainly." Hodder had risen. + + + +II + +"Shall we have coffee in the garden?" Alison asked. "It's much nicer +outside this time of year." + +For an instant he was at a loss to decide whether to accede, or to make +an excuse and leave the house. Wisdom seemed to point to flight. But +when he glanced at her he saw to his surprise that the mood of +abstraction into which she had fallen still held her; that the discussion +which had aroused Eldon Parr to such dramatic anger had left her serious +and thoughtful. She betrayed no sense of triumph at having audaciously +and successfully combated him, and she appeared now only partially to be +aware of Hodder's presence. His interest, his curiosity mounted suddenly +again, overwhelming once more the antagonism which he had felt come and +go in waves; and once more his attempted classification of her was swept +away. She had relapsed into an enigma. + +"I like the open air," he answered, "and I have always wished to see the +garden. I have admired it from the windows." + +"It's been on my mind for some years," she replied, as she led the way +down a flight of steps into the vine-covered pergola. "And I intend to +change parts of it while I am out here. It was one of my first attempts, +and I've learned more since." + +"You must forgive my ignorant praise," he said, and smiled. "I have +always thought it beautiful: But I can understand that an artist is never +satisfied." + +She turned to him, and suddenly their eyes met and held in a momentary, +electric intensity that left him warm and agitated. There was nothing +coquettish in the glance, but it was the first distinct manifestation +that he was of consequence. She returned his smile, without levity. + +"Is a clergyman ever satisfied?" she asked. + +"He ought not to be," replied Hodder, wondering whether she had read him. + +"Although you were so considerate, I suppose you must have thought it +presumptuous of me to criticize your, profession, which is religion." + +"Religion, I think, should be everybody's," he answered quietly. + +She made no reply. And he entered, as into another world, the circular +arbour in which the pergola ended, so complete in contrast was its +atmosphere to that of the house. The mansion he had long since grown to +recognize as an expression of the personality of its owner, but this +classic bower was as remote from it as though it were in Greece. He was +sensitive to beauty, yet the beauty of the place had a perplexing +quality, which he felt in the perfect curves of the marble bench, in the +marble basin brimming to the tip with clear water,--the surface of which, +flecked with pink petals, mirrored the azure sky through the leafy +network of the roof. In one green recess a slender Mercury hastily +adjusted his sandal. + +Was this, her art, the true expression of her baffling personality? As +she had leaned back in the corner of the automobile she had given him the +impression of a languor almost Oriental, but this had been startlingly +dispelled at the lunch-table by the revelation of an animation and a +vitality which had magically transformed her. But now, as under the +spell of a new encompassment of her own weaving, she seemed to revert to +her former self, sinking, relaxed, into a wicker lounge beside the basin, +one long and shapely hand in the water, the other idle in her lap. Her +eyes, he remarked, were the contradiction in her face. Had they been +larger, and almond-shaped, the illusion might have been complete. They +were neither opaque nor smouldering,--but Western eyes, amber-coloured, +with delicately stencilled rays and long lashes. And as they gazed up at +him now they seemed to reflect, without disclosing the flitting thoughts +behind them. He felt antagonism and attraction in almost equal degree-- +the situation transcended his experience. + +"You don't intend to change this?" he asked, with an expressive sweep of +his hand. + +"No," she said, "I've always liked it. Tell me what you feel about it." + +He hesitated. + +"You resent it," she declared. + +"Why do you say that?" he demanded quickly. + +"I feel it," she answered calmly, but with a smile. + +"'Resent' would scarcely be the proper word," he contended, returning her +smile, yet hesitating again. + +"You think it pagan," she told him. + +"Perhaps I do," he answered simply, as though impressed by her felicitous +discovery of the adjective. + +Alison laughed. + +"It's pagan because I'm pagan, I suppose." + +"It's very beautiful--you have managed to get an extraordinary +atmosphere," he continued, bent on doing himself an exact justice. But +I should say, if you pressed me, that it represents to me the deification +of beauty to the exclusion of all else. You have made beauty the Alpha +and Omega." + +"There is nothing else for me," she said. + +The coffee-tray arrived and was deposited on a wicker table beside her. +She raised herself on an elbow, filled his cup and handed it to him. + +"And yet," he persisted, "from the manner in which you spoke at the +table--" + +"Oh, don't imagine I haven't thought? But thinking isn't--believing." + +"No," he admitted, with a touch of sadness, "you are right. There were +certain comments you made on the Christian religion--" + +She interrupted him again. + +"As to the political side of it, which is Socialism, so far as I can +see. If there is any other side, I have never been able to discover it. +It seems to me that if Christians were logical, they should be +Socialists. The brotherhood of man, cooperation--all that is Socialism, +isn't it? It's opposed to the principle of the survival of the fittest, +which so many of these so-called Christians practise. I used to think, +when I came back from Paris, that I was a Socialist, and I went to a lot +of their meetings in New York, and to lectures. But after a while I saw +there was something in Socialism that didn't appeal to me, something +smothering,--a forced cooperation that did not leave one free. I wanted +to be free, I've been striving all my life to be free," she exclaimed +passionately, and was silent an instant, inspecting him. "Perhaps I owe +you an apology for speaking as I did before a clergyman--especially +before an honest one." + +He passed over the qualification with a characteristic smile. + +"Oh, if we are going to shut our ears to criticism we'd better give up +being clergymen," he answered. "I'm afraid there is a great deal of +truth in what you said." + +"That's generous of you!" she exclaimed, and thrilled him with the +tribute. Nor was the tribute wholly in the words: there had come +spontaneously into her voice an exquisite, modulated note that haunted +him long after it had died away . . . . + +"I had to say what I thought," she continued earnestly; "I stood it as +long as I could. Perhaps you didn't realize it, but my father was +striking at me when he referred to your sermon, and spiritual control-- +and in other things he said when you were talking about the settlement- +house. He reserves for himself the right to do as he pleases, but +insists that those who surround him shall adopt the subserviency which he +thinks proper for the rest of the world. If he were a Christian himself, +I shouldn't mind it so much." + +Hodder was silent. The thought struck him with the force of a great +wind. + +"He's a Pharisee," Alison went on, following the train of her thought. +"I remember the first time I discovered that--it was when I was reading +the New Testament carefully, in the hope of finding something in +Christianity I might take hold of. And I was impressed particularly by +the scorn with which Christ treated the Pharisees. My father, too, if he +had lived in those days, would have thought Christ a seditious person, an +impractical, fanatical idealist, and would have tried to trip him up with +literal questions concerning the law. His real and primary interest--is +in a social system that benefits himself and his kind, and because this +is so, he, and men like him, would have it appear that Christianity is +on the side of what they term law and order. I do not say that they are +hypocritical, that they reason this out. They are elemental; and they +feel intuitively that Christianity contains a vital spark which, if +allowed to fly, would start a conflagration beyond their control. The +theologians have helped them to cover the spark with ashes, and naturally +they won't allow the ashes to be touched, if they can help it." + +She lay very still. + +The rector had listened to her, at first with amazement, then with more +complicated sensations as she thus dispassionately discussed the foremost +member of his congregation and the first layman of the diocese, who was +incidentally her own father. In her masterly analysis of Eldon Parr, she +had brought Hodder face to face with the naked truth, and compelled him +to recognize it. How could he attempt to refute it, with honesty? + +He remembered Mr. Parr's criticism of Alison. There had been hardness in +that, though it were the cry of a lacerated paternal affection. In that, +too, a lack of comprehension, an impotent anger at a visitation not +understood, a punishment apparently unmerited. Hodder had pitied him +then--he still pitied him. In the daughter's voice was no trace of +resentment. No one, seemingly, could be farther removed from him (the +rector of St. John's) in her opinions and views of life, than Allison +Parr; and yet he felt in her an undercurrent, deep and strong, which +moved him strangely, strongly, irresistibly; he recognized a passionate +desire for the truth, and the courage to face it at any cost, and a +capacity for tenderness, revealed in flashes. + +"I have hurt you," she exclaimed. "I am sorry." + +He collected himself. + +"It is not you who have hurt me," he replied. "Reflections on the +contradictions and imperfections of life are always painful. And since +I have been here, I have seen a great deal of your father." + +"You are fond of him!" + +He hesitated. It was not an ordinary conversation they were dealing with +realities, and he had a sense that vital issues were at stake. He had, +in that moment, to make a revaluation of his sentiments for the +financier--to weigh the effect of her indictment. + +"Yes," he answered slowly, "I am fond of him. He has shown me a side of +himself, perhaps, that other men have not seen,--and he is very lonely." + +"You pity him." He started at her word. "I guessed that from an +expression that crossed your face when we were at the table. But surely +you must have observed the incongruity of his relationship with your +Church! Surely, in preaching as you did this morning against +materialism, individualism, absorption in the pursuit of wealth, you must +have had my father in mind as the supreme example! And yet he listened +to you as serenely as though he had never practised any of these things! + +"Clergymen wonder why Christianity doesn't make more progress to-day; +well, what strikes the impartial observer who thinks about the subject at +all, as one reason, is the paralyzing inconsistency of an alliance +between those who preach the brotherhood of man and those who are opposed +to it. I've often wondered what clergymen would say about it, if they +were frank--only I never see any clergymen." + +He was strongly agitated. He did not stop--strangely enough--to reflect +how far they had gone, to demand by what right she brought him to the +bar, challenged the consistency of his life. For she had struck, with a +ruthless precision, at the very core of his trouble, revealed it for what +it was. + +"Yes," he said, "I can see how we may be accused of inconsistency, and +with much justice." + +His refusal to excuse and vindicate himself impressed her as no attempt +at extenuation could have done. Perhaps, in that moment, her quick +instinct divined something of his case, something of the mental suffering +he strove to conceal. Contrition shone in her eyes. + +"I ought not to have said that," she exclaimed gently. "It is so easy +for outsiders to criticize those who are sincere--and I am sure you are. +We cannot know all the perplexities. But when we look at the Church, we +are puzzled by that--which I have mentioned--and by other things." + +"What other things?" he demanded. + +She hesitated in her turn. + +"I suppose you think it odd, my having gone to church, feeling as I do," +she said. "But St. John's is now the only place vividly associated with +my mother. She was never at home here, in this house. I always go at +least once when I am out here. And I listened to your sermon intently." + +"Yes." + +"I wanted to tell you this: you interested me as I had not been +interested since I was twenty, when I made a desperate attempt to become +a Christian--and failed. Do you know how you struck me? It was as a man +who actually had a great truth which he was desperately trying to impart, +and could not. I have not been in a church more than a dozen times in +the last eight years, but you impressed me as a man who felt something +--whatever it is." + +He did not speak. + +"But why," she cried, "do you insist on what you cell authority? As a +modern woman who has learned to use her own mind, I simply can't believe, +if the God of the universe is the moral God you assert him to be, that he +has established on earth an agency of the kind you infer, and delegated +to it the power of life and death over human souls. Perhaps you do not +go so far, but if you make the claim at all you must make it in its +entirety. There is an idea of commercialism, of monopoly in that +conception which is utterly repugnant to any one who tries to approach +the subject with a fresh mind, and from an ideal point of view. And +religion must be idealism--mustn't it? + +"Your ancient monks and saints weren't satisfied until they had +settled every detail of the invisible world, of the past and future. +They mapped it out as if it were a region they had actually explored, +like geographers. They used their reason, and what science they had, to +make theories about it which the churches still proclaim as the catholic +and final truth. You forbid us to use our reason. You declare, in order +to become Christians, that we have to accept authoritative statements. +Oh, can't you see that an authoritative statement is just what an +ethical person doesn't want? Belief--faith doesn't consist in the mere +acceptance of a statement, but in something much higher--if we can +achieve it. Acceptance of authority is not faith, it is mere credulity, +it is to shirk the real issue. We must believe, if we believe at all, +without authority. If we knew, there would be no virtue in striving. +If I choose a God," she added, after a pause, "I cannot take a consensus +of opinion about him,--he must be my God." + +Hodder did not speak immediately. Strange as it may seem, he had +never heard the argument, and the strength of it, reenforced by the +extraordinary vitality and earnestness of the woman who had uttered it, +had a momentary stunning effect. He sat contemplating her as she lay +back among the cushions, and suddenly he seemed to see in her the +rebellious child of which her father had spoken. No wonder Eldon Parr +had misunderstood her, had sought to crush her spirit! She was to be +dealt with in no common way, nor was the consuming yearning he discerned +in her to be lightly satisfied. + +"The God of the individualist," he said at length--musingly, not +accusingly. + +"I am an individualist," she admitted simply. "But I am at least logical +in that philosophy, and the individualists who attend the churches to-day +are not. The inconsistency of their lives is what makes those of us who +do not go to church doubt the efficacy of their creed, which seems to +have no power to change them. The majority of people in St. John's are +no more Christians than I am. They attend service once a week, and the +rest of the time they are bent upon getting all they can of pleasure +and profit for themselves. Do you wonder that those who consider this +spectacle come inevitably to the conclusion that either Christianity +is at fault, is outworn, or else that it is presented in the wrong way?" + +The rector rose abruptly, walked to the entrance of the arbour, and stood +staring out across the garden. Presently he turned and came back and +stood over her. + +"Since you ask me," he said slowly, "I do not wonder at it." + +She raised her eyes swiftly. + +"When you speak like that," she exclaimed with an enthusiasm that +stirred him, despite the trouble of his mind, "I cannot think of you as +a clergyman,--but as a man. Indeed," she added, in the surprise of her +discovery, "I have never thought of you as a clergyman--even when I first +saw you this morning. I could not account then for a sense of duality +about you that puzzled me. Do you always preach as earnestly as that?" + +"Why?" + +"I felt as if you were throwing your whole soul into the effort-=oh, +I felt it distinctly. You made some of them, temporarily, a little +uncomfortable, but they do not understand you, and you didn't change +them. It seemed to me you realized this when Gordon Atterbury spoke to +you. I tried to analyze the effect on myself--if it had been in the +slightest degree possible for my reason to accept what you said you +might, through sheer personality, have compelled me to reconsider. +As it was, I found myself resisting you." + +With his hands clasped behind him, he paced across the arbour and back +again. + +"Have you ever definitely and sincerely tried to put what the Church +teaches into practice?" he asked. + +"Orthodox Christianity? penance, asceticism, self-abnegation--repression +--falling on my knees and seeking a forgiveness out of all proportion to +the trespass, and filled with a sense of total depravity? If I did that +I should lose myself--the only valuable thing I've got." + +Hodder, who had resumed his pacing, glanced at her involuntarily, and +fought an inclination to agree with her. + +"I see no one upon whom I can rely but myself," she went on with the +extraordinary energy she was able to summon at will, "and I am convinced +that self-sacrifice--at least, indiscriminate, unreasoning self- +sacrifice--is worse than useless, and to teach it is criminal ignorance. +None of the so-called Christian virtues appeals to me: I hate humility. +You haven't it. The only happiness I can see in the world lies in self- +expression, and I certainly shouldn't find that in sewing garments for +the poor. + +"The last thing that I could wish for would be immortality as orthodox +Christianity depicts it! And suppose I had followed the advice of my +Christian friends and remained here, where they insisted my duty was, +what would have happened to me? In a senseless self-denial I should +gradually have, withered into a meaningless old maid, with no opinions +of my own, and no more definite purpose in life than to write checks for +charities. Your Christianity commands that women shall stay at home, and +declares that they are not entitled to seek their own salvation, to have +any place in affairs, or to meddle with the realm of the intellect. +Those forbidden gardens are reserved for the lordly sex. St. Paul, you +say, put us in our proper place some twenty centuries ago, and we are to +remain there for all time." + +He felt sweeping through him the reverse current of hostility. + +"And what I preach," he asked, "has tended to confirm you in such a mean +conception of Christianity?" + +Her eye travelled over the six feet of him--the kindling, reflecting eye +of the artist; it rested for a moment on the protesting locks of his +hair, which apparently could not be cut short enough to conform; on the +hands, which were strong and sinewy; on the wide, tolerant mouth, with +its rugged furrows, on the breadth and height of the forehead. She lay +for a moment, inert, considering. + +"What you preach--yes," she answered, bravely meeting his look. "What +you are--no. You and your religion are as far apart as the poles. Oh, +this old argument, the belief that has been handed down to the man, the +authority with which he is clothed, and not the man himself! How can one +be a factor in life unless one represents something which is the fruit of +actual, personal experience? Your authority is for the weak, the timid, +the credulous,--for those who do not care to trust themselves, who run +for shelter from the storms of life to a 'papier-mache' fortress, made to +look like rock. In order to preach that logically you should be a white +ascetic, with a well-oiled manner, a downcast look lest you stumble in +your pride; lest by chance you might do something original that sprang +out of your own soul instead of being an imitation of the saints. And if +your congregation took your doctrine literally, I can see a whole army of +white, meek Christians. But you are not like that. Can't you see it for +yourself?" she exclaimed. + +"Can't you feel that you are an individual, a personality, a force that +might be put to great uses? That will be because you are open-minded, +because there is room in you for growth and change?" + +He strove with all his might to quell the inner conflagration which she +had fanned into leaping flames. Though he had listened before to doubt +and criticism, this woman, with her strange shifting moods of calm and +passion, with her bewildering faculty of changing from passive to active +resistance, her beauty (once manifest, never to be forgotten), her unique +individuality that now attracted, now repelled, seemed for the moment the +very incarnation of the forces opposed to him and his religion. Holder, +as he looked at her, had a flash of fierce resentment that now, of all +times, she should suddenly have flung herself across his path. For she +was to be reckoned with. Why did he not tell her she was an egoist? Why +didn't he speak out, defend his faith, denounce her views as prejudiced +and false? + +"Have I made you angry?" he heard her say. "I am sorry." + +It was the hint of reproach in her tone to which the man in him instantly +responded. And what he saw now was his portrait she had painted. The +thought came to him: was he indeed greater, more vital than the religion +he professed? God forbid! Did he ring true, and it false? + +She returned his gaze. And gradually, under her clear olive skin, he saw +the crimson colour mounting higher . . . . She put forth her hand, +simply, naturally, and pressed his own, as though they had been friends +for a lifetime . . . . + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE MESSENGER IN THE CHURCH + + +I + +The annual scourge of summer had descended pitilessly upon the city once +more, enervating, depressing, stagnating, and people moved languidly in +the penetrating heat that steamed from the pores of the surrounding river +bottoms. + +The rector of St. John's realized that a crisis had come in his life,-- +a crisis he had tried to stave off in vain. And yet there was a period +during which he pursued his shrunken duties as though nothing had +happened to him; as a man who has been struck in battle keeps on, loath +to examine, to acknowledge the gravity of his wound; fearing to, perhaps. +Sometimes, as his mind went back to the merciless conflict of his past, +his experience at the law school, it was the unchaining of that other man +he dreaded, the man he believed himself to have finally subdued. But +night and day he was haunted by the sorrowful and reproachful face of +Truth. + +Had he the courage, now, to submit the beliefs which had sustained him +all these years to Truth's inexorable inspection? Did he dare to turn +and open those books which she had inspired,--the new philosophies, the +historical criticisms which he had neglected and condemned, which he had +flattered himself he could do without,--and read of the fruit of +Knowledge? Twice, thrice he had hesitated on the steps of the big +library, and turned away with a wildly beating heart. + +Day by day the storm increased, until from a cloud on the horizon it +grew into a soul-shaking tempest. Profoundly moved Parr's he had been on +that Sunday afternoon, in Eldon Parr's garden, he had resolutely resolved +to thrust the woman and the incident from his mind, to defer the +consideration of the questions she had raised--grave though they were--to +a calmer period. For now he was unable to separate her, to eliminate the +emotion--he was forced to acknowledge--the thought of her aroused, from +the problems themselves. Who was she? At moments he seemed to see her +shining, accusing, as Truth herself, and again as a Circe who had drawn +him by subtle arts from his wanderings, luring him to his death; or, at +other times, as the mutinous daughter of revolt. But when he felt, in +memory, the warm touch of her hand, the old wildness of his nature +responded, he ceased to speculate or care, and he longed only to crush +and subdue her by the brute power of the man in him. For good or bad, +she had woven her spell. + +Here was the old, elemental, twofold contest, carnal and spiritual, +thoroughly revived! . . . + +He recalled, in his musings, the little theological school surrounded +by southern woods and fields, where he had sometime walked under autumn +foliage with the elderly gentleman who had had such an influence on his +life--the dean. Mild-mannered and frail, patient in ordinary converse, +--a lion for the faith. He would have died for it as cheerfully as any +martyr in history. By the marvels of that faith Holder had beheld, from +his pew in the chapel, the little man transformed. He knew young men, +their perplexities and temptations, and he dealt with them personally, +like a father. Holder's doubts were stilled, he had gained power of his +temptations and peace for his soul, and he had gone forth inspired by the +reminder that there was no student of whom the dean expected better +things. Where now were the thousands of which he had dreamed, and which +he was to have brought into the Church? . . . + +Now, he asked himself, was it the dean, or the dean's theology through +which his regeneration had come? Might not the inherent goodness of the +dean be one thing, and his theology quite another? Personality again! +He recalled one of the many things which Alison Parr had branded on his +memory,--"the belief, the authority in which the man is clothed, and not +the man!" The dean's God had remained silent on the subject of +personality. Or, at the best, he had not encouraged it; and there were-- +Hodder could not but perceive--certain contradictions in his character, +which were an anomalistic blending of that of the jealous God of Moses +and of the God of Christ. There must be continuity--God could not +change. Therefore the God of infinite love must retain the wrath which +visited sins of the fathers on the children, which demanded sacrifice, +atonement,--an exact propitiation for his anger against mankind. An +innocent life of sorrow and suffering! + +And again, "You and your religion are as far apart as the poles!" Had +he, Hodder, outgrown the dean's religion, or had it ever been his own? +Was there, after all, such a thing as religion? Might it not be merely a +figment of the fertile imagination of man? He did not escape the terror +of this thought when he paused to consider his labour of the past two +years and the vanity of its results. And little by little the feeling +grew upon him, such being the state of his mind, that he ought not to +continue, for the present at least, to conduct the services. Should he +resign, or go away for a while to some quiet place before he made such a +momentous decision? There was no one to whom he could turn; no layman, +and no clergyman; not even the old bishop, whom he had more than once +mentally accused of being, too broad and too tolerant! No, he did not +wish a clergyman's solution. The significance of this thought flashed +through him--that the world itself was no longer seeking clergymen's +solutions. He must go off alone, and submit his faith to the impartial +test. + +It was in a vigil of the night, when he lay in the hot darkness, unable +to sleep, that he came at length to this resolve. And now that he had +cut the knot he was too just to blame Alison Parr for having pointed out +--with what often had seemed a pitiless cruelty--something of which he +had had a constantly growing perception yet had continually sought to +evade. And he reviewed, as the church bells recorded the silent hours, +how, little by little, his confidence had crumbled before the shocks of +the successive revelations--some of them so slight that they had passed +unnoticed: comparisons, inevitably compelled; Dalton Street; the +confessions of Eleanor Goodrich and Mrs. Constable; Mr. Plimpton and his +views of life--Eldon Parr! Even the slamming of the carriage doors in +Burton Street had had a significance! + +Might it not prove that this woman had let fall into the turbid waters of +his soul the drop that was to clear them forever? He would go away. He +would not see her again. + +Over the sleeping city, unapprehended, stole the dawn. + +He arose, but instead of falling on his knees he went to the window and +lifted his face to the whitening sky . . . . Slowly out of the +obscurity of the earth's shadow emerged the vague outlines of familiar +things until they stood sharply material, in a silence as of death. A +sparrow twittered, and suddenly the familiar, soot-grimed roofs were +bathed in light, and by a touch made beautiful . . . . + +Some hours later the city was wide awake. And Hodder, bathed and +dressed, stood staring down from his study window into the street below, +full now of young men and girls; some with set faces, hurrying, intent, +others romping and laughing as they dodged the trucks and trolley cars; +all on their way to the great shoe factory around the corner, the huge +funnels of which were belching forth smoke into the morning air. The +street emptied, a bell rang, a whistle blew, the hum of distant machinery +began . . . . + + + +II + +Later that morning Hodder sat in his study. The shutters were closed, +and the intensity of the tropical glare without was softened and diffused +by the slanting green slats. His eye wandered over the long and +comfortable room which had been his sanctuary in the feverish days of +his ministry, resting affectionately on the hospitable chairs, the wide +fireplace before which he had been wont to settle himself on winter +nights, and even on the green matting--a cooling note in summer. And +there, in the low cases along the walls, were the rows of his precious +books,--his one hobby and extravagance. He had grown to love the room. +Would he ever come back to it? + +A step sounded in the hall, a knock, and the well-known gaunt form and +spectacled face of McCrae appeared in the doorway. + +"Ye wished to see me?" he asked. + +"McCrae," said the rector, "I am going off for a while." + +His assistant regarded him a moment in silence. Although Hodder had no +intention of explaining his reasons, he had a curious conviction that it +were superfluous to do so, that McCrae had guessed them. + +"Why shouldn't ye? There's but a handful left to preach to in this +weather." + +"I wouldn't go, in this sudden way, if it were not imperative," Hodder +added, trying to speak calmly. + +"Why shouldn't ye?" McCrae repeated, almost fiercely. + +Hodder smiled in spite of himself. + +"There's no reason," he said, "except the added work put on you without +warning, and in this heat." + +"Ye'll not need to worry," his assistant assured him, "the heat's nothing +to me." McCrae hesitated, and then demanded abruptly, "Ye'll not be +visiting?" + +The question took Hodder by surprise. + +"No," he answered quickly, and not quite steadily, and hesitated in his +turn, "I shan't be visiting." + +"It's a rest ye need, I've been wanting to say it." McCrae took a step +forward, and for a moment it seemed as though he were at last about to +break the bonds of his reserve. Perhaps he detected an instinctive +shrinking on the rector's part. At any rate, there was another instant +of silence, in which the two men faced each other across the desk, and +McCrae held out his hand. "Good luck to ye," he said, as Hodder took it, +"and don't have the pariah on your mind. Stay till ye're rested, and +come back to us." + +He left the room abruptly. Hodder remained motionless, looking after +him, and then, moved apparently by a sudden impulse, started toward the +door,--only to halt and turn before he got to it. Almost he had opened +his lips to call his assistant back. He could not do it--the moment had +come and fled when it might have been possible. Did this man hide, under +his brusqueness and brevity of speech, the fund of wisdom and the wider +sympathy and understanding he suspected? Hodder could have vouched for +it, and yet he had kept his own counsel. And he was struck suddenly by +the significance of the fact, often remarked, that McCrae in his brief +and common-sense and by no means enlivening sermons had never once +referred in any way to doctrine or dogma! + +He spent half an hour in collecting and bestowing in two large valises +such articles as his simple needs would demand, and then set out for a +railroad office in the business portion of the city, where he bought his +ticket and berth. Then, after a moment of irresolution on the threshold +of the place, he turned to the right, thrusting his way through the +sluggish crowds on Tower Street until he came to the large bookstore +where he had been want to spend, from time to time, some of his leisure +moments. A clerk recognized him, and was about to lead the way to the +rear, where the precious editions were kept, when Hodder stopped him. + +In casting about for a beginning in his venture over unknown seas, there +had naturally come into his mind three or four works which were anathema +to the orthodox; one of which, in seven volumes, went back to his +seminary days, and had been the subject of a ringing, denunciatory sermon +by the dean himself. Three of them were by Germans of established +reputations, another by a professor of the University of Paris. The +habit of years is strong. + +And though he knew that many clergymen read these books, Hodder found it +impossible to overcome a nervous sense of adventure,--nay (knowing his +resolution), of apostasy, almost of clandestine guilt when he mentioned +them. And it seemed to him that the face of the clerk betrayed surprise. +One of the works was not in stock; he would send the others that +afternoon. Mr. Hodder would take them? They made a formidable parcel, +but a little handle was supplied and the rector hurried out, swinging +himself on a Tower Street car. + +It must not be thought that the whole of what is called modern criticism +was new to Hodder. This would indeed be too much of a reflection on the +open-mindedness of the seminary from which he had graduated. But he +found himself, now, pondering a little cynically on that "open- +mindedness"; on that concession--if it had been a concession--to the +methods of science. There had been in truth a course of lectures on this +subject; but he saw now, very clearly, what a concerted effort had been +put forward in the rest of the teaching to minimize and discredit it. +Even the professor who gave the lectures had had the air of deploring +them. Here it is, but on the whole one would better let it alone,--such +was the inference. And he had let it alone, through all these years. + +In the seminary, too, volumes by semi-learned clergymen had been thrust +into his hands, efforts which Hodder recalled now, in spite of his mental +state, with a smile. These invariably championed the doctrine of the +virgin birth as the pillar on which the Incarnation depended. +A favourite argument declared that although the Gospel texts in regard to +it might be proven untrustworthy, the miraculous birth must have happened +anyway! And one of these clerical authors whom he had more recently +read, actually had had the audacity to turn the weapons of the archenemy, +science, back upon itself. The virgin birth was an established fact in +nature, and had its place in the social economy of the bee. And did not +parthenogenesis occur in the silk moth? + +In brief, the conclusion impressed upon him by his seminary instruction +was this: that historical criticism had corrected some ideas and put +some things in their right place. What these things were remained +sufficiently vague. But whenever it attacked a cherished dogma it was, +on general principles, wrong. + +Once again in his cool study, he cut the cord with a trembling hand, and +while he was eating the lunch his housekeeper had prepared, dipped into +one of the larger volumes. As he read again the critical disproofs he +felt an acute, almost physical pain, as though a vital part of him were +being cut away, as his mind dwelt upon those beautiful legends to which +he had so often turned, and which had seemed the very fountain of his +faith. Legends! . . . . + +He closed the book. The clock on the mantel struck three; his train was +to leave at five. He rose and went down into the silent church he had +grown to love, seating himself in one of the carved stalls of the choir, +his eye lingering in turn on each beautiful object: on the glowing +landscape in the window in memory of Eliza Parr, portraying the +delectable country, with the bewildered yet enraptured faces of the +pilgrims in the foreground; on the graceful, shining lectern, the +aspiring arches, the carved marble altar behind the rail, and above +it the painting of the Christ on the cross. + +The hours of greatest suffering are the empty hours. 'Eloi, Eloi, lama +sabachthani?' The hours when the mysterious sustaining and driving force +is withdrawn, and a lassitude and despair comes over us like that of a +deserted child: the hours when we feel we have reached the limit of +service, when our brief span of usefulness is done. Had God brought him, +John Hodder, to the height of the powers of his manhood only to abandon +him, to cast him adrift on the face of the waters--led him to this great +parish, with all its opportunities, only that he might fail and flee? + +He sat staring at the face of the Man on the cross. Did he, in his +overwrought state, imagine there an expression he had never before +remarked, or had the unknown artist of the seventies actually risen above +the mediocrity of the figure in his portrayal of the features of the +Christ? The rector started, and stared again. There was no weakness in +the face, no meekness, no suggestion of the conception of the sacrificed +Lamb, no hint of a beatific vision of opening heavens--and yet no +accusation, no despair. A knowing--that were nearer--a knowing of all +things through the experiencing of all things, the suffering of all +things. For suffering without revelation were vain, indeed! A perfected +wisdom that blended inevitably with a transcendent love. Love and wisdom +were one, then? To reach comprehension through conquering experience was +to achieve the love that could exclaim, "they know not what they do!" + +Human or divine? Man or God? Hodder found himself inwardly repeating +the words, the controversy which had raged for nineteen hundred years, +and not yet was stilled. Perfection is divine. Human! Hodder repeated +the word, as one groping on the threshold of a great discovery . . . . + + + +III + +He was listening--he had for a long time been listening to a sound which +had seemed only the natural accompaniment of the drama taking place in +his soul, as though some inspired organist were expressing in exquisite +music the undercurrent of his agony. Only gradually did he become aware +that it arose from the nave of the church, and, turning, his eyes fell +upon the bowed head and shoulders of a woman kneeling in one of the pews. +She was sobbing. + +His movement, he recalled afterward, did not come of a conscious +volition, as he rose and descended the chancel steps and walked toward +her; he stood for what seemed a long time on the white marble of the +aisle looking down on her, his heart wrung by the violence of her grief, +which at moments swept through her like a tempest. She seemed still +young, but poverty had marked her with unmistakable signs. The white, +blue-veined hands that clung to the railing of the pew were thin; and the +shirtwaist, though clean, was cheap and frayed. At last she rose from +her knees and raised a tear-stained face to his, staring at him in a dumb +bewilderment. + +"Can I do anything for you?" he said gently, "I am the rector here." +She did not answer, but continued to stare uncomprehendingly. He sat +down beside her in the pew. + +"You are in trouble," he said. "Will you let me try to help you?" +A sob shook her--the beginning of a new paroxysm. He waited patiently +until it was over. Suddenly she got rather wildly and unsteadily to her +feet. + +"I must go!" she cried. "Oh, God, what would I do if--if he wasn't +there?" + +Hodder rose too. She had thrust herself past him into the aisle, but if +he had not taken her arm she would have fallen. Thus they went together +to the door of the church, and out into the white, burning sunlight. In +spite of her weakness she seemed actually to be leading him, impelled by +a strange force arid fled down the steps of the porch to the sidewalk. +And there she paused, seeing him still beside her. Fortunately he had +his hat in his hand. + +"Where are you going?" she asked. + +"To take you home," he replied firmly, "you ought not to go alone." + +A look of something like terror came into her eyes. + +"Oh, no!" she protested, with a vehemence that surprised him. "I am +strong. Oh, thank you, sir,--but I can go alone. It's Dicky--my little +boy. I've never left him so long. I had gone for the medicine and I saw +the church. I used to go to church, sir, before we had our troubles--and +I just went in. It suddenly came over me that God might help me--the +doctor can do nothing." + +"I will go with you," he said. + +She ceased to resist, as one submitting to the fatality of a superior +will. + +The pavements that afternoon, as Hodder and the forlorn woman left the +cool porticoes of St. John's, were like the floor of a stone oven, and +the work horses wore little bonnets over their heads. Keeping to the +shady side, the rector and his companion crossed Tower Street with its +trolley cars and its awninged stores, and came to that depressing +district which had reproached him since the first Sunday of his ministry +when he had traversed it with Eldon Parr. They passed the once +prosperous houses, the corner saloons pandering to two vices, decked with +the flamboyant signs of the breweries. The trees were dying along the +asphalt and in the yards, the iron fences broken here and there, the +copings stained with rust and soot. Hodder's thoughts might have been +likened to the heated air that simmered above the bricks. + +They were in Dalton Street! She seemed to have forgotten his presence, +her pace quickened as she turned into a gate and flew up a flight of +dirty stone steps, broken and sagging. Hodder took in, subconsciously, +that the house was a dingy grey, of three stories and a Mansard roof, +with a bay window on the yard side, and a fly-blown sign, "Rooms to Rent" +hanging in one window. Across the street, on a lot that had once held a +similar dignified residence, was the yellow brick building of the "Albert +Hotel," and next door, on the east, a remodelled house of "apartments" +with speaking tubes in the doorway. + +The woman led him up another flight of steps to the open door of +the house, through a hallway covered with a ragged carpet, where a +dilapidated walnut hat-rack stood, up the stairs, threading a dark +passage that led into a low-ceiled, stifling room at the very back. +A stout, slatternly person in a wrapper rose as they entered, but the +mother cast herself down beside the lounge where the child was. Hodder +had a moment of fear that she was indeed too late, so still the boy lay, +so pathetically wan was the little face and wasted the form under the +cotton nightgown. The mother passed her hand across his forehead. + +"Dicky!" she whispered fearfully, "Dicky!" + +He opened his eyes and smiled at her; feebly. + +The, stout woman, who had been looking on with that intensity of sympathy +of which the poor are capable, began waving gently the palm-leaf fan. +She was German. + +"He is so good, is Dicky. He smile at me when I fan him--once, twice. +He complains not at all." + +The mother took the fan from her, hand. + +"Thank you for staying with him, Mrs. Breitmann. I was gone longer than +I expected." The fact that the child still lived, that she was again in +his presence, the absorbing act of caring for him seemed to have calmed +her. + +"It is nothing, what I do," answered Mrs. Breitmann, and turned away +reluctantly, the tears running on her cheeks. "When you go again, I come +always, Mrs. Garvin. Ach!" + +Her exclamation was caused by the sight of the tall figure and black coat +of the rector, and as she left the room, Mrs. Garvin turned. And he +noticed in her eyes the same expression of dread they had held when she +had protested against his coming. + +"Please don't think that I'm not thankful--" she faltered. + +"I am not offering you charity," he said. "Can you not take from other +human beings what you have accepted from this woman who has just left?" + +"Oh, sir, it isn't that!" she cried, with a look of trust, of appeal that +was new, "I would do anything--I will do anything. But my husband--he is +so bitter against the church, against ministers! If he came home and +found you here--" + +"I know--many people feel that way," he assented, "too many. But you +cannot let a prejudice stand in the way of saving the boy's life, Mrs. +Garvin." + +"It is more than that. If you knew, sir--" + +"Whatever it is," he interrupted, a little sternly, "it must not +interfere. I will talk to your husband." + +She was silent, gazing at him now questioningly, yet with the dawning +hope of one whose strength is all but gone, and who has found at last a +stronger to lean upon, + +The rector took the fan from her arrested hand and began to ply it. + +"Listen, Mrs. Garvin. If you had come to the church half an hour later, +I should have been leaving the city for a place far distant." + +"You were going away? You stayed on my account?" + +"I much prefer to stay, if I can be of any use, and I think I can. I am +sure I can. What is the matter with the child?" + +"I don't know, sir--he just lies there listless and gets thinner and +thinner and weaker and weaker. Sometimes he feels sick, but not often. +The doctor don't seem to know." + +What doctor have you?" + +"His name is Welling. He's around the corner." + +"Exactly," said the rector. "This is a case for Dr. Jarvis, who is the +best child specialist in the city. He is a friend of mine, and I intend +to send for him at once. And the boy must go to a hospital--" + +"Oh, I couldn't, sir." + +He had a poignant realization of the agony behind the cry. She breathed +quickly through her parted lips, and from the yearning in her tired eyes +--as she gazed at the poor little form--he averted his glance. + +"Now, Mrs. Garvin, you must be sensible," he said. "This is no place for +a sick child. And it is such a nice little hospital, the one I have in +mind, and so many children get well and strong there," he added, +cheerfully. + +"He wouldn't hear of it." Hodder comprehended that she was referring to +her husband. She added inconsequently: "If I let him go, and he never +came back! Oh, I couldn't do it--I couldn't." + +He saw that it was the part of wisdom not to press her, to give her time +to become accustomed to the idea. Come back--to what? His eye wandered +about the room, that bespoke the last shifts of poverty, for he knew that +none but the desperate were driven to these Dalton Street houses, once +the dwellings of the well-to-do, and all the more pitiful for the +contrast. The heated air reeked with the smell of stale cooking. +There was a gas stove at one side, a linoleum-covered table in the +centre, littered with bottles, plates, and pitchers, a bed and chairs +which had known better days, new obviously bruised and battered by many +enforced movings. In one corner was huddled a little group of toys. + +He was suddenly and guiltily aware that the woman had followed his +glance. + +"We had them in Alder Street," she said. "We might have been there yet, +if we hadn't been foolish. It's a pretty street, sir--perhaps you know +it--you take the Fanshawe Avenue cars to Sherman Heights. The air is +like the country there, and all the houses are new, and Dicky had a yard +to play in, and he used to be so healthy and happy in it. . . We were +rich then,--not what you'd call rich," she added apologetically, "but we +owned a little home with six rooms, and my husband had a good place as +bookkeeper in a grocery house, and every year for ten years we put +something by, and the boy came. We never knew how well off we were, +until it was taken away from us, I guess. And then Richard--he's my +husband--put his savings into a company--he thought it was so safe, and +we were to get eight per cent--and the company failed, and he fell sick +and lost his place, and we had to sell the house, and since he got well +again he's been going around trying for something else. Oh, he's tried +so hard,--every day, and all day long. You wouldn't believe it, sir. +And he's so proud. He got a job as porter, but he wasn't able to hold +it--he wasn't strong enough. That was in April. It almost broke my +heart to see him getting shabby--he used to look so tidy. And folks +don't want you when you're shabby." . . . + +There sprang to Hodder's mind a sentence in a book he had recently read: +"Our slums became filled with sick who need never have been sick; with +derelicts who need never have been abandoned." + +Suddenly, out of the suffocating stillness of the afternoon a woman's +voice was heard singing a concert-hall air, accompanied by a piano played +with vigour and abandon. And Hodder, following the sound, looked out +across the grimy yard--to a window in the apartment house opposite. + +"There's that girl again," said the mother, lifting her head. "She does +sing nice, and play, poor thing! There was a time when I wouldn't have +wanted to listen. But Dicky liked it so . . . . It's the very tune +he loved. He don't seem to hear it now. He don't even ask for Mr. +Bentley any more." + +"Mr. Bentley?" the rector repeated. The name was somehow familiar to +him. + +The piano and the song ceased abruptly, with a bang. + +"He lives up the street here a way--the kindest old gentleman you ever +saw. He always has candy in his pockets for the children, and it's a +sight to see them follow him up and down the sidewalk. He takes them to +the Park in the cars on Saturday afternoons. That was all Dicky could +think about at first--would he be well enough to go with Mr. Bentley by +Saturday? And he was forever asking me to tell Mr. Bentley he was sick. +I saw the old gentleman on the street to-day, and I almost went up to +him. But I hadn't the courage." + +The child moaned, stirred, and opened his eyes, gazing at them +feverishly, yet without seeming comprehension. She bent over him, +calling his name . . . . Hodder thrust the fan into her hand, and +rose. + +"I am going to telephone Dr. Jarvis," he said, "and then I shall come +back, in order to be here when he arrives." + +She looked up at him. + +"Oh, thank you, sir,--I guess it's for the best--" + +Her voice died away, and the rector, seeking for the cause, saw that a +man had entered the room. He walked up to the couch and stood for a +moment staring moodily at the child, while the woman watched him, +transfixed. + +"Richard!" she said. + +He paid no attention to her. She turned to Hodder. "This is my husband, +sir. . . . Richard, I went into the church--just for a moment--I--I +couldn't help it, and this gentleman--the minister--came home with me. +He wanted to--he thought I was sick. And now he's going out to get the +best doctor in the city for Dicky." + +The man turned suddenly and confronted the rector. + +"Why don't you let him die, you and your church people?" he asked. +"You've done your worst to kill him." + +The woman put her hand fearfully, imploringly on the man's arm. + +"Richard!" she whispered. + +But as Hodder glanced from the derelict beside him a wave of +comprehension passed through him that swept him clean of indignation, +of resentment. And this man had been prosperous and happy! + +"There is but one way to save the boy's life, Mr. Garvin," he said, "and +that is to put him in charge of Dr. Jarvis." + +The man made no reply, but went over to the window, staring out into the +yard. There was something vaguely ominous in his attitude. The rector +watched him a moment, and then turned to the mother. + +"You must not lose hope," he told her. + +She looked at him with terror-stricken eyes that sought to be grateful. +He had picked up his hat from a corner of the littered table, and started +to leave, when Garvin, by a sudden movement, planted himself in the +doorway. Whether he had been drinking, or whether he were merely crazed +by misfortune and the hopeless search in the heat for employment, and by +lack of proper nourishment, Hodder could not say. There was a light in +his eyes like that in a wounded animal's; and although he was thin and +slight, he had the concentrated power of desperation. + +"Say, what church do you come from?" he demanded. + +"From St. John's," said the rector. + +"Eldon Parr's church?" + +Hodder started, in spite of himself, at the name. + +"Mr. Parr is a member of the congregation." + +"Come off! He owns it and runs it, the same as he does everything else +in this town. Maybe you don't think I read the Sunday papers. Say, I +was respectable once, and had a good place. You wouldn't believe it, +would you?" + +Hodder hesitated. There was obviously no way to pass the man except by +using physical force. + +"If you have anything to say to me, Mr. Garvin, I shall be glad to talk +to you later. You must not stop me now," he said with a touch of +severity. + +"You'll listen to me, right here and now," cried Garvin. "If you think I +am going to let Eldon Parr's minister, or any one else belonging to him, +save that boy's life, you've got another guess comin'. That's all. I'd +rather have him die--d'ye hear? I'd rather have him die." + +The woman behind them whimpered . . . . The name was ringing like a +knell in Hodder's head--Eldon Parr! Coming, as it had, like a curse from +the lips of this wretched, half-demented creature, it filled his soul +with dismay. And the accusation had in it the profound ring of truth. +He was Eldon Parr's minister, and it was Eldon Parr who stood between him +and his opportunity. + +"Why do you speak of Mr. Parr?" he asked, though the question cost him a +supreme effort. + +"Why do I speak of him? My God, because he ruined me. If it hadn't been +for him, damn him, I'd have a home, and health and happiness to-day, and +the boy would be well and strong instead of lying there with the life all +but gone out of him. Eldon Parr did for me, and now he's murdered my +son--that's why I mention him." + +In the sudden intensity of his feeling, Hodder seized Garvin by the arms +--arms that were little more than skin and bone. The man might be +crazed, he might be drunk: that he believed what he was saying there +could be no question. He began to struggle violently, but the rector was +strong. + +"Be still," he commanded. And suddenly, overcome less by the physical +power than by the aspect of the clergyman, an expression of bewilderment +came into his eyes, and he was quiet. Hodder dropped his arms. "I do +not intend to go until I hear what you have to say. It would be useless, +at any rate, since your child's life is at stake. Tell me how Mr. Parr +has ruined you." + +Garvin stared at him, half in suspicion, half in amazement. + +"I guess you never knew of his ruining anybody, did you?" he demanded +sullenly. "Well, I'll tell you all right, and you can go and tell him. +He won't care much--he's used to it by this time, and he gets square with +God by his churches and charities. Did you ever hear of a stock called +Consolidated Tractions?" + +Consolidated Tractions! In contrast to the sordid misery and degradation +of this last refuge of the desperate Hodder saw the lofty, panelled +smoking room at Francis Ferguson's, and was listening again to Wallis +Plimpton's cynical amusement as to how he and Everett Constable and Eldon +Parr himself had "gat out" before the crash; "got out" with all the money +of the wretch who now stood before him! His parishioners! his +Christians! Oh God! + +The man was speaking in his shrill voice. + +"Well, I was a Traction sucker, all right, and I guess you wouldn't have +to walk more than two blocks to find another in this neighbourhood. You +think Eldon Parr's a big, noble man, don't you? You're proud to run his +church, ain't you? You wouldn't believe there was a time when I thought +he was a big man, when I was kind of proud to live in the same city with +him. She'll tell you how I used to come home from the store and talk +about him after supper, and hope that the kid there would grow up into a +financier like Eldon Parr. The boys at the store talked about him: he +sort of laid hold on our imaginations with the library he gave, and +Elmwood Park, and the picture of the big organ in your church in the +newspapers--and sometimes, Mary and me and the boy, in the baby carriage, +on Sunday afternoons we used to walk around by his house, just to look at +it. You couldn't have got me to believe that Eldon Parr would put his +name to anything that wasn't straight. + +"Then Consolidated Tractions came along, with Parr's, name behind it. +Everybody was talking about it, and how it was payin' eight per cent. +from the start, and extra dividends and all, and what a marvel of finance +it was. Before the kid came, as soon as I married her, we began to save +up for him. We didn't go to the theatres or nothing. Well, I put it +all, five thousand dollars, into Consolidated. She'll tell you how we +sat up half the night after we got the first dividend talking about how +we'd send the kid to college, and after we went to bed we couldn't sleep. +It wasn't more than a year after that we began to hear things--and we +couldn't sleep for sure, and the dividends stopped and the stock tumbled. +Even then I wouldn't believe it of him, that he'd take poor people's +money that way when he had more than he knew what to do with. I made up +my mind if I went down to see him and told him about it, he'd make it +right. I asked the boss for an hour off, and headed for the Parr +building--I've been there as much as fifty times since--but he don't +bother with small fry. The clerks laugh when they see me comin' . . . +I got sick worryin', and when I was strong enough to be around they'd +filled my job at the grocery, and it wasn't long before we had to move +out of our little home in Alder Street. We've been movin' ever since," +he cried, and tears of weakness were in his eyes, "until we've come to +this, and we'll have to get out of here in another week. God knows where +we'll go then." + +Hodder shuddered. + +"Then I found out how he done it--from a lawyer. The lawyer laughed at +me, too. Say, do you wonder I ain't got much use for your church people? +Parr got a corporation lawyer named Langmaid--he's another one of your +millionnaire crooks--to fix it up and get around the law and keep him out +of jail. And then they had to settle with Tim Beatty for something like +three hundred thousand. You know who Beatty is--he owns this city--his +saloon's around here on Elm Street. All the crooks had to be squared. +Say," he demanded aggressively, "are Parr and Langmaid any better than +Beatty, or any of the hold-up men Beatty covers? There's a street-walker +over there in those flats that's got a million times more chance to get +to heaven--if there is any--than those financiers, as they call 'emselves +--I ain't much on high finance, but I've got some respect for a second +story man now--he takes some risks! I'll tell you what they did, they +bought up the short car lines that didn't pay and sold 'em to themselves +for fifty times as much as they were worth; and they got controlling +interests in the big lines and leased 'em to themselves with dividends +guaranteed as high as eighteen per cent. They capitalized the +Consolidated for more millions than a little man like me can think of, +and we handed 'em our money because we thought they were honest. We +thought the men who listed the stock on the Exchange were honest. And +when the crash came, they'd got away with the swag, like any common +housebreakers. There were dummy directors, and a dummy president. Eldon +Parr didn't have a share--sold out everything when she went over two +hundred, but you bet he kept his stock in the leased lines, which +guarantee more than they earn. He cleaned up five million, they say.... +My money--the money that might give that boy fresh air, and good doctors +....Say, you believe in hell, don't you? You tell Eldon Parr to keep his +charity,--he can't send any of it in here. And you'd better go back to +that church of his and pray to keep his soul out of hell." . . . + +His voice, which had risen even to a higher pitch, fell silent. And all +at once, without warning, Garvin sank, or rather tumbled upon the bed, +sobbing in a way that was terrible to see. The wife stole across the +room, sat down beside him, and laid her hand on his shoulder. . . . + +In spite of the intensity of his own anguish, Hodder was conscious of a +curious detachment; and for months afterward particular smells, the sight +of a gasoline stove, a certain popular tune gave him a sharp twinge of +pain. The acid distilling in his soul etched the scene, the sounds, the +odours forever in his memory: a stale hot wind from the alley rattled the +shutter-slats, and blew the door to; the child stirred; and above the +strident, irregular weeping rose main, in ironical contrast, the piano +and the voice across the yard. In that glimpse he had into the heart of +life's terrible mystery he momentarily understood many things: he knew +that behind the abandon of the woman's song was the same terror which +reigned in the room in which he stood . . . . + +There were voices in the passageway without, a woman saying in a German +accent,--"It is here, sir." + +There was a knock at the door . . . . + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE LOST PARISHIONER + + +I + +Hodder opened the door. In the dingy passageway he perceived a tall +figure which immediately turned out to be that of an old gentleman. In +spite of the heat, he wore a long coat and an old-fashioned, high collar, +a black tie, under which was exposed a triangle of immaculate, pleated +linen. In one hand he held a gold-headed stick, a large tall hat of +which the silk nap was a little rubbed, a string sustaining a parcel, the +brown paper wrapping of which was soaked: in the other, a manila bag +containing lemons. + +His head was bent forward a little, the high dome of it was bald, +but the white hair clustered thickly behind the temples. The face was +clean-shaven, the cheeks touched with red, the nose high and dominating, +distinctly philanthropic. And the blue eyes rested on the clergyman with +a benevolence unfeigned. + +"Good afternoon, sir," the old gentleman said; "I am told Mrs. Garvin +lives here." + +Before the rector could reply Mrs. Garvin herself stood between them. + +"It's Mr. Bentley!" she exclaimed. + +"I fear I'm intruding, ma'am," he said. "But some of Dicky's little +friends have just informed me that he is ill, and I have taken the +liberty of calling to inquire." + +Mr. Bentley entered the room,--simple words to express that which was +in some sort an event. He laid his parcels on the table, his hat and +stick on a chair, and stood looking down in silence at the thin little +form on the couch. Presently he turned. + +"I'm afraid he's very ill, ma'am," he said gently. "You have your own +doctor, no doubt. But if you will permit me, as a friend, to make a +suggestion, we have in the city one of the best child specialists in the +United States, who is never weary of curing these little ones,--Dr. +Jarvis, and I shall be happy to ask him to come and see Dicky." + +Mrs. Garvin glanced at Hodder, who came forward. + +"I was just about to telephone for Dr. Jarvis, Mr. Bentley, when you +arrived. I am Mr. Hodder, of St. John's." + +"How do you do, sir?" The kindly eyes, alight with a gentle flame, rested +upon the rugged figure of the rector. "I am glad that you, too, agree +that Dr. Jarvis is advisable, Mr. Hodder." + +There was a sound from the bed. Garvin had got to his feet and was +staring wildly, with reddened lids. + +"Are you Horace Bentley?" he demanded. + +"That is my name, sir," Mr. Bentley replied. His expression of surprise +was only momentary. And in all his life Hodder had never beheld a +greater contrast in human beings than between that gracious and courtly +old man and the haggard, unkempt, unshaved, and starving outcast facing +him. Something like a film came over Garvin's eyes. + +"He ruined you, too, twenty years back--Eldon Parr did for you, too. Oh, +I know his record, I've followed his trail--he got all the Grantham stock +that would have made you a millionnaire!" + +"Ah," replied Mr. Bentley, smiling to humour him, "that's something I +have no wish to be, sir,--a millionaire." He met the frightened gaze of +the wife. "Good day, ma'am. If you will allow me, I'll come to-morrow +morning to learn what Dr. Jarvis will have had to say. Have courage, +ma'am, have courage. You may have faith in Dr. Jarvis." + +The poor woman was incapable of speech. Mr. Bentley picked up his hat +and stick. + +"I've taken the liberty of bringing Dicky a little ice and a few lemons." +His eyes rested again on the couch by the window. Then he turned to +Garvin, who stood mutely, staring. "Good evening, sir," he said. +"We must look for the best." + + + +II + +They went down the stairs of the shabby and battered house, stairs by the +side of which holes had been knocked through the faded wall-paper--scars +of frequent movings. The sound and smell of frying came out of the open +door of what once had been the parlour, and on the front steps a little +girl darted past them with a pitcher of beer. When they reached the +sidewalk Mr. Bentley halted. + +"If you were intending to telephone Dr. Jarvis, Mr. Hodder, there is a +public station in the drug store just above here. I know that clergymen +are busy persons, and I am passing it, if you are pressed for time." + +"My only concern is to get Jarvis here," said the rector. +"If I may go with you--" + +Once again in the hot sunlight, reaction had set in. Hodder was suddenly +unstrung, and the kindly old gentleman beside him seemed for the instant +the only fixture in a chaotic universe. It was not until later +reflection that he realized Mr. Bentley might, by an intuitive sympathy, +a depth of understanding, have drained something of his state, since the +incidents which followed were to be accounted for on no other grounds. +In such elemental moments the frail conventions are swept away: Mr. +Bentley, whoever he might be, was no longer a stranger; and it seemed +wholly natural to be walking with him up the street, to hear him saying, +--not with perfunctory politeness but in a tone that was itself an +invitation,--"With pleasure, sir, we'll go together. And let us trust +that the doctor will be at home." + +Nor did Hodder stop to wonder, then, why Mr. Bentley should have sought +in his conversation to dissipate something of the hideous blackness of a +tragedy which must have moved him profoundly. How fortunate, he +declared, that they should have arrived before it was too late! For +it was plain to be seen that these Garvins were good people who had been +broken by adversity . . . . The boy had struck him particularly--a +lovable, merry little fellow whose clothes, Mr. Bentley observed, were +always neatly mended, betokening a mother with self-respect and +character. He even spoke of Garvin: adversity, worry, the heat, constant +brooding over a happier past and an uncertain future--was it surprising +that the poor man's mind had become unhinged? They must make some plan +for Garvin, said Mr. Bentley, get the man and his wife into the country +for a while amongst kindly people. This might no doubt be arranged.... + +"Here we are, sir." + +The familiar smell of drugs, the sound of the trickling water in the soda +fountain roused Hodder to reality, to action, and he hurried into the +telephone booth, fumbled in the dog-eared book, got Dr. Jarvis's number +and called it. An eternity seemed to elapse before he had a reply, heard +his coin jangling in the bog, recognized the voice of the great doctor's +secretary. Yes, the doctor was in would he speak to Mr. Hodder, of St. +John's? . . . An interval, during which Hodder was suddenly struck +with this designation of himself. Was he still of St. John's, then? An +aeon might have elapsed since he had walked down the white marble of its +aisle toward the crouching figure in the pew. He was not that man, but +another--and still Mr. Hodder, of St. John's. . . . Then he heard the +specialist say, "Hello, Mr. Hodder, what can I do for you?" Heard his +own voice in reply, explaining the case. Could the doctor find time? +The doctor could: he was never too busy to attend to the poor,--though he +did not say so: he would be there--by half-past six. The rector hung up +the receiver, opened the door of the booth and mopped his brow, for the +heat was stifling. + +"The doctor will go," he explained in answer to Mr. Bentley's inquiring +look. + +"Now, sir," said the old gentleman, when they were out of the store, "we +have done all that we can for the time being. I do not live far from +here. Perhaps you would give me the pleasure of taking supper with me, +if you have no other engagement." + +No other engagement! Not until then did Hodder remember his empty rooms +in the parish house, and the train which was to have borne him away from +all this already speeding northward. He accepted gratefully, nor did he +pause to speculate upon the mystery by which the stream of his life +seemed so suddenly to have been diverted. He had, indeed, no sense of +mystery in the presence of this splendidly sane, serene old man, any more +than the children who ran after him from the dingy yards and passages, +calling his name, clinging to the skirts of his coat. These accepted +him simply as an anomalous fact in their universe, grinned at his +pleasantries, and held up grimy little hands for the kidney-shaped candy +beans he drew forth from his capacious pockets. In the intervals he +reminisced to the rector about the neighbourhood. + +"It seems but a short while ago when the trees met overhead--magnificent +trees they were. The asphalt and the soot killed them. And there were +fruit trees in that yard"--he pointed with his stick to a littered sun +parched plot adjoining a battered mansion--"all pink and white with +blossoms in the spring. Mr. Hadley lived there--one of our forgotten +citizens. He is dead and gone now and his family scattered. That other +house, where the boy lies, belonged to Mr. Villars, a relation of the +Atterbury family, and I can recall very well a little girl with a pink +sash and a white dress who used to come running out to meet me with +flowers in her hands. Incredible as it may seem, she picked them in that +yard. I thought of her as I went in, how fresh and happy she used to be, +and what a different place this was for children then. She must have +some of her own by this time." + +The character of the street had changed to what might be called shabby- +genteel, and they stopped before a three-story brick house--one of a row +--that showed signs of scrupulous care. The steps were newly scrubbed, +the woodwork neatly painted. + +"This is where I live, sir," said Mr. Bentley, opening the door with a +latchkey and leading the way into a high room on the right, darkened and +cool, and filled with superb, old-fashioned rosewood furniture. It was +fitted up as a library, with tall shelves reaching almost to the ceiling. + +An old negro appeared, dressed in a swallow-tailed coat. His hair was as +white as his master's, and his face creased with age. + +"Sam," said Mr. Bentley, "I have brought home a gentleman for supper." + +"Yassah, Misteh Ho'ace. I was jest agwine to open up de blin's." + +He lifted the wire screens and flung back the shutters, beamed +on the rector as he relieved him of his hat, and noiselessly retired. +Curiosity, hitherto suppressed by more powerful feelings, awoke in Hodder +speculations which ordinarily would have been aroused before: every +object in the room bespoke gentility, was eloquent of a day when wealth +was honoured and respected: photographs, daguerreotypes in old-fashioned +frames bore evidence of friendships of the past, and over the marble +mantel hung a portrait of a sweet-faced woman in the costume of the +thirties, whose eyes reminded Hodder of Mr. Bentley's. Who was she? + +Hodder wondered. Presently he found himself before a photograph on the +wall beyond, at which he had been staring unconsciously. + +"Ah, you recognize it," said Mr. Bentley. + +"St. John's!" + +"Yes," Mr. Bentley repeated, "St. John's." He smiled at Hodder's glance +of bewilderment, and put his hand on the younger man's arm. "That +picture was taken before you were born, sir, I venture to say--in 1869. +I am very fond of it, for it gives the church in perspective, as you see. +That was Mr. Gore's house"--he indicated a square, heavily corniced +mansion--"where the hotel now stands, and that was his garden, next the +church, where you see the trees above the wall." + +The rector turned again and looked at his host, who, was gazing at the +picture thoughtfully. + +"I ought to have remembered," he said. "I have seen your name in the +church records, sir, and I have heard Mr. Waring speak of you." + +"My dear Mr. Hodder, there is no reason why you should have known me. +A great many years have passed since I was a parishioner of St. John's +--a great many years." + +"But it was you," the rector began, uncertainly, and suddenly spoke with +conviction, "it was you who chose the architect, who did more than other +men to make the church what it is." + +"Whatever I may have done," replied Mr. Bentley, with simple dignity, +"has brought its reward. To this day I have not ceased to derive +pleasure from it, and often I go out of my way, through Burton Street, +although the view is cramped. And sometimes," he added, with the hint of +a twinkle in his eye, "I go in. This afternoon is not the first time I +have seen you, Mr. Hodder." + +"But--?" said the rector. He stared at the other's face, and the +question died on his lips. + +"You wonder why I am no longer a parishioner. The time came when +I could not afford to be." There was no hint of reproach in his voice, +of bitterness. He spoke regretfully, indeed, but as one stating an +incontrovertible fact. "I lost my fortune, I could not keep my pew, +so I deeded it back to the church. My old friends, Mrs. Dimock and Asa +Waring, and others, too, were very kind. But I could not accept their +hospitality." + +Hodder bowed his head in silence. What thundered indictment of the +Church of Christ could have been as severe, as wholly condemning as these +few words so dispassionately uttered by the man beside him? + +The old darky entered, and announced supper. + +Hodder had lost his way, yet a hand had been held out to him, and he +seized it. With a sense of being led, psychically as well as physically, +he followed Mr. Bentley into a large bedroom, where a high, four-posted +bed lifted a pleated canopy toward the ceiling. And after he had washed +his hands they entered a dining-room looking out upon a little yard in +the rear, which had been transformed into a garden. Roses, morning +glories, and nasturtiums were growing against the walls; a hose lay +coiled upon the path; the bricks, baked during the day, were splashed +with water; the leaves and petals were wet, and the acrid odour of moist +earth, mingling with perfumes, penetrated the room. Hodder paused in the +window. + +"Sam keeps our flowers alive," he heard Mr. Bentley say, "I don't know +how." + +"I scrubs 'em, sah," said Sam. "Yassah, I washes 'em like chilluns." + +He found himself, at Mr. Bentley's request, asking grace, the old darky +with reverently bent head standing behind his master; sitting down at a +mahogany table that reflected like a mirror the few pieces of old silver, +to a supper of beaten biscuits that burned one's fingers, of 'broiled +chicken and coffee, and sliced peaches and cream. Mr. Bentley was +talking of other days--not so long gone by when the great city had been a +village, or scarcely more. The furniture, it seemed, had come from his +own house in what was called the Wilderness Road, not far from the river +banks, over the site of which limited trains now rolled on their way +eastward toward the northernmost of the city's bridges. He mentioned +many names, some remembered, some forgotten, like his own; dwelt on +pleasures and customs gone by forever. + +"A little while after I moved in here, I found that one old man could not +fill the whole of this house, so I let the upper floors," he explained, +smilingly. "Some day I must introduce you to my tenants, Mr. Hodder." + +By degrees, as Hodder listened, he became calm. Like a child, he found +himself distracted, talking, asking questions: and the intervals grew +longer between the recurrent surges of fear when the memory rose before +him of the events of the day,--of the woman, the child, and the man: of +Eldon Parr and this deed he had done; hinting, as it did, of closed +chambers of other deeds yet to be opened, of countless, hidden miseries +still to be revealed: when he heard once more the tortured voice of the +banker, and the question: "How would you like to live in this house-- +alone? "In contrast, now he beheld the peace in the face of the man +whose worldly goods Eldon Parr had taken, and whom he had driven out of +the church. Surely, this man had found a solution! . . . What was it? + +Hodder thought of the child, of the verdict of Dr. Jarvis, but he +lingered on, loth to leave,--if the truth be told--afraid to leave; +drawing strength from his host's calm, wondering as to the source of it, +as to the life which was its expression; longing, yet not presuming, to +question. The twilight deepened, and the old darky lit a lamp and led +the way back to the library. + +"Sam," said Mr. Bentley, "draw up the armchair for Mr. Hodder beside the +window. It is cooler there." + +"I ought to go," Hodder said. "I ought to see how the child is. Jarvis +will have been there by this time, and there may be necessaries--" + +"Jarvis will have attended to that," Mr. Bentley replied. "Sit down, Mr. +Hodder. I am not sure that, for the present, we have not done all in +this case that is humanly possible." + +"You mean," said the rector, "that they will accept nothing from me." +It came from him, spontaneously, like a cry. He had not meant to say it. +"I don't blame them. I don't blame them for losing their faith in God +and man, in the Church. I ought to have seen it before, but I was blind, +incredibly blind--until it struck me in the face. You saw it, sir, and +you left a church from which the poor are thrust out, which refuses to +heed the first precept of its Master." + +"I saw it," answered Mr. Bentley, "but I could do nothing. Perhaps you +can do--something." + +"Ah!" Hodder exclaimed sharply, "why do you say that? The Church is +paralyzed, chained. How can she reach these wretched people who are the +victims of the ruthless individualism and greed of those who control her? +You know--that man, Mr. Bentley." (Hodder could not bring himself to +pronounce Eldon Parr's name.) "I had an affection for him, I pitied him, +because he suffers--" + +"Yes," echoed Mr. Bentley, "he suffers." + +Hodder was momentarily arrested by the sadness of his tone. + +"But he doesn't know why he suffers--he cannot be made to see," the +rector went on. "And he is making others suffer,--hideously, while he +imagines himself a Christian. He is the Church to that miserable, +hopeless wretch we saw to-day, and to hundreds of the same kind whom he +has driven to desperation. And I--who am supposed to be the vicar of +God--I am powerless. They have a contempt for me, a just contempt. They +thrust me out of their doors, bid me to return and minister to their +oppressors. You were right to leave, and I should have left long since." + +He had not spoken with violence, or with a lack of control. He seemed +rather to have regained a mastery of himself, and felt as a man from whom +the shackles have been struck, proclaiming his freedom. Mr. Bentley's +eyes lighted in involuntary response as he gazed at the figure and face +before him. He pressed his hands together. + +"If you will forgive a curiosity, Mr. Hodder, that is somewhat due to my +interest in a church with which I have many precious associations, may I +ask if this is a sudden determination on your part?" + +"No," Hodder said. "I have known ever since I came here that something +was wrong, but at first I couldn't see it, and after that I wouldn't see +it. That is about what happened, as I look back on it. + +"But the farther in I went," Hodder continued, "the more tangled and +bewildered I became. I was hypnotized, I think," he added with a +gesture,--"hypnotized, as a man is who never takes his eyes from a +pattern. I wanted to get at this neighbourhood--Dalton Street--I mean, +and finally I agreed to the establishment of a settlement house over +here, to be paid for largely by Eldon Parr and Francis Ferguson. I +couldn't see the folly of such an undertaking--the supreme irony of it, +until--until it was pointed out to me: He hesitated; the remembrance of +Alison Parr ran through him, a thread of pain. "And even then I tried to +dodge the issue, I tried to make myself believe that good might flow out +of evil; that the Church, which is supposed to be founded on the highest +ideal ever presented to man, might compromise and be practical, that +she might accept money which had been wrung from a trusting public by +extortion, by thinly disguised thievery such as this Consolidated +Tractions Company fraud, and do good with it! And at last I made up +my mind to go away, to-day, to a quiet place where I might be alone, +and reflect, when by a singular circumstance I was brought into contact +with this man, Garvin. I see now, clearly enough, that if I had gone, +I should never have come back." + +"And you still intend to go?" Mr. Bentley asked. + +Hodder leaned his elbow against the mantel. The lamplight had a curious +effect on Mr. Bentley's face. + +"What can I do?" he demanded. The question was not aimed directly at his +host--it was in the nature of a renewed appeal to a tribunal which had +been mute, but with which he now seemed vaguely aware of a certain +contact. "Even supposing I could bring myself to accept the compromise-- +now that I see it clearly, that the end justifies the means--what good +could I accomplish? You saw what happened this afternoon--the man would +have driven me out if, it hadn't been for you. This whole conception of +charity is a crime against civilization--I had to have that pointed out +to me, too,--this system of legalized or semi-legalized robbery and the +distribution of largesse to the victims. The Church is doing wrong, +is stultifying herself in encouraging it. She should set her face +rigidly against it, stand for morality and justice and Christianity in +government, not for pauperizing. It is her mission to enlighten these +people, all people--to make them self-respecting, to give them some +notion of the dignity of their souls and their rights before God and +man." + +"Aren't you yourself suggesting," said Mr. Bentley, "the course which +will permit you to remain?" + +Hodder was silent. The thought struck him with tremendous force. Had he +suggested it? And how--why? Could it be done? Could he do it or begin +it? + +"We have met at last in a singular way," he heard Mr. Bentley going on, +"in a way that has brushed aside the conventions, in a way--I am happy to +say--that has enabled you to give me your confidence. And I am an old +man,--that has made it easier. I saw this afternoon, Mr. Hodder, that +you were troubled, although you tried to hide it." + +"I knew that you saw it," Hodder said. + +"Nor was it difficult for me to guess something of the cause of it. The +same thing has troubled me." + +"You?" + +"Yes," Mr. Bentley answered. "I left St. John's, but the habits and +affections of a lifetime are not easily severed. And some time before +I left it I began to have visions of a future for it. There was a +question, many years ago, as to whether a new St. John's should not be +built in the West End, on a site convenient to the parishioners, and this +removal I opposed. Mr. Waring stood by me. We foresaw the day when +this district would be--what it is now--the precarious refuge of the +unfortunate in the battle of life, of just such unhappy families as the +Garvins, of miserable women who sell themselves to keep alive. I thought +of St. John's, as you did, as an oasis in a desert of misery and vice. +At that time I, too, believed in the system of charities which you have +so well characterized as pauperizing." + +"And now?" + +Mr. Bentley smiled, as at a reminiscence. + +"My eyes were opened," he replied, and in these simple words summed up +and condemned it all. "They are craving bread, and we fling them atones. +I came here. It was a house I owned, which I saved from the wrecks, and +as I look back upon what the world would call a misfortune, sir, I can +see that it was a propitious event, for me. The street 'ran down,' +as the saying goes. I grew gradually to know these people, my new +neighbours, largely through their children, and I perceived many things +I had not dreamed of--before then. I saw how the Church was hampered, +fettered; I saw why they disliked and distrusted it." + +"And yet you still believed that it had a mission?" Hodder interrupted. +He had been listening with rapt attention. + +"I still believed it," said Mr. Bentley. "My conception of that mission +changed, grew, and yet it seemed further and further from fulfilment. +And then you came to St. John's." + +"I!" The cry was involuntary. + +"You," Mr. Bentley repeated. "Sometimes," he added whimsically, "I go +there, as I have told you. I saw you, I heard you preach. I talked to +my friend Waring about you. I saw that your eyes were not opened, but I +think I had a certain presentiment, for which I do not pretend to +account, that they would be opened." + +"You mean," said the rector, "that if I believe in the mission of the +Church as I have partially stated it here tonight, I--should stay and +fight for it." + +"Precisely," Mr. Bentley replied. + +There was a note of enthusiasm, almost of militancy in the old +gentleman's tone that surprised and agitated Hodder. He took a turn +up and down the room before he answered. + +"I ought to tell you that the view I expressed a moment ago is new to me. +I had not thought of it before, and it is absolutely at variance with any +previous ideas I have held. I can see that it must involve, if carried +to its logical conclusion, a change in the conception of Christianity I +have hitherto held." + +He was too intent upon following up the thought to notice Mr. Bentley's +expression of assent. + +"And suppose," he asked, "I were unable to come to any conclusion? +I will be frank, Mr. Bentley, and confess to you that at present I cannot +see my way. You have heard me preach--you know what my beliefs have +been. They are shattered. And, while I feel that there is some definite +connection between the view of the Church which I mentioned and her +message to the individual, I do not perceive it clearly. I am not +prepared at present to be the advocate of Christianity, because I do +not know what Christianity is. I thought I knew. + +"I shall have to begin all over again, as though I had never taken +orders, submit to a thorough test, examine the evidence impartially. It +is the only way. Of this much I am sure, that the Church as a whole has +been engaged in a senseless conflict with science and progressive +thought, that she has insisted upon the acceptance of facts which are in +violation of reason and which have nothing to do with religion. She has +taught them to me--made them, in fact, a part of me. I have clung to +them as long as I can, and in throwing them over I don't know where I +shall land." + +His voice was measured, his words chosen, yet they expressed a withering +indignation and contempt which were plainly the culmination of months of +bewilderment--now replaced by a clear-cut determination. + +"I do not blame any individual," he continued, "but the system by which +clergymen are educated. + +"I intend to stay here, now, without conducting any services, and find +out for myself what the conditions are here in Dalton Street. You know +those people, Mr. Bentley, you understand them, and I am going to ask you +to help me. You have evidently solved the problem." + +Mr. Bentley rose. And he laid a hand, which was not quite steady, on the +rector's shoulder. + +"Believe me, sir," he replied, "I appreciate something of what such a +course must mean to you--a clergyman." He paused, and a look came upon +his face, a look that might scarce have been called a smile--Hodder +remembered it as a glow--reminiscent of many things. In it a life was +summed ups in it understanding, beneficence, charity, sympathy, were all +expressed, yet seemingly blended into one. "I do not know what my +testimony may be worth to you, my friend, but I give it freely. I +sometimes think I have been peculiarly fortunate. But I have lived a +great many years, and the older I get and the more I see of human nature +the firmer has grown my conviction of its essential nobility and +goodness." + +Hodder marvelled, and was silent. + +"You will come here, often,--every day if you can. There are many men +and women, friends of mine, whom I should like you to know, who would +like to know you." + +"I will, and thank you," Hodder answered. Words were inadequate for the +occasion . . . . + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE WOMAN OF THE SONG + +On leaving Mr. Bentley, Hodder went slowly down Dalton Street, wondering +that mere contact with another human being should have given him the +resolution to turn his face once again toward the house whither he was +bound. And this man had given him something more. It might hardly have +been called faith; a new courage to fare forth across the Unknown--that +was it; hope, faint but revived. + +Presently he stopped on the sidewalk, looked around him, and read a sign +in glaring, electric letters, Hotel Albert. Despite the heat, the place +was ablaze with lights. Men and women were passing, pausing--going in. +A motor, with a liveried chauffeur whom he remembered having seen before, +was standing in front of the Rathskeller. The nightly carousal was +beginning. + +Hodder retraced his steps, crossed the street diagonally, came to the +dilapidated gate he remembered so well, and looked up through the dusk at +the house. If death had entered it, there was no sign: death must be a +frequent visitor hereabouts. On the doorsteps he saw figures outlined, +slatternly women and men in shirt-sleeves who rose in silence to make way +for him, staring at him curiously. He plunged into the hot darkness of +the hall, groped his way up the stairs and through the passage, and +hesitated. A single gas jet burned low in the stagnant air, and after a +moment he made out, by its dim light, a woman on her knees beside the +couch, mechanically moving the tattered palm-leaf over the motionless +little figure. The child was still alive. He drew a deep breath, and +entered; at the sound of his step Mrs. Garvin suddenly started up. + +"Richard!" she cried, and then stood staring at the rector. "Have you +seen my husband, sir? He went away soon after you left." + +Hodder, taken by surprise, replied that he had not. Her tone, her +gesture of anxiety he found vaguely disquieting. + +"The doctor has been here?" he asked. + +"Yes," she answered absently. "I don't know where he can be--Richard. +He didn't even wait to see the doctor. And he thinks so much of Dicky, +sir, he sits here of an evening--" + +Hodder sat down beside her, and taking the palm-leaf from her hand, began +himself to fan the child. Something of her misgiving had communicated +itself to him. + +"Don't worry," he said. "Remember that you have been through a great +deal, and it is natural that you should be overwrought. Your husband +feels strongly. I don't blame him. And the sight of me this afternoon +upset him. He has gone out to walk." + +"Richard is proud," she answered simply. "He used to say he'd rather +die than take charity--and now he's come to it. And it's--that man, sir, +who's got on his brain, and changed him. He wasn't always like this, but +now he can't seem to think of anything else. He wakes up in the night +. . . . And he used to have such a sweet nature--you wouldn't have +known him . . . and came home so happy in the evenings in Alder +Street, often with a little fruit, or something he'd bought for us, and +romp with Dicky in the yard, and I'd stand and laugh at them. Even after +we'd lost our money, when he was sick that time, he didn't feel this way. +It grew on him when he couldn't get work, and then he began to cut things +out of the papers about Mr. Parr. And I have sometimes thought that +that's kept him from getting work. He talks about it, and people don't +know what to make of him. They don't know how hard he'd try if they'd +give him something.". . . . + +"We shall find something," said the rector, striving to throw into his +voice confidence and calm. He did not dare to look at her, but continued +to move the fan. + +The child stirred a little. Mrs. Garvin put out her hand. + +"Yes, the doctor was here. He was very kind. Oh, sir," she exclaimed, +"I hope you won't think us ungrateful--and that Mr. Bentley won't. +Dr. Jarvis has hopes, sir,--he says--I forget the name he called it, what +Dicky has. It's something uncommon. He says it was--brought on by the +heat, and want of food--good food. And he's coming himself in the +morning to take him out to that hospital beyond the park--in an +automobile, sir. I was just thinking what a pity it is Dicky wouldn't +realize it. He's always wanted to ride in one." Suddenly her tears +flowed, unheeded, and she clung to the little hand convulsively. +"I don't know what I shall do without him, Sir, I don't . . . . I've +always had him . . . and when he's sick, among strangers." . . . + +The rector rose to the occasion. + +"Now, Mrs. Garvin," he said firmly, "you must remember that there is only +one way to save the boy's life. It will be easy to get you a room near +the hospital, where you can see him constantly." + +"I know--I know, sir. But I couldn't leave his father, I couldn't leave +Richard." She looked around distractedly. "Where is he?" + +"He will come back presently," said the rector. "If not, I will look for +him." + +She did not reply, but continued to weep in silence. Suddenly, above the +confused noises of the night, the loud notes of a piano broke, and the +woman whose voice he had heard in the afternoon began once more with +appalling vigour to sing. The child moaned. + +Mrs. Garvin started up hysterically. + +"I can't stand it--I can't stand her singing that now," she sobbed. + +Thirty feet away, across the yard, Hodder saw the gleaming window from +which the music came. He got to his feet. Another verse began, with +more of the brazen emphasis of the concert-hall singer than ever. +He glanced at the woman beside him, irresolutely. + +"I'll speak to her," he said. + +Mrs. Garvin did not appear to hear him, but flung herself down beside the +lounge. As he seized his hat and left the room he had the idea of +telephoning for a nurse, when he almost ran into some one in the upper +hall, and recognized the stout German woman, Mrs. Breitmann. + +"Mrs. Garvin"--he said, "she ought not to be left--" + +"I am just now going," said Mrs. Breitmann. "I stay with her until her +husband come." + +Such was the confidence with which, for some reason, she inspired him, +that he left with an easier mind. + +It was not until the rector had arrived at the vestibule of the apartment +house next door that something--of the difficulty and delicacy of the +errand he had undertaken came home to him. Impulse had brought him thus +far, but now he stood staring helplessly at a row of bells, speaking +tubes, and cards. Which, for example, belonged to the lady whose soprano +voice pervaded the neighbourhood? He looked up and down the street, in +the vain hope of finding a messenger. The song continued: he had +promised to stop it. Hodder accused himself of cowardice. + +To his horror, Hodder felt stealing over him, incredible though it seemed +after the depths through which he had passed, a faint sense of +fascination in the adventure. It was this that appalled him--this +tenacity of the flesh,--which no terrors seemed adequate to drive out. +The sensation, faint as it was, unmanned him. There were still many +unexplored corners in his soul. + +He turned, once more contemplated the bells, and it was not until +then he noticed that the door was ajar. He pushed it open, climbed the +staircase, and stood in the doorway of what might be called a sitting +room, his eyes fixed on a swaying back before an upright piano against +the wall; his heart seemed to throb with the boisterous beat of the +music. The woman's hair, in two long and heavy plaits falling below her +waist, suddenly fascinated him. It was of the rarest of russet reds. +She came abruptly to the end of the song. + +"I beg your pardon--" he began. + +She swung about with a start, her music dropping to the floor, and stared +at him. Her tattered blue kimono fell away at her elbows, her full +throat was bare, and a slipper she had kicked off lay on the floor beside +her. He recoiled a little, breathing deeply. She stared at him. + +"My God, how you scared me!" she exclaimed. Evidently a second glance +brought to her a realization of his clerical costume. "Say, how did you +get in here?" + +"I beg your pardon," he said again, "but there is a very sick child in +the house next door and I came to ask you if you would mind not playing +any more to-night." + +She did not reply at once, and her expression he found unsolvable. Much +of it might be traced to a life which had contracted the habit of taking +nothing on trust, a life which betrayed itself in unmistakable traces +about the eyes. And Hodder perceived that the face, if the stamp of this +expression could have been removed, was not unpleasing, although +indulgence and recklessness were beginning to remould it. + +"Quit stringin' me," she said. + +For a moment he was at a loss. He gathered that she did not believe him, +and crossed to the open window. + +"If you will come here," he said, "I will show you the room where he +lies. We hope to be able to take him to the hospital to-morrow." He +paused a moment, and added: "He enjoyed your music very much when he was +better." + +The comment proved a touchstone. + +"Say," she remarked, with a smile that revealed a set of surprisingly +good teeth, "I can make the box talk when I get a-goin'. There's no +stopping me this side of grand opera,--that's no fable. I'm not so bad +for an enginoo, am I?" + +Thus directly appealed to, in common courtesy he assented. + +"No indeed," he said. + +That's right," she declared. "But the managers won't have it at any +price. Those jays don't know anything, do they? They've only got a +dream of what the public wants. You wouldn't believe it, but I've sung +for 'em, and they threw me out. You wouldn't believe it, would you?" + +"I must own," said the rector, "that I have never had any experience with +managers." + +She sat still considering him from the piano stool, her knees apart, her +hands folded in her lap. Mockery came into her eyes. + +"Say, what did you come in here for, honest injun?" she demanded. + +He was aware of trying to speak sternly, and of failing. To save his +life he could not, then, bring up before himself the scene in the little +back room across the yard in its full terror and reality, reproduce his +own feelings of only a few minutes ago which had impelled him hither. +A month, a year might have elapsed. Every faculty was now centred on +the woman in front of him, and on her life. + +"Why do you doubt me?" he asked. + +She continued to contemplate him. Her eyes were strange, baffling, +smouldering, yellow-brown, shifting, yet not shifty: eyes with a history. +Her laugh proclaimed both effrontery and uneasiness. + +"Don't get huffy," she said. "The kid's sick--that's on the level, is +it? You didn't come 'round to see me?" The insinuation was in her voice +as well as in her words. He did not resent it, but felt an odd thrill of +commingled pity and--fear. + +"I came for the reason I have given you," he replied; and added, more +gently: "I know it is a good deal to ask, but you will be doing a great +kindness. The mother is distracted. The child, as I told you, will be +taken to the hospital in the morning." + +She reached out a hand and closed the piano softly. + +"I guess I can hold off for to-night," she said. "Sometimes things get +kind of dull--you know, when there's nothing doing, and this keeps me +lively. How old is the kid?" + +"About nine," he estimated. + +"Say, I'm sorry." She spoke with a genuineness of feeling that surprised +him. He went slowly, almost apologetically toward the door. + +"Good night," he said, "and thank you." + +Her look halted him. + +"What's your hurry?" she demanded. + +"I'm sorry," he said hastily, "but I must be going." He was, in truth, +in a panic to leave. + +"You're a minister, ain't you?" + +"Yes," he said. + +"I guess you don't think much of me, do you?" she demanded. + +He halted abruptly, struck by the challenge, and he saw that this woman +had spoken not for herself, but for an entire outlawed and desperate +class. The fact that the words were mocking and brazen made no +difference; it would have been odd had they not been so. With a shock +of surprise he suddenly remembered that his inability to reach this +class had been one of the causes of his despair! And now? With the +realization, reaction set in, an overpowering feeling of weariness, a +desire--for rest--for sleep. The electric light beside the piano danced +before his eyes, yet he heard within him a voice crying out to him to +stay. Desperately tired though he was, he must not leave now. He walked +slowly to the table, put his hat on it and sat down in a chair beside it. + +Why do you say that?" he asked. + +"Oh, cut it out!" said the woman. "I'm on to you church folks." She +laughed. "One of 'em came in here once, and wanted to pray. I made a +monkey of him." + +"I hope," said the rector, smiling a little, "that is not the reason why +you wish me to stay." + +She regarded him doubtfully. + +"You're not the same sort," she announced at length. + +"What sort was he?" + +"He was easy,--old enough to know better--most of the easy ones are. He +marched in sanctimonious as you please, with his mouth full of salvation +and Bible verses." She laughed again at the recollection. + +"And after that," said the rector, "you felt that ministers were a lot of +hypocrites." + +"I never had much opinion of 'em," she admitted, "nor of church people, +either," she added, with emphasis. + +"There's Ferguson, who has the department store,--he's 'way up' in church +circles. I saw him a couple of months ago, one Sunday morning, driving +to that church on Burton Street, where all the rich folks go. I forget +the name--" + +"St. John's," he supplied. He had got beyond surprise. + +"St. John's--that's it. They tell me he gives a lot of money to it-- +money that he steals from the girls he hires. Oh, yes, he'll get to +heaven--I don't think." + +"How do you mean that he steals money from the girls?" + +"Say, you are innocent--ain't you! Did you ever go down to that store? +Do you know what a floorwalker is? Did you ever see the cheap guys +hanging around, and the young swells waiting to get a chance at the girls +behind the counters? Why do you suppose so many of 'em take to the easy +life? I'll put you next--because Ferguson don't pay 'em enough to live +on. That's why. He makes 'em sign a paper, when he hires 'em, that they +live at home, that they've got some place to eat and sleep, and they sign +it all right. That's to square up Ferguson's conscience. But say, if +you think a girl can support herself in this city and dress on what he +pays, you've got another guess comin'." + +There rose up before him, unsummoned, the image of Nan Ferguson, in all +her freshness and innocence, as she had stood beside him on the porch in +Park Street. He was somewhat astonished to find himself defending his +parishioner. + +"May it not be true, in order to compete with other department stores, +that Mr. Ferguson has to pay the same wages?" he said. + +"Forget it. I guess you know what Galt House is? That's where women +like me can go when we get all played out and there's nothing left in the +game--it's on River Street. Maybe you've been there." + +Hodder nodded. + +"Well," she continued, "Ferguson pays a lot of money to keep that going, +and gets his name in the papers. He hands over to the hospitals where +some of us die--and it's all advertised. He forks out to the church. +Now, I put it to you, why don't he sink some of that money where it +belongs--in living wages? Because there's nothing in it for him-- +that's why." + +The rector looked at her in silence. He had not suspected her of so much +intellect. He glanced about the apartment, at the cheap portiere flung +over the sofa; at the gaudy sofa cushions, two of which bore the names +and colours of certain colleges. The gas log was almost hidden by dried +palm leaves, a cigarette stump lay on the fender; on the mantel above +were several photographs of men and at the other side an open door +revealed a bedroom. + +"This is a nice place, ain't it?" she observed. "I furnished it when I +was on velvet--nothing was too good for me. Money's like champagne when +you take the cork out, it won't keep. I was rich once. It was lively +while it lasted," she added, with a sigh: "I've struck the down trail. +I oughtn't, by rights, to be here fooling with you. There's nothing in +it." She glanced at the clock. "I ought to get busy." + +As the realization of her meaning came to him, he quivered. + +"Is there no way but that?" he asked, in a low voice. + +"Say, you're not a-goin' to preach, are you?" + +"No," he answered, "God forbid! I was not asking the question of you." + +She stared at him. + +"Of who, then?" + +He was silent. + +"You've left me at the station. But on the level, you don't seem to know +much, that's a fact. You don't think the man who owns these flats is in +it for charity, do you? 'Single ladies,' like me, have to give up. And +then there are other little grafts that wouldn't interest you. What +church do you come from anyway?" + +"You mentioned it a little while ago." + +"St. John's!" She leaned back against the piano and laughed +unrestrainedly. "That's a good one, to think how straight I've been +talking to you." + +"I'm much obliged to you," he said. + +Again she gazed at him, now plainly perplexed. + +"What are you giving me?" + +"I mean what I say," he answered. "I am obliged to you for telling me +things I didn't know. And I appreciate--your asking me to stay." + +She was sitting upright now, her expression changed, her breath came more +rapidly, her lips parted as she gazed at him. + +"Do you know," she said, "I haven't had anybody speak to me like that +for four years." Her voice betrayed excitement, and differed in tone, +and she had cast off unconsciously the vulgarity of speech. At that +moment she seemed reminiscent of what she must once have been; and he +found himself going through an effort at reconstruction. + +"Like what?" he asked. + +"Like a woman," she answered vehemently. + +"My name is John Hodder," he said, "and I live in the parish house, next +door to the church. I should like to be your friend, if you will let me. +If I can be of any help to you now, or at any other time, I shall feel +happy. I promise not to preach," he added. + +She got up abruptly, and went to the window. And when she turned to him +again, it was with something of the old bravado. + +"You'd better leave me alone, I'm no good;" she said. "I'm much obliged +to you, but I don't want any charity or probation houses in mine. And +honest work's a thing of the past for me--even if I could get a job. +Nobody would have me. But if they would, I couldn't work any more. +I've got out of the hang of it." With a swift and decisive movement she +crossed the room, opened a cabinet on the wall, revealing a bottle and +glasses. + +"So you're bent upon going--downhill?" he said. + +"What can you do to stop it?" she retorted defiantly, "Give me religion +---I guess you'd tell me. Religion's all right for those on top, but +say, it would be a joke if I got it. There ain't any danger. But if I +did, it wouldn't pay room-rent and board." + +He sat mute. Once more the truth overwhelmed, the folly of his former +optimism arose to mock him. What he beheld now, in its true aspect, was +a disease of that civilization he had championed. . . + +She took the bottle from the cupboard and laid it on the table. + +"What's the difference?" she demanded. "It's all over in a little while, +anyway. I guess you'd tell me there was a hell. But if that's so, some +of your church folks'll broil, too. I'll take my chance on it, if they +will." She looked at him, half in defiance, half in friendliness, across +the table. "Say, you mean all right, but you're only wastin' time here. +You can't do me any good, I tell you, and I've got to get busy." + +"May we not at least remain friends?" he asked, after a moment. + +Her laugh was a little harsh. + +"What kind of friendship would that be? You, a minister, and me a woman +on the town?" + +"If I can stand it, I should think you might." + +"Well, I can't stand it," she answered. + +He got up, and held out his hand. She stood seemingly irresolute, and +then took it. + +"Good night," he said. + +"Good night," she repeated nonchalantly. + +As he went out of the door she called after him: + +"Don't be afraid I'll worry the kid!" + +The stale odour of cigarette smoke with which the dim corridor was +charged intoxicated, threatened to overpower him. It seemed to be the +reek of evil itself. A closing door had a sinister meaning. He hurried; +obscurity reigned below, the light in the lower hall being out; fumbled +for the door-knob, and once in the street took a deep breath and mopped +his brow; but he had not proceeded half a block before he hesitated, +retraced his steps, reentered the vestibule, and stooped to peer at the +cards under the speaking tubes. Cheaply printed in large script, was the +name of the tenant of the second floor rear,--MISS KATE MARCY. . . . + +In crossing Tower Street he was frightened by the sharp clanging of a +great electric car that roared past him, aflame with light. His brain +had seemingly ceased to work, and he stumbled at the curb, for he was +very tired. The events of the day no longer differentiated themselves +in his mind but lay, a composite weight, upon his heart. At length he +reached the silent parish house, climbed the stairs and searched in his +pocket for the key of his rooms. The lock yielded, but while feeling for +the switch he tripped and almost fell over an obstruction on the floor. + +The flooding light revealed his travelling-bags, as he had piled them, +packed and ready to go to the station. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + + +Acceptance of authority is not faith, it is mere credulity +Deification of beauty to the exclusion of all else +Economic slavery +Elaborate attention little men are apt to bestow upon women +I hate humility +I see no one upon whom I can rely but myself +If Christians were logical, they should be Socialists +Immortality as orthodox Christianity depicts it +Impulse had brought him thus far +Indiscriminate, unreasoning self-sacrifice +Religion, I think, should be everybody's (profession) +Seeking a forgiveness out of all proportion to the trespass +St Paul, you say, put us in our proper place +The hours of greatest suffering are the empty hours +Thinking isn't--believing +We must believe, if we believe at all, without authority +When our brief span of usefulness is done +Whole conception of charity is a crime against civilization +You and your religion are as far apart as the poles + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INSIDE OF THE CUP, V3, BY CHURCHILL *** + +************ This file should be named wc21w10.txt or wc21w10.zip ************ + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, wc21w11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, wc21w10a.txt + +This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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