CHAPTER IX

Dolores need have felt no anxiety over what she should say. Mrs. Cabot said everything--and more.

“You philanthropists, will you ever get enough? Or aren’t there that many?”

The short-lipped, mouse-toothed, childlike smile with which she turned from her pastor to settle her hat in the mirror was reflected toward them. At the door she bowed composedly to Dolores and gave Dr. Willard her hand.

“In return for your wise counsel over my domestic troubles, dear doctor, the favor you ask is small. Trust me. I’ll steal upstairs, as if overwhelmingly attracted by the music. But remember--you have assured me that you like the quality of her singing voice only because some one else does _not_ like the super-quality with which she speaks.”

After she had gone, Dr. Willard sank into the padded leather chair and gazed out the window. He looked disturbed; bit his lip, as if trying to control vexation; waggled his right foot as he was wont to do when nervous.

Dolores crossed the room, hesitated a moment before him, then sank upon the hassock placed conveniently in front of his chair.

“Scold me--I’d rather you would!” she exclaimed, a catch in her voice. “I shouldn’t have burst in on your conference that way, but I just couldn’t help it. I was so angry that I--I----”

“Angry? _You_, my child?”

So cleared of all vexation were the yellow-brown eyes bent to her imploring look, that Dolores began to stammer out the cause of her agitation. When her head dropped to her hands upon his knee, he reached out and patted her on the shoulder, very, very kindly.

“Poor orphan. Poor child,” he encouraged her. “I am indignant that such a scene could be forced upon an inexperienced girl within these walls. No matter how great may be Deacon Brill’s influence in the temporal affairs of the church, I shall bring him to book in my own time and my own way. Do not fear to tell me all.”

Dolores told him.

Shaken from her usual reticence, she also told him of her feeling of aloneness since her father had died and the positive fear that was growing in her--fear of the world and its ways.

“Perhaps,” she suggested, “the unpleasant things which have happened to me are partly my own fault.”

“Your fault? You feel you have faults?” A glint lighted the agate gaze as he questioned her.

“I lack,” she confessed, “religion. It was left out of my life. My father was, I think, embittered against it. He was very good to me, but he didn’t send me to Sunday school any more than to public school. Perhaps if he had, I’d have grown up more like other girls--more self-reliant, less afraid.”

“And less yourself,” he objected. “You have, I think, remarkable self-control.”

“You don’t know how glad I am to hear you say so, Dr. Willard. That has been my only religion--self-control. It is very strange that a person to whom I never spoke--whom I never saw but once--gave me the ambition to learn it.”

At his show of interest, Dolores recited the incident. “I was quite a small girl, eight or nine, I guess. My father had left me to wait in a railway station one day. I was worried because often he--because I was afraid we’d miss our train. There was a lady sitting near me, also waiting. I took to watching her.

“She was attractive and wore nice clothes. I became fascinated by the way she breathed, not out and in, as I had supposed all people did, but up and down. The lace jabot on her breast would move up and down, up and down. Of course, as I grew older, I realized that she breathed that way from tight lacing. But at the time it seemed to me more refined than the common way. And then I saw that she was going to sneeze. I’ve always hated to see people sneeze--they make such a fuss. But this lady prepared. She was quite calm. The jabot lifted high with the breath she took. At the vital moment she was ready.”

“And did she sneeze, my poor child?”

“Oh, yes, doctor, but so neatly. She just leaned out and did it without any fuss at all. Afterward, she didn’t sniff or even wipe her eyes. She was very wonderful. I often think of her.”

Shyly Dolores glanced up to see if the great intelligence had anticipated her point.

“The station was draughty. When my turn came, I breathed up and down and prepared. I made up my mind to sneeze the lady’s way. And I