Chapter 14

Elsie gave a quick burst of laughter. Then she pretended to frown.

"Chauncy," she said, "you have the most abominable way of putting things that I ever heard. What would you say to the youngsters from the Clergy House that I have in train? They're perfect lambs, and they love each other like twins. Have you seen them?"

"Oh, yes; I've seen them. They seem to have been brought up on sterilized milk of the gospel, and to have Jordan water for blood."

"Oh, don't be too sure. You can't tell from a man's looks how red his blood is, especially if he's a priest. I suppose it's the men that have to hold themselves in hardest that make the best ministers."

"I dare say," he answered indifferently. "Priest-craft has always been clever enough to see that unless the things it called sins were natural and inevitable its occupation would be gone. However, as long as folks will follow after them they'd be foolish to give up their trade."

"Of course," his wife assented laughingly. "You won't get a rise out of me, my dear boy."

Dr. Wilson chuckled.

"You're a devilish humbug," he remarked admiringly; "but you do manage to get a lot of fun out of it."

She smoothed her gown a moment, half smiling and half grave.

"Of course it's of no use to tell you that in spite of all my fun I'm serious at bottom," she said slowly; "but it's a fact all the same. I don't take things with doleful solemnity like the old tabbies; but that's no sign that I'm not just as sincere. It's no matter, though; you won't believe it. What did you want to see me about?"

"Oh, it was about those mortgages. I saw Lincoln this morning, and he has heard from Mrs. Frostwinch. She insists upon paying them off."

"Then there isn't any truth in the story that that Sampson woman is circulating that Anna is going to build a spiritual temple or something. I never believed that Anna could be such an idiot as to give her money for anything so vulgar."

"The whole thing is nonsensical on the face of it," was his response. "Mrs. Frostwinch can't build churches, let alone temples, if there's any difference."

"Oh, in these days," Elsie interpolated, "a temple is only a church _declasse_."

"She has only a life interest in the property," Wilson went on. "Berenice Morison is residuary legatee of almost everything, unless Mrs. Frostwinch has saved up her income."

The talk ran on business for a few moments, Wilson advising with shrewdness, and practically deciding the matter for his wife.

"I suppose," he said, when this was disposed of, "that Mrs. Frostwinch is too much wrapped up in faith-cure nonsense to take much interest in your holy war against Strathmore."

"She isn't so much wrapped up in that stuff as you think. Dear Anna hasn't any sense of humor, but she's a model of propriety, and she's constantly shocked at herself for being alive by a treatment so irregular. She was mortified beyond words when that Crapps woman gave a treatment to Mrs. Bodewin Ranger's dog."

"That snarling little black devil that's always under foot at the Rangers'? Gad! I'd like to give it a treatment!"

"It got its ear hurt somehow, and Mrs. Crapps pretended to cure it. Mrs. Ranger was all but in tears over it, she was so grateful. Anna was entirely disgusted. She told Mrs. Crapps that she hadn't known before that she was in the hands of a veterinary."

Dr. Wilson smoked in silence for a moment. The fire of soft coal purred in the grate, the smoke from his pipe ascended in the warm air. The thin sunshine of the winter afternoon filtered in through the windows, and made bright patches on the rugs.

"By the way," Wilson asked lazily, "how is the campaign going? I haven't heard anything interesting about it for some time."

"Oh, things are moving on. The man I sent up to canvass the western part of the state--one of your sterilized milk-of-the-word babies, you know,--got smashed up in the accident; but he'll be back in a few days. Cousin Anna has brought her pensioners into line beautifully. There's no doubt that we'll carry the convention."

"What happens after that?"

"The election has to be ratified by a majority of bishops; but of course they'll hardly dare to go against the convention, even if they want to."

"It would make things much more interesting if they'd do it, and get up a scandal," commented the doctor. "You'll get bored to death with the whole thing if something exciting doesn't turn up."

"I had half a mind to get up a scandal myself with Mr. Strathmore," Elsie said with a laugh; "but I confess I should be afraid of that she-dragon of a wife of his."

"It's devilish interesting to know that you are afraid of anybody."

"At least," she went on, "I could go to New York and see Bishop Candace. I can wind him round my finger. I'd tell him what Mrs. Strathmore said about his Easter sermon last year. With a little judicious comment that would do a good deal. I never yet saw a man that couldn't be managed through his vanity."

"I suppose that explains why I'm as clay in your hands."

"Oh, you're not a man; you're a monster," she retorted, rising. "Well, I must go and prepare for my comedy."

He regarded her with a look of evident admiration; a look not without a savor of the sense of ownership, and, too, not entirely devoid of good-natured insolence.

"You are devilishly well dressed for it," he observed.

"Thank you," returned Elsie, sweeping him a courtesy again. "The wife that can win compliments from her own husband has indeed scored a triumph."

Dr. Wilson puffed out a cloud of smoke with a characteristic chuckle.

"I have to admire you to justify my own taste. But you haven't told me about the comedy."

She thrust forward one of her pretty slippers.

"Do you see that?" she demanded.

"I suppose you expect me to say that I see the prettiest foot in Boston."

"Thank you again, but I'm not yet reduced to trying to drag compliments out of you, Chauncy. I sha'n't do that till the other men fail me. It's the slipper I wanted you to notice, and these ravishing stockings."

"If the comedy has stockings in it," he began; but she stopped him.

"There, no impudence," she said. "Did you ever see anything so entirely heavenly as those stockings and slippers? I declare I've wanted ever since I put them on to keep my feet on the table to look at."

"You might do worse."

"Oh, I'm going to."

"Indeed! It's apparently getting time for me to interfere. What's your game?"

"I'm going to squelch that detestable Fred Rangely."

"How?"

"My slippers," Elsie said vivaciously, again thrusting one of them forward, "are ravishing."

"Gad," her husband returned, regarding her with a look of the utmost amusement in his topaz-brown eyes, "you have a good deal to say about them."

"Do you notice anything particular about my hair?" she asked.

"It looks as if it might come down."

"It will come down," she corrected, nodding. Then she glanced at the clock. "It will come down in about twenty minutes; all tumbling over my shoulders. I shall be so mortified and surprised!"

Her husband stretched himself luxuriously back in his chair, regarding her with laughing eyes. There was an air of perfect understanding between the two which might have been an effectual enlightenment for any man who thought of making love to the wife. Elsie went on, telling off on her slender fingers the points as she made them.

"In fifteen minutes I shall be standing on the piano in the drawing-room, straightening a picture. I never can bear a picture crooked, and I had Jane tip it a little this morning, just to vex me. Fred Rangely will come in unannounced. Of course I shall be dreadfully confused, and have to get down. In my maidenly confusion I am almost sure I can't help showing my slippers, and just a trifle--a very discreet trifle, of course,--of these beautiful, beautiful stockings. Nothing vulgar, you know, but"--

"But just enough," interpolated Wilson with huge enjoyment. "You needn't apologize. I don't begrudge the poor devil whatever satisfaction he can get out of that."

"And then as he is helping me down, with his heart in a flutter,--it will flutter, I assure you."

"You mean his vanity; but it's of no consequence. He'd call it a heart if he were putting the scene in a novel."

"With his whichever it is in a flutter, by some provoking accident down comes my hair and tumbles over his shoulders."

Wilson regarded her with amused admiration.

"Five years ago," he observed placidly, "I should have thought you were telling me half the truth to cover the other half, and were really having a devilish flirtation with that cad."

Elsie flushed, and into her gay voice came a strain of seriousness.

"Five years are five years," she answered. "Don't go to dragging all that up again, Chauncy."

His laugh was not untinged with malicious delight, but he put his hand on hers and patted her fingers.

"All right, old girl. Bygones are bygones. But what in the world is all this fooling with Rangely for?"

"Why, don't you see? The fool is sure to say something so silly that I can snub him within an inch of his life. I've only been holding off until he had that thing written for the Churchman. Now I've got that, I'll settle him."

"Oh, the gratitude of women!"

"Why, it isn't that. He needn't be smirking at me the way he does. I simply won't stand it. Besides, he makes eyes at me wherever I go, just to advertise the fact that he's silly about me. He's a cad, through and through. Would you come here as he does if I refused to invite your wife?"

Chauncy Wilson laughed again, leaning forward to knock the ashes out of his pipe.

"He's a fool, fast enough; and I dare say you're tired of his beastly spooning; but all the same, the real reason for this circus is that you want to amuse yourself."

She drew up her head in mock dignity.

"Of course," she returned, "if my own husband does not appreciate how I resent"--She broke off in a burst of laughter. "Nobody ever understood me but you, Chauncy," she cried. "Good-by. It's time I took the stage."

She threw him a kiss, and went to the drawing-room. Looking at her watch, she placed herself behind the curtains of a window which commanded the avenue. Presently she espied her victim, and with a last glance around to assure herself that everything was as she wished it to be, she mounted to the top of the piano. There she hastily tucked the hem of her skirt between the piano and the wall. The reflection in a great blue-black Chinese jar showed her when Rangely appeared between the portieres, so that she was able to step back as if to view the effect of her work just as he reached the middle of the room.

"Be careful!" exclaimed he, hurrying forward. "You almost stepped off backward!"

She wheeled about quickly.

"O Mr. Rangely!" she cried. "How did you get into the room without my knowing? How horrid of you to surprise me like that!"

"But think how charming it is for me," he responded with an elaborate air of gallantry. "It is so delightful to see you on a pedestal."

"Meaning that I am no better than a graven image?" she demanded with a smile. "If that is the best you can do, I may as well come down."

She held out her hand for his, and then sat down, displaying one of the fascinating slippers, and the openwork instep of her silk stocking, through the meshes of which the pearly skin gleamed evasively.

"My dress is caught," she said, turning to conceal her face, and pretending to pull at her skirt. "I hope my slippers haven't damaged the piano."

"The piano is harder than my heart if they haven't!"

She gave a sly twitch at a hairpin.

"That is very pretty," observed she, giving her head a shake that brought her hair down in a rolling billow. "Oh, dear! Now my hair has"--

Before she could finish he had dropped her fingers, and gathered her hair in both hands, kissing it again and again.

"Mr. Rangely!" she exclaimed. "What do you mean?"

For reply he stooped to her foot, and kissed the mesh-clad instep fervidly.

"How dare you!" she cried, scrambling down hastily without his assistance.

But, alas, even trickery is not always successful in this uncertain world! The hold of the piano upon the hem of her gown was stronger than she realized. She tripped and stumbled, half-hung for a second, and then dropped in an inglorious heap at the feet of the man she wished to humiliate.

Elsie was on her feet in a minute. She did not take the hand which Rangely extended, but drew back, her eyes sparkling with rage.

"Oh, you find it laughable, do you?" she cried. "A gentleman would at least have concealed his amusement!"

He grew suddenly grave, and seemed not a little surprised.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I hope you were not hurt."

She looked at him scornfully without replying, and then walked to the mantel, where there was a small antique mirror of silver.

"Thank you, not in the least."

Her tone was no warmer than an arctic night. She gathered her hair, and began to twist it up. He followed and stood behind her with an air at once deprecatory and insinuating.

"I shouldn't think you could see in that thing," he observed.

She took no notice of his words.

"If I laughed," continued he, "it was only from nervousness. I was carried away"--

"I observed that you were," she interrupted icily.

He stood awkwardly a moment, while she finished putting up her hair. Then, as she turned toward him, he smiled again, holding out his hand.

"Surely you are not angry with me," he pleaded. "I care more for your feeling toward me than for anything else in the world."

"It would amuse Mrs. Rangely to hear you say so, not to mention my husband."

He stared at her with the air of a man not sure whether he is awake or dreaming.

"What are they to us?" he asked, sinking his voice almost to a whisper.

"Mrs. Rangely may be nothing to you, but Dr. Wilson is still a good deal to me, thank you."

He looked at her again with perplexity in his glance, but with his face hardening.

"You surely cannot mean that you have ceased to care for me just for a second of meaningless laughter?"

She swept him a scornful courtesy.

"You do these things better in your novels, Mr. Rangely, which shows what an advantage it is to have time to think speeches over. I wouldn't have my hero say a thing like that, if I were you. It would make him seem like a conceited cad."

The insolence of her manner was such as no man could bear. Rangely crimsoned to the temples. He paced across the room, while she coolly seated herself in a great Venetian chair, and began to play with a little jade image. He came back to her, and stood a moment as if he could not find words.

"Why don't you go?" she asked, looking up at him as if he were a servant sent upon an errand.

"Because," he broke out angrily, "when I go I shall not come back; and I should like to understand this thing."

She shrugged her shoulders, and leaned back in her chair, looking him over from head to foot.

"Why you quarrel with me is more than I know," he went on. "You've got tired of me, I suppose, and want to amuse yourself with another man."

The red flushed in her cheek.

"If my husband, who you say is nothing to us, were here," she said, "he would horsewhip you."

The other laughed savagely.

"He is not here, however, so you may digest my remark at your leisure."

Mrs. Wilson rose from her seat with an air of dignity which was really imposing.

"Mr. Rangely," she said, "it is not my custom to bandy words, even with my equals. I have allowed you the freedom of my house because I was willing to help you in your desire to be useful to Father Frontford. You have taken advantage of my kindness to insult me. This seems to me sufficiently to explain the situation."

He stared at her a moment in evident amazement. Then he burst into hoarse laughter.

"My desire to be useful to Father Frontford!" he echoed. "That is the best yet! You know I cared nothing about your pottering old church politics except to please you."

"I see that I was deceived completely," she responded coldly.

She crossed the room and pressed an ivory button.

"Deceived!" he sneered. "It would take a clever man to deceive you."

She looked not at him, but beyond him. He turned, and saw a footman in the doorway.

"The gentleman wishes to be shown out, Forrester," said she.

She held the tips of her fingers to Rangely.

"Thank you so much for coming," she murmured in her most conventional manner.

"The pleasure has been mine," he responded.

They both bowed, and Rangely followed the footman.

XVII

A BOND OF AIR Troilus and Cressida, i. 3.

"You have made a new man of me," Maurice Wynne had said to Mrs. Morison in bidding her good-by; and the words repeated themselves in his mind as he came back to Boston, and as he once more took up for a few days his home with Mrs. Staggchase.

There is nothing more inflammable than the punk left by the decay of a religion, and any theology may be said to be doomed from the moment when men begin to ask themselves whether they believe it. Maurice had been so strenuously questioning his belief that it is small wonder that he found his heart full of fire. In the days of his stay at Brookfield, moreover, he had been rapidly journeying on the road toward a new view of life; and the idea of returning to the Clergy House became to him well-nigh intolerable. It seemed like taking upon himself once more the swaddling-clothes of infancy.

On the afternoon of his return, he hurried to see Ashe, and found himself obliged to wait some time for his friend's return from a committee meeting. Mr. Herman chanced to be at home alone, and Maurice sat with him in the library. Wynne had come to know the sculptor fairly well, and had been warmly drawn toward him. He was to-day struck more than ever by the strength and self-poise which Herman showed. The young man was seized with a desire to appeal to the sanity and the kindliness of one who seemed to possess both so aboundingly.

"Have you ever found yourself all at sea, Mr. Herman?" he asked abruptly.

"Of course. I fancy every man has had that experience."

"But," Maurice hurried on, more impulsively yet, "you can never have felt that you were a renegade and a hypocrite. That's where I am now."

The sculptor regarded him with evident surprise, yet with a look so keen that Maurice felt his cheeks grow warm.

"Does that mean," Herman asked with kindly deliberation, "that you are tired and out of sorts, or is it something deeper?"

Wynne was silent a moment. Now that he had broken the ice, he feared to go on. It was something of a shock to find himself on the brink of a confidence when he had not intended to make one.

"I'm afraid it goes deep," he answered. "The truth is, Mr. Herman, that I've come back with my whole mind in a turmoil."

Herman seemed to hesitate in his turn.

"I'm afraid I'm a poor one to help you, Mr. Wynne. Mrs. Herman does the mental straightening-out for this family. Besides, we look at things so differently, you and I, that I shouldn't know how to put things to you if I tried."

"I've no right to bother anybody with my troubles," Maurice said.

"That anybody could help you would give you a claim upon him," Herman responded cheerily. "I noticed, Mr. Wynne, that things were not going right with you before you went away. May I give you a piece of advice?"

"I shall be glad if you will."

"Then if I were you, I'd go and talk with Mr. Strathmore."

"With Mr. Strathmore!" Maurice echoed in surprise.

"Oh, I know he isn't exactly of your way of thinking in church matters," Herman proceeded. "He's still farther from my position, but he's the man I should go to. He is so human, and so sympathetic, that there isn't such another man in Boston for comfort and advice."

"But I've always been opposed," Maurice protested, "to all"--

"That's no matter. He's too big a man for that to make any difference. Go to him as a fellow that's in a hobble, and the only thing he'll consider is how to help you. He's had experience, and he has the gift of understanding."

No more was said on the subject, but the words stuck in Wynne's mind. Since all things seemed to him to be turning round, why should he not take this one more departure from the old ways? Yet it was in some sort almost like treason to Father Frontford to seek aid and comfort from Strathmore. Although the thing had never been so stated in words, it was understood at the Clergy House that Strathmore was to be looked upon in the light of an enemy to the faith, and Wynne felt as if he had been enrolled to fight the popular preacher under the banner of Father Frontford. It seemed the more treasonable to desert the Father Superior now that he was in the midst of a desperate struggle. Maurice knew, however, that it was useless to carry to his old confessor doubts which for the heart of the stern priest could not exist. He would simply be told that doubt was of the devil and was to be crushed; and the young man felt that this would leave him where he was now. If he were to seek aid, it must at least be from one who would understand his state of mind.

Wynne resumed his clerical garb on the morning after his return to Boston. His conscience reproached him for the strong distaste which he felt for the dress, and his spirits were of the lowest. About the middle of the forenoon, he started out to try the effects of a walk. It was a clear, brisk morning, with a white frost still on the pavements where the sun had not fallen. The air was invigorating, and Maurice began to feel its exhilaration. He walked more briskly, holding his head more erect, even forgetting to be irritated by the swish of his cassock about his legs. Without consciously determining whither he would go, he followed the streets toward the house of Mr. Strathmore, in that strange yet not uncommon state of mind in which a man knows fully what he is doing, yet assures himself that he has no purpose. When at last he found himself ringing the bell, Wynne carried his private histrionics so far that he told himself that he was surprised to be there.

The visitor was shown at once to the study of Mr. Strathmore, whose readiness to receive those who sought him was one of the traits which endeared him to the general public. Maurice felt the keen and inquiring look which the clergyman bestowed upon him, and found himself somewhat at a loss how to begin.

"I am from the Clergy House of St. Mark," he said, rather awkwardly.

"So I judged from your dress," Strathmore responded cordially. "Sit down, please. That is a comfortable chair by the fire."

The professed ascetic smiled, but he took the chair indicated.

"It is a beautiful, brisk morning," the host went on. "The tingle in the air makes a man feel that he can do impossible things."

Wynne looked up at him with a smile. He was won by the heartiness of the tone, by the bright glance of the eye, by some intangible personal charm which put him at once at his ease and made him feel that understanding and sympathy were here.

"And I have done the impossible," he said. "I have ventured to come to talk with you about the celibacy of the clergy."

He saw the face of the other change with a curious expression, and then melt into a smile.

"And what am I, a married clergyman, expected to say on such a topic?"

Maurice smiled at the absurdity of his own words, and then with sudden gravity broke out earnestly:--

"I am completely at sea. All things I have believed seem to be failing me. I don't even know what I believe."

"Will you pardon me," Strathmore asked, "if I ask why you consult me rather than your Superior?"

Maurice flushed and hesitated: yet he felt that nothing would do but absolute frankness.

"I will tell you!" he returned. "I was to be a priest. I went into the Clergy House supposing that that was settled. I see now that I really followed a friend. If he went, I couldn't be shut out. Now I have been among men, and"--

He hesitated, but the friendly smile of the other reassured him.