Part 3

When their first baby was born, these Sunday excursions were temporarily discontinued; but Constance was eager to renew them, for Emil, after going alone a few times, relapsed into his old habits. Accordingly, as soon as the little one was able to toddle, a child's wagon was procured, which Emil was ready to draw, and by avoiding fences and other barriers, the difficulties presented by this new tie were overcome. By the time the child was a year and a half old, Constance realized that she had been to church but once in the last twelve months.

This had been partly due to the action of the rector of St. Stephen's, for Constance knew within a few weeks of her first absences from church that her conduct had been noticed. The curate, Mr. Starkworth, inquired at the door if there had been illness in the family. Later the deaconess made a call of friendly observation, in the course of which it transpired that Mr. Prentiss had observed that Mrs. Stuart no longer occupied her seat. The culprit did not attempt to explain, and within a fortnight she received a visit from the rector himself. No one could have been more affable and reassuring. He established himself in an easy chair and accepted graciously the cigar which Emil proffered him. He was a large man of dignified mien and commanding person, clerical as to his dress and visage, but with a manner of conversation approximating that of men of the world--an individual manifestation which was intended to reveal a modern spirit. He was clearly a person with whom liberties could not be taken, and yet evidently one who desired to divest his point of view of cant, and to put religion on a man to man, business basis so far as was consistent with his sacred calling. He asked genial questions concerning their domestic welfare, and the progress of the new lumber firm, spoke shrewdly of local politics in which he supposed that Stuart was engaged, and sought obviously to give the impression that he was an all-round man in his sympathies, and that he took an active interest in temporal matters. When at last there was a favorable pause in the current of this secular conversation, Mr. Prentiss laid his hands on his knees, and, bending forward and looking from one to the other in a friendly way, said with decision:

"I have missed you two young people at church lately."

Constance winced at the inquiry, and her eyes fell beneath the clergyman's searching gaze. She could not deny the impeachment, which was embarrassing. At the same time the color had scarcely mounted to her cheeks before she felt the force of her defence rising to her support, and she looked up. She appreciated that it was incumbent on her, as the active church member, to respond, and she became suddenly solicitous lest Emil might, and so make matters worse. In truth, Emil's first impulse had been toward anger. It was one of his maxims not to submit to browbeating. But what he regarded as the humor of the proceeding changed his wrath into scorn, and he closed his teeth on his pipe with the dogged air of a master of the situation willing to be amused withal. Mr. Prentiss divined in a flash, from the insolence of this expression, that he had to deal with a hopeless case--so far as the human soul can ever seem hopeless to the missionary--a contemptuous materialist, and his own countenance grew grave as he turned back to the wife.

"Yes, we have been very little, Mr. Prentiss. My husband, you know, does not belong to your church. He went with me while we were engaged, but--but now I think I can help him best by staying away for the present."

"You go elsewhere, then?"

"No. We do not go to church. We spend our Sundays in the country--in the fresh air, walking and resting. We take our luncheon, and my husband brings his fiddle and his fishing rod."

Constance marvelled at her own boldness, and at the ardor with which she delivered her plea of justification.

"I understand," said Mr. Prentiss. His tone was sober, but not impatient. The argument for a day of rest and recreation for the tired man of affairs was nothing new to him. Nor was Mr. Prentiss ignorant of its plausible value. He wished to meet it without temper, as one rational being discussing with another, notwithstanding eternal verities were concerned.

"Supposing, Mrs. Stuart, that everyone were to reason in the same way, what would become of our churches?"

"They would have to go out of commission," muttered Emil with delighted brusqueness.

The rector saw fit to bear this brutality without offence. He ignored the commentator with his eyes, as though to indicate that his mission was solely to the wife, but he answered,

"They would, and the Christian faith would perish in the process. Are you, Mrs. Stuart," he continued, "prepared to do without the offices of religion, and to substitute for them a pagan holiday?"

"We pass the day very quietly and simply," said Constance. "We disturb no one and interfere with no one."

"But you become pagans, utterly."

"I try to think that God hears my prayers in the open air no less than in church, while I am keeping my husband company." It wounded her to oppose her rector, yet the need of a champion for her husband's cause supplied her with speech, and gave to her countenance quiet determination. Constance possessed one of those lithe, nervous personalities, so frequently to be met with in American women of every class, the signal attribute of which is bodily and mental refinement. Her hair was dark, her face thin, her eyes brown and wistful, her figure tall and elastic; her pretty countenance had the charm of temperament rather than mere flesh and blood, and its sympathetic, intelligent comeliness suggested spiritual vigor.

Mr. Prentiss was not blind to these qualities. They had attracted him at the beginning of their acquaintance, and he was the more solicitous on account of them to reclaim her from error.

"God hears your prayers wherever you utter them, be assured of that. But I ask you to consider whether the habit of neglecting public worship is not a failure in reverence to the Christ who listens to our supplications and without whose aid we are helpless to overcome sin."

Emil had been delighted by his wife's sturdy attitude. Now that a question of doctrine was brought into the discussion, he felt that the time had come for him to intervene again. "We who worship in the presence of nature are not hampered by dogmas of that kind," he said. "Temptation is temptation, and I for one have never been able to understand why the man who gets the better of it isn't entitled to the credit of his strength and sense. My wife looks at such things very much as I do."

"Not altogether, Emil. You know I miss not going to church."

"I have never prevented you from going."

"But you have discountenanced it, man. It is to please you, and to humor your views that your wife is sacrificing her most sacred convictions," Mr. Prentiss exclaimed with a touch of sternness.

"You think church-going of the utmost importance; I do not. There's where we differ. Everyone must decide those questions for himself--or herself."

The rector resented the smug assurance of the retort by a frown and a twist of his shoulders, as though he were sorry that he had condescended to bandy words with this irreverent person.

"Yes, we all must," he said, addressing Constance. "'He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.'"

He regretted the next instant having indulged in this clerical formula, which was foreign to his usual method.

Constance flushed at the words of Scripture, then she drew herself up slightly and said:

"I am very sorry, indeed, to disappoint you, Mr. Prentiss, but I can't promise to attend church regularly at present. Perhaps it is true, as my husband says, that my opinions have changed somewhat in regard to points of faith. I hope--I shall pray that after a time we may both come back to you."

There was no mistaking the finality of this unequivocal but gently uttered speech, and Mr. Prentiss knew that one of the signs of a man of the world is the capacity to take a hint. Though it galled him to leave this attractive member of his flock in the clutches of one so apparently unfit to appreciate her bodily or spiritual graces, he recognized that to press the situation at this point could result only in separating her still further from the influence of the church. "You shall have my prayers, too--both of you," he said, fervently. Then he arose and resumed the demeanor of a friendly caller.

But Emil, now that he had shown clearly that he had the courage of his convictions, felt the need of vindicating his character as a host. He said jauntily, "I hope there's no offence in standing up for what one believes to be true. It's one of the greatest poets, you know, who wrote

There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds."

"You young whipper snapper!" was Mr. Prentiss's unuttered comment, but he did not relax his lay serenity of manner save by the slight vein of sarcasm which his words contained. "No offence, certainly. But you should also bear in mind, young man, that others no less mentally qualified than yourself have pondered the problems of the universe and come to very different conclusions. A man takes large responsibilities upon himself in deciding to deprive his wife and children of the comforts of religion."

"I am anxious that my children when they grow up may not be obliged, as I was, to unlearn what they were taught to believe in their youth," Emil retorted with smiling effrontery. He was pleased with his wife and with himself and he was glad to get in a final body blow on the person of this officious slummer, as he subsequently described their visitor.

"I am not unfamiliar with that line of argument," said Mr. Prentiss, in the act of departure. "But I invite you to consider whether your children, when they are old enough to think for themselves, will be grateful for the substitute which you offer for doctrine. They ask for bread, and what do you give them? A stone."

Emil laughed. He was content to let the parson have the last word. He stood for a moment on the door-step watching him march down the street. He felt that he had turned the tables on him completely and had thereby won a victory for clear thinking and freedom of thought. He exclaimed exultantly as he re-entered the parlor, "I guess that'll teach the old duck to stay in his own barn-yard and not come waddling down here to try to get us to believe that the world was made in seven days and Jonah was swallowed by the whale."

Constance, who had fallen into troubled reverie, looked up and exclaimed with emphasis, "Mr. Prentiss is a very reasonable man about such matters, Emil. He used particularly to tell his Bible class that the language of the Old Testament is sometimes metaphorical."

"Yes, I know how the clergy jump and change feet to avoid being cornered. I'm aware they explain that the seven days were not our days of twenty-four hours, but were symbolic terms for geological stretches of time. Do you call that ingenuous?"

Constance winced. It happened that Mr. Prentiss had offered just this explanation of holy writ, and somehow, now that Emil held it up to scorn, the rector's commentary appeared flimsy. She sighed, then with emotion said, "Emil, I wish you would tell me what you really do believe."

"Believe?" He smiled indulgently as he echoed his wife's inquiry, but his eyes snapped and his shock of hair seemed to stand up straighter. His manner expressed a mixture of amused condescension and the tartness of a dogged spirit suspicious of attack. "I believe, for one thing, that the laws of nature are never violated, and that their integrity is a grander attribute of divinity than the various sensational devices which the orthodox maintain that an all-wise God employs to attract the attention of men to Himself. I believe also that you in your secret soul entirely agree with me."

Constance was silent a moment. "And yet you haven't answered my question, Emil. You haven't told me what you do believe. Why isn't religion just as real and true a part of man as any other instinct of his being? It has been a constantly growing attribute."

"And the nonsense is being gradually squeezed out of it. Why should I accept the dogma of that reverend father in God that a man can do nothing by his own efforts? Isn't it a finer thought that we grow by virtue of our struggles and that the free and independent soul wins the battle of life by making the most of itself?"

Emil spoke with fierce rhetoric. To his wife's ear he seemed to be pointing out besides that his own soul was fighting this battle and that he was willing to be judged by the results regardless of doctrine. Constance had long ago convinced herself that his bark was worse than his bite; that he believed more than he really admitted of the essentials of religion; that he acknowledged his responsibility to God and was devoting his days to advancing the useful work of the world, and incidentally providing for her happiness at the same time. His plea for credit to the independent soul which overcame temptation and obstacles was, at least, manly, and a sign of courage. She scarcely heeded the quotation from the "Rubaiyat," which he was murmuring as a corollary to his apostrophe to free and noble endeavor.

O thou who didst with pitfall and with gin Beset the path I was to wander in, Thou wilt not with predestined evil round Enmesh and then impute my fall to sin?

She had heard him quote these lines and others of like import before, and she had learned some of them by rote. She recognized their charm and cleverness and to a certain extent their plausibility; but she had not the slightest impulse to revolutionize her own faith. Her absorbing thought, for the moment, was how to be true to her husband without being false to the church. Mr. Prentiss, in spite of his appeal, had left her conscience unconvinced, and now her clear-headed, fearless Emil had suddenly given her soul the cue to expression. Her brown eyes kindled rapturously and trustfully as she said:

"It's the life after all which counts, isn't it? Everything else is of secondary importance."

"Of course," said Emil. "And when it comes to that," he added, "there's no one in the world who can pick a flaw in yours, you little saint."

"You mustn't say things like that," Constance murmured. Nevertheless, so far as it was a manifestation of confidence from the man she loved, it was pleasant to hear.

From this time her attendance at church was very infrequent. She did not cease to go altogether, but almost every Sunday was spent in expeditions in the open air. The cares resulting from the birth of two children necessarily interfered with her going regularly to service while they were infants, and as soon as they were able to walk, the Sunday outings were resumed with the little boy and girl as companions. Mr. Prentiss did not revisit the house, but on each of the two or three occasions when Constance occupied her old seat in St. Stephen's, she felt that the rector had noticed her. He had apparently left her to her devices, but his glance told her that she was not forgotten.

IV

It is fitting and fortunate that a young woman in a large city, who has given her happiness into the keeping of a man with his own way to make, should be ignorant of her peril, and that charmed by love she should take for granted that he will succeed. But the rest of the world has no excuse for being equally blind, since the rest of the world is aware that there is no recipe by which a girl of twenty can secure a guaranty either of domestic happiness or ability on the part of her lover to hold his own in the competition for a livelihood. It is easy for the moralist of society, writing at his desk, to utter the solemn truth that young people should not rush hastily into matrimony. Assuredly they should not. But after all, is it to be wondered at that so many of them do? Love is the law of life. The renewal of the race through the union of the sexes is an instinct which asserts itself in spite of code and thesis, and the institution of lawful wedlock is the bit by which civilization regulates it. Let us, says the modern scientist, isolate the degenerate members of society, the diseased, the vicious, and the improvident, and prevent them from having offspring. But still the priest of Rome, eager for fresh converts, but wise, too, in his knowledge of the law of sex, whispers to his flock "marry early," and adds under his breath, "lest ye sin." It is a part of religion, perhaps, for the daughters of the well-to-do, who have been screened from contact with the rough world, and who sit in judgment on several lovers in the paternal drawing-room, to weigh and ponder and to call in the brain to assist, or if needs be, silence the heart. Yet even they sometimes elope instead with the wrong man against whom they have been warned, and are unhappy--or happy--ever afterward. But when we turn from these privileged young persons--the pretty, daintily dressed young women in their Easter bonnets, who worship at our fashionable churches--and from some height look out over wide stretches of streets with every house alike, the homes of the average working population, and reflect that every house shelters the consequences of a marriage, shall we ask pitilessly, "How came ye so?" And if the answer of some be "we met and loved and married, and now we are miserable," shall we draw ourselves up and tell them that the fault is theirs, that marriages are (or should be) made in heaven, and that they ought to have discovered before they plighted their troth that John would be a rascal or Mary a slattern? Is it not the privilege and the blessing of the young to trust? Shall we blame them if, in the ignorance of youth and under the spell of the law of their beings, they mistake unworthy souls for their ideals?

The firm of Stuart & Robinson, dealers in lumber, had started with a small capital, but the senior partner had confidence in his capacity to do a large business. His late employers, Toler & Company, according to his opinion, had been old fogies in their methods. To adopt his own metaphor, instead of getting up early and shaking the trees, they expected to have ripe peaches served to them on Sevrès china, or, in other words, they let great opportunities slip through their fingers. He proceeded during the first year to carry out several enterprises which he had vainly called to their attention while in their service, and he had the satisfaction of proving his wisdom and of doubling the firm's assets at the same time. Emil's plans were essentially on a large scale, and he was confessedly cramped even after this success. He explained to his wife that if only he had the necessary capital, he would be able at one fell swoop to control the lumber yards and lumber market of Benham. As it was, he must wait and probably see others appropriate ideas which he had suggested by his novel and brilliant operations. The prophecy indeed proved true, and Emil saw with a morose eye what he called his harvest gleaned by others. This vindictive attitude toward the successful was the invariable frame of mind into which he relapsed when he was not carrying everything before him, and as a result those in the trade presently began to speak of him as a crank. His quick comprehension was admitted, but his associates shook their heads when his name was mentioned, and hinted that he was a dangerous man, who would bear watching. It was almost inevitable that a lean period should follow Emil's series of clever undertakings. Toward the end of the second year, he found himself in a position where he had not the means to enlarge the scope of his operations. His working capital was locked up in sundry purchases which he had expected would show quick profits, but which hung fire. If he liquidated, it must be at a loss, and the idea of a loss was always bitter to him. During a number of months he was obliged to renounce certain plans which he had in view and to remain inactive. A falling lumber market added to his complications. Prompt to act when he was convinced of error, he sold out at last his accumulated stock at a loss, which would have been much greater had he delayed a week longer. But he was left almost in the same position as when he started; the previous profits had been cut in two. This was wormwood to his restless soul. It made him moody and cynical at home, where one child and the near advent of another foreshadowed increasing expenses. He had expected by this time to be on the high road to fortune, and to be imitating the swift progress of certain individuals in Benham, who even in the short period since he had been a citizen, had risen by their superior wits from poverty to affluence and power.

But Emil's fits of depression were invariably succeeded by intervals of buoyancy. Though he still talked bitterly at home of the methods by which cold-hearted capital squeezed the small man to the wall and robbed him of his gains, he began to scheme anew, and to argue that the assets in his control were still ample for a great success if shrewdly handled. The lumber market was in the doldrums, dull and drooping. It began to look as though some of the industries of Benham had been developed too rapidly, and as though a halt, or what financiers call a healthy reaction in values, were in order. Could it be possible that all prices in Benham were inflated? The idea occurred to Emil one day, and he jumped at it eagerly. It took possession of him. He feverishly began to examine statistics, and found that Benham had experienced only one period of depression since its birth as a city at the close of the Civil War. It was time for another, and the men who were clever enough to anticipate it would reap the reward of their sagacity. What were the staples of Benham? Oil, pork, and manufactured iron. These were the industries which had given the chief impetus to the city's growth, and were its great source of wealth. Emil pondered the situation and decided to sell pork short. If a general shrinkage in values was impending, the price of pork was certain to decline. He had hitherto felt so confident of making money in his own line of business that he had never done more than cast sheep's eyes at the stock market or the markets in grain, oil, and pork futures. It had been his expectation to try ventures of this sort as soon as his capital was large enough for important transactions. It was a favorite notion of his that after he had acquired the first one hundred thousand dollars, he would be able to quadruple it in a very short time by bold dealings in stocks or commodities. He knew now that he had merely to step into a broker's office and sell pork in Chicago by wire. It was a simple thing to do and the shrewd thing, considering his own business offered no opportunity at the moment for brilliancy.