"Bedloe"s all right, but he"s a dreamer," Mr. Plimpton volunteered.
"Then I wish he"d stop dreaming," said Mr. Ferguson, and there was more laughter, although he had spoken savagely.
"That"s what he is, a dreamer," Varnum e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Say, he told George Carter the other day that prost.i.tution wasn"t necessary, that in fifty years we"d have largely done away with it. Think of that, and it"s as old as Sodom and Gomorrah!"
"If Hubbell had his way, he"d make this town look like a Connecticut hill village--he"d drive all the prosperity out of it. All the railroads would have to abandon their terminals--there"d be no more traffic, and you"d have to walk across the bridge to get a drink."
"Well," said Mr. Plimpton, "Tom Beatty"s good enough for me, for a while."
Beatty, Hodder knew, was the "boss," of the city, with headquarters in a downtown saloon.
"Beatty"s been maligned," Mr. Varnum declared. "I don"t say he"s a saint, but he"s run the town pretty well, on the whole, and kept the vice where it belongs, out of sight. He"s made his pile, but he"s ent.i.tled to something we all are. You always know where you stand with Beatty. But say, if Hubbell and his crowd--"
"Don"t worry about Bedloe,--he"ll get called in, he"ll come home to roost like the rest of them," said Mr. Plimpton, cheerfully. "The people can"t govern themselves,--only Bedloe doesn"t know it. Some day he"ll find it out."...
The French window beside him was open, and Hodder slipped out, unnoticed, into the warm night and stood staring at the darkness. His one desire had been to get away, out of hearing, and he pressed forward over the tiled pavement until he stumbled against a stone bal.u.s.trade that guarded a drop of five feet or so to the lawn below. At the same time he heard his name called.
"Is that you, Mr. Hodder?"
He started. The voice had a wistful tremulousness, and might almost have been the echo of the leaves stirring in the night air. Then he perceived, in a shaft of light from one of the drawing-room windows near by, a girl standing beside the bal.u.s.trade; and as she came towards him, with tentative steps, the light played conjurer, catching the silvery gauze of her dress and striking an aura through the film of her hair.
"It"s Nan Ferguson," she said.
"Of course," he exclaimed, collecting himself. "How stupid of me not to have recognized you!"
"I"m so glad you came out," she went on impulsively, yet shyly, "I wanted to tell you how sorry I was that that thing happened at the table."
"I like that young man," he said.
"Do you?" she exclaimed, with unexpected grat.i.tude. "So do I. He really isn"t--so bad as he must seem."
"I"m sure of it," said the rector, laughing.
"I was afraid you"d think him wicked," said Nan. "He works awfully hard, and he"s sending a brother through college. He isn"t a bit like--some others I know. He wants to make something of himself. And I feel responsible, because I had mother ask him to-night."
He read her secret. No doubt she meant him to do so.
"You know we"re going away next week, for the summer--that is, mother and I," she continued. "Father comes later. And I do hope you"ll make us a visit, Mr. Hodder--we were disappointed you couldn"t come last year."
Nan hesitated, and thrusting her hand into her gown drew forth an envelope and held it out to him. "I intended to give you this to-night, to use--for anything you thought best."
He took it gravely. She looked up at him.
"It seems so little--such a selfish way of discharging one"s obligations, just to write out a cheque, when there is so much trouble in the world that demands human kindness as well as material help. I drove up Dalton Street yesterday, from downtown. You know how hot it was! And I couldn"t help thinking how terrible it is that we who have everything are so heedless of all that misery. The thought of it took away all my pleasure.
"I"d do something more, something personal, if I could. Perhaps I shall be able to, next winter. Why is it so difficult for all of us to know what to do?"
"We have taken a step forward, at any rate, when we know that it is difficult," he said.
She gazed up at him fixedly, her attention caught by an indefinable something in his voice, in his smile, that thrilled and vaguely disturbed her. She remembered it long afterwards. It suddenly made her shy again; as if, in faring forth into the darkness, she had come to the threshold of a mystery, of a revelation withheld; and it brought back the sense of adventure, of the palpitating fear and daring with which she had come to meet him.
"It is something to know," she repeated, half comprehending. The sc.r.a.ping of chairs within alarmed her, and she stood ready to fly.
"But I haven"t thanked you for this," he said, holding up the envelope.
"It may be that I shall find some one in Dalton Street--"
"Oh, I hope so," she faltered, breathlessly, hesitating a moment. And then she was gone, into the house.
Volume 3.
CHAPTER IX. THE DIVINE DISCONTENT
I
It was the last Sunday in May, and in another week the annual flight to the seash.o.r.e and the mountains would have begun again. The breezes stealing into the church through the open cas.e.m.e.nts 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sion of his being into the appeal.
Heedlessness--that was G.o.d"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 "empress.e.m.e.nt", 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 gla.s.ses, "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.