"You are not accustomed, as a rule, to pay much deference to Sunday."
"Doesn"t the Bible say, somewhere," she inquired, "that the Sabbath was made for man? Perhaps that may be broadened after a while, to include woman."
"But you have never been an advocate, so far as I know, of women taking advantage of their opportunity by going to Church."
"What"s the use," demanded Alison, "of the thousands of working women spending the best part of the day in the ordinary church, when their feet and hands and heads are aching? Unless some fire is kindled in their souls, it is hopeless for them to try to obtain any benefit from religion--so-called--as it is preached to them in most churches."
"Fire in their souls!" exclaimed the banker.
"Yes. If the churches offered those who might be leaders among their fellows a practical solution of existence, kindled their self-respect, replaced a life of drudgery by one of inspiration--that would be worth while. But you will never get such a condition as that unless your pulpits are filled by personalities, instead of puppets who are all cast in one mould, and who profess to be there by divine right."
"I am glad to see at least that you are taking an interest in religious matters," her father observed, meaningly.
Alison coloured. But she retorted with spirit.
"That is true of a great many persons to-day who are thinking on the subject. If Christianity is a solution of life, people are demanding of the churches that they shall perform their function, and show us how, and why, or else cease to enc.u.mber the world."
Eldon Parr folded up his newspaper.
"So you are going to Church this morning," he said.
"Yes. At what time will you be ready?"
"At quarter to eleven. But if you are going to St. John", you will have to start earlier. I"ll order a car at half past ten."
"Where are you going?" She held her breath, unconsciously, for the answer.
"To Calvary," he replied coldly, as he rose to leave the room. "But I hesitate to ask you to come,--I am afraid you will not find a religion there that suits you."
For a moment she could not trust herself to speak. The secret which, ever since Friday evening, she had been burning to learn was disclosed ... Her father had broken with Mr. Hodder!
"Please don"t order the motor for me," she said. "I"d rather go in the street cars."
She sat very still in the empty room, her face burning.
Characteristically, her father had not once mentioned the rector of St. John"s, yet had contrived to imply that her interest in Hodder was greater than her interest in religion. And she was forced to admit, with her customary honesty, that the implication was true.
The numbers who knew Alison Parr casually thought her cold. They admired a certain quality in her work, but they did not suspect that that quality was the incomplete expression of an innate idealism capable of being fanned into flame,--for she was subject to rare but ardent enthusiasms which kindled and transformed her incredibly in the eyes of the few to whom the process had been revealed. She had had even a longer list of suitors than any one guessed; men who--usually by accident--had touched the hidden spring, and suddenly beholding an unimagined woman, had consequently lost their heads. The mistake most of them had made (for subtlety in such affairs is not a masculine trait) was the failure to recognize and continue to present the quality in them which had awakened her. She had invariably discovered the feet of clay.
Thus disillusion had been her misfortune--perhaps it would be more accurate to say her fortune. She had built up, after each invasion, her defences more carefully and solidly than before, only to be again astonished and dismayed by the next onslaught, until at length the question had become insistent--the question of an alliance for purposes of greater security. She had returned to her childhood home to consider it, frankly recognizing it as a compromise, a fall....
And here, in this sanctuary of her reflection, and out of a quarter on which she had set no watch, out of a wilderness which she had believed to hold nothing save the ruined splendours of the past, had come one who, like the traditional figures of the wilderness, had attracted her by his very uncouthness and latent power. And the anomaly he presented in what might be called the vehemence of his advocacy of an outworn orthodoxy, in his occupation of the pulpit of St. John"s, had quickened at once her curiosity and antagonism. It had been her sudden discovery, or rather her instinctive suspicion of the inner conflict in him which had set her standard fluttering in response. Once more (for the last time--something whispered--now) she had become the lady of the lists; she sat on her walls watching, with beating heart and straining eyes, the closed helm of her champion, ready to fling down the revived remnant of her faith as prize or forfeit. She had staked all on the hope that he would not lower his lance.....
Sat.u.r.day had pa.s.sed in suspense.... And now was flooding in on her the certainty that he had not failed her; that he had, with a sublime indifference to a worldly future and success, defied the powers. With indifference, too, to her! She knew, of course, that he loved her. A man with less of greatness would have sought a middle way....
When, at half past ten, she fared forth into the sunlight, she was filled with antic.i.p.ation, excitement, concern, feelings enhanced and not soothed by the pulsing vibrations of the church bells in the softening air. The swift motion of the electric car was grateful... But at length the sight of familiar landmarks, old-fashioned dwellings crowded in between the stores and factories of lower Tower Street, brought back recollections of the days when she had come this way, other Sunday mornings, and in a more leisurely public vehicle, with her mother.
Was it possible that she, Alison Parr, were going to church now? Her excitement deepened, and she found it difficult to bring herself to the realization that her destination was a church--the church of her childhood. At this moment she could only think of St. John"s as the setting of the supreme drama.
When she alighted at the corner of Burton Street there was the well-remembered, shifting group on the pavement in front of the church porch. How many times, in the summer and winter, in fair weather and cloudy, in rain and sleet and snow had she approached that group, as she approached it now! Here were the people, still, in the midst of whom her earliest a.s.sociations had been formed, changed, indeed,-but yet the same. No, the change was in her, and the very vastness of that change came as a shock. These had stood still, anch.o.r.ed to their traditions, while she--had she grown? or merely wandered? She had searched, at least, and seen. She had once accepted them--if indeed as a child it could have been said of her that she accepted anything; she had been unable then, at any rate, to bring forward any comparisons.
Now she beheld them, collectively, in their complacent finery, as representing a force, a section of the army blocking the heads of the pa.s.ses of the world"s progress, resting on their arms, but ready at the least uneasy movement from below to man the breastworks, to fling down the traitor from above, to fight fiercely for the solidarity of their order. And Alison even believed herself to detect, by something indefinable in their att.i.tudes as they stood momentarily conversing in lowered voices, an aroused suspicion, an uneasy antic.i.p.ation. Her imagination went so far as to apprehend, as they greeted her unwonted appearance, that they read in it an addition to other vague and disturbing phenomena. Her colour was high.
"Why, my dear," said Mrs. Atterbury, "I thought you had gone back to New York long ago!"
Beside his mother stood Gordon--more dried up, it seemed, than ever.
Alison recalled him, as on this very spot, a thin, pale boy in short trousers, and Mrs. Atterbury a beautiful and controlled young matron a.s.sociated with St. John"s and with children"s parties. She was wonderful yet, with her white hair and straight nose, her erect figure still slight. Alison knew that Mrs. Atterbury had never forgiven her for rejecting her son--or rather for being the kind of woman who could reject him.
"Surely you haven"t been here all summer?"
Alison admitted it, characteristically, without explanations.
"It seems so natural to see you here at the old church, after all these years," the lady went on, and Alison was aware that Mrs. Atterbury questioned--or rather was at a loss for the motives which had led such an apostate back to the fold. "We must thank Mr. Hodder, I suppose. He"s very remarkable. I hear he is resuming the services to-day for the first time since June."
Alison was inclined to read a significance into Mrs. Atterbury"s glance at her son, who was clearing his throat.
"But--where is Mr. Parr?" he asked. "I understand he has come back from his cruise."
"Yes, he is back. I came without--him---as you see."
She found a certain satisfaction in adding to the mystification, to the disquietude he betrayed by fidgeting more than usual.
"But--he always comes when he is in town. Business--I suppose--ahem!"
"No," replied Alison, dropping her bomb with cruel precision, "he has gone to Calvary."
The agitation was instantaneous.
"To Calvary!" exclaimed mother and son in one breath.
"Why?" It was Gordon who demanded. "A--a special occasion there--a bishop or something?"
"I"m afraid you must ask him," she said.
She was delayed on the steps, first by Nan Ferguson, then by the Laureston Greys, and her news outdistanced her to the porch. Charlotte Plimpton looking very red and solid, her eyes glittering with excitement, blocked her way.
"Alison?" she cried, in the slightly nasal voice that was a Gore inheritance, "I"m told your father"s gone to Calvary! Has Mr. Hodder offended him? I heard rumours--Wallis seems to be afraid that something has happened."
"He hasn"t said anything about it to me, Charlotte," said Alison, in quiet amus.e.m.e.nt, "but then he wouldn"t, you know. I don"t live here any longer, and he has no reason to think that I would be interested in church matters."
"But--why did you come?" Charlotte demanded, with Gore naivete.
Alison smiled.
"You mean--what was my motive?"
Charlotte actually performed the miracle of getting redder. She was afraid of Alison--much more afraid since she had known of her vogue in the East. When Alison had put into execution the astounding folly (to the Gore mind) of rejecting the inheritance of millions to espouse a profession, it had been Charlotte Plimpton who led the chorus of ridicule and disapproval. But success, to the Charlotte Plimptons, is its own justification, and now her ambition (which had ramifications) was to have Alison "do" her a garden. Incidentally, the question had flashed through her mind as to how much Alison"s good looks had helped towards her triumph in certain shining circles.
"Oh, of course I didn"t mean that," she hastened to deny, although it was exactly what she had meant. Her curiosity unsatisfied--and not likely to be satisfied at once, she shifted abruptly to the other burning subject. "I was so glad when I learned you hadn"t gone. Grace Larrabbee"s garden is a dream, my dear. Wallis and I stopped there the other day and the caretaker showed it to us. Can"t you make a plan for me, so that I may begin next spring? And there"s something else I wanted to ask you. Wallis and I are going to New York the end of the month.