This is my daughter," he added simply.
This sudden disclosure of the young woman"s ident.i.ty had upon Hodder a certain electric effect, and with it came a realization of the extent to which--from behind the scenes, so to speak--she had gradually aroused him to a lively speculation. She seemed to have influenced, to a greater or less degree, so many lives with which he had come into touch! Compelled persons to make up their minds about her! And while he sympathized with Eldon Parr in his abandonment, he had never achieved the full condemnation which he felt--an impartial Christian morality would have meted out.
As he uttered the conventional phrase and took her hand, he asked himself whether her personality justified his interest. Her glance at Gordon Atterbury in the midst of that gentleman"s felicitations on the sermon had been expressive, Hodder thought, of veiled amus.e.m.e.nt slightly tinctured with contempt; and he, Hodder, felt himself to have grown warm over it. He could not be sure that Alison Parr had not included, in her inner comment, the sermon likewise, on which he had so spent himself.
What was she doing at church? As her eyes met his own, he seemed to read a challenge. He had never encountered a woman--he decided--who so successfully concealed her thought, and at the same time so incited curiosity about it.
The effect of her reappearance on Gordon Atterbury was painfully apparent, and Mrs. Larrabbee"s remark, "that he had never got over it,"
recurred to Hodder. He possessed the virtue of being faithful, at least, in spite of the lady"s apostasy, and he seemed to be galvanized into a tenfold nervousness as he hustled after them and handed her, with the elaborate attention little men are apt to bestow upon women, into the motor.
"Er--how long shall you be here, Alison?" he asked. "I don"t know," she answered, not unkindly, but with a touch of indifference.
"You treat us shamefully," he informed her, "upon my word! But I"m coming to call."
"Do," said Alison. Hodder caught her eye again, and this time he was sure that she surprised in him a certain disdain of Mr. Atterbury"s zeal. Her smile was faint, yet unmistakable.
He resented it. Indeed, it was with a well-defined feeling of antagonism that he took his seat, and this was enhanced as they flew westward, Mr.
Parr wholly absorbed with the speaking trumpet, energetically rebuking at every bounce. In the back of the rector"s mind lay a weight, which he identified, at intervals, with what he was now convinced was the failure of his sermon... Alison took no part in the casual conversation that began when they reached the boulevard and Mr. Parr abandoned the trumpet, but lay back in silence and apparently with entire comfort in a corner of the limousine.
At the lunch-table Mr. Parr plunged into a discussion of some of the still undecided details of the new settlement house, in which, as the plan developed, he had become more and more interested. He had made himself responsible, from time to time, for additional sums, until the original estimate had been almost doubled. Most of his suggestions had come from Hodder, who had mastered the subject with a thoroughness that appealed to the financier: and he had gradually accepted the rector"s idea of concentrating on the children. Thus he had purchased an adjoining piece of land that was to be a model playground, in connection with the gymnasium and swimming-pool. The hygienic department was to be all that modern science could desire.
"If we are going to do the thing," the banker would, remark, "we may as well do it thoroughly; we may as well be leaders and not followers."
So, little by little, the scheme had grown to proportions that sometimes appalled the rector when he realized how largely he had been responsible for the additions,--in spite of the lukewarmness with which he had begun. And yet it had occasionally been Mr. Parr who, with a sweep of his hand, had added thousands to a particular feature: thus the dance-hall had become, in prospect, a huge sun-parlour at the top of the building, where the children were to have their kindergartens and games in winter; and which might be shaded and opened up to the breezes in summer. What had reconciled Hodder to the enterprise most of all, however, was the chapel--in the plan a beautiful Gothic church--whereby he hoped to make the religious progress keep pace with the social. Mr.
Parr was decidedly in sympathy with this intention, and referred to it now.
"I was much impressed by what you said in your sermon to-day as to the need of insisting upon authority in religious matters," he declared, "and I quite agree that we should have a chapel of some size at the settlement house for that reason. Those people need spiritual control.
It"s what the age needs. And when I think of some of the sermons printed in the newspapers to-day, and which are served up as Christianity, there is only one term to apply to them--they are criminally incendiary."
"But isn"t true Christianity incendiary, in your meaning of the word?"
It was Alison who spoke, in a quiet and musical voice that was in striking contrast to the tone of Mr. Parr, which the rector had thought unusually emphatic. It was the first time she had shown an inclination to contribute to the talk. But since Hodder had sat down at the table her presence had disturbed him, and he had never been wholly free from an uncomfortable sense that he was being measured and weighed.
Once or twice he had stolen a glance at her as she sat, perfectly at ease, and asked himself whether she had beauty, and it dawned upon him little by little that the very proportion she possessed made for physical un.o.btrusiveness. She was really very tall for a woman. At first he would have said her nose was straight, when he perceived that it had a delicate hidden curve; her eyes were curiously set, her dark hair parted in the middle, brought down low on each side of the forehead and tied in a Grecian knot. Thus, in truth, he observed, were seemingly all the elements of the cla.s.sic, even to the firm yet slender column of the neck. How had it eluded him?
Her remark, if it astonished Hodder, had a dynamic effect on Eldon Parr.
And suddenly the rector comprehended that the banker had not so much been talking to him as through him; had been, as it were, courting opposition.
"What do you mean by Christianity being incendiary?" he demanded.
"Incendiary, from your point of view--I made, the qualification," Alison replied, apparently unmoved by his obvious irritation. "I don"t pretend to be a Christian, as you know, but if there is one element in Christianity that distinguishes it, it is the brotherhood of man.
That"s pure nitroglycerin, though it"s been mixed with so much sawdust.
Incendiary is a mild epithet. I never read the sermons you refer to; I dare say they"re crude, but they"re probably attempts to release an explosive which would blow your comfortable social system and its authority into atoms."
Hodder, who had listened in amazement, glanced at the banker. He had never before heard him opposed, or seen him really angry.
"I"ve heard that doctrine," cried Mr. Parr. "Those who are dissatisfied with things as they are because they have been too stupid or too weak or self-indulgent to rise, find it easy to twist the principles of Christianity into revolutionary propaganda. It"s a case of the devil quoting Scripture. The brotherhood of man! There has never been an age when philanthropy and organized charity were on such a scale as to-day."
A certain gallant, indomitable ring crept into Alison"s voice; she did not seem in the least dismayed or overborne.
"But isn"t that just where most so-called Christians make their mistake?" she asked. "Philanthropy and organized charity, as they exist to-day, have very little to do with the brotherhood of man. Mightn"t it be you who are fooling yourselves instead of the incendiaries fooling themselves So long as you can make yourselves believe that this kind of charity is a logical carrying out of the Christian principles, so long are your consciences satisfied with the social system which your cla.s.s, very naturally, finds so comfortable and edifying. The weak and idiotic ought to be absurdly grateful for what is flung to them, and heaven is gained in the throwing. In this way the rich inevitably become the elect, both here and hereafter, and the needle"s eye is widened into a gap."
There was on Mr. Parr"s lips a smile not wholly pleasant to see. Indeed, in the last few minutes there had been revealed to Hodder a side of the banker"s character which had escaped him in the two years of their acquaintance.
"I suppose," said Mr. Parr, slowly, drumming on the table, "you would say that of the new settlement house of St. John"s, whereby we hope to raise a whole neighbourhood."
"Yes, I should," replied Alison, with spirit. "The social system by which you thrive, and which politically and financially you strive to maintain, is diametrically opposed to your creed, which is supposed to be the brotherhood of man. But if that were really your creed, you would work for it politically and financially. You would see that your Church is trying to do infinitesimally what the government, but for your opposition, might do universally. Your true creed is the survival of the fittest. You grind these people down into what is really an economic slavery and dependence, and then you insult and degrade them by inviting them to exercise and read books and sing hymns in your settlement house, and give their children crackers and milk and kindergartens and sunlight! I don"t blame them for not becoming Christians on that basis.
Why, the very day I left New York a man over eighty, who had been swindled out of all he had, rather than go to one of those Christian inst.i.tutions deliberately forged a check and demanded to be sent to the penitentiary. He said he could live and die there with some self-respect."
"I might have antic.i.p.ated that you would ultimately become a Socialist, Alison," Mr. Parr remarked--but his voice trembled.
"I don"t know whether I"m a Socialist or an Anarchist," she answered.
Hodder thought he detected a note of hopelessness in her voice, and the spirit in it ebbed a little. Not only did she seem indifferent to her father"s feeling--which incidentally added fuel to it--but her splendid disregard of him, as a clergyman, had made an oddly powerful appeal.
And her argument! His feelings, as he listened to this tremendous arraignment of Eldon Parr by his daughter, are not easily to be described. To say that she had compelled him, the rector of St. John"s, at last to look in the face many conditions which he had refused to recognize would be too definite a statement. Nevertheless, some such thing had occurred. Refutations sprang to his lips, and died there, though he had no notion of uttering them. He saw that to admit her contentions would be to behold crumble into ruins the structure that he had spent a life in rearing; and yet something within him responded to her words--they had the pa.s.sionate, convincing ring of truth.
By no means the least of their disturbing effects was due to the fact that they came as a climax to, as a fulfilment of the revelation he had had at the Fergusons", when something of the true nature of Mr. Plimpton and others of his congregation had suddenly been laid bare. And now Hodder looked at Eldon Parr to behold another man from the one he had known, and in that moment realized that their relationship could never again be the same... Were his sympathies with the daughter?
"I don"t know what I believe," said Alison, after a pause. "I"ve ceased trying to find out. What"s the use!" She appeared now to be addressing no one in particular.
A servant entered with a card, and the banker"s hand shook perceptibly as he put down his claret and adjusted his gla.s.ses.
"Show him into my office upstairs, and tell him I"ll see him at once,"
he said, and glanced at the rector. But it was Alison whom he addressed.
"I must leave Mr. Hodder to answer your arguments," he added, with an attempt at lightness; and then to the rector: "Perhaps you can convince her that the Church is more sinned against than sinning, and that Christians are not such terrible monsters after all. You"ll excuse me?"
"Certainly." Hodder had risen.
II
"Shall we have coffee in the garden?" Alison asked. "It"s much nicer outside this time of year."
For an instant he was at a loss to decide whether to accede, or to make an excuse and leave the house. Wisdom seemed to point to flight.
But when he glanced at her he saw to his surprise that the mood of abstraction into which she had fallen still held her; that the discussion which had aroused Eldon Parr to such dramatic anger had left her serious and thoughtful. She betrayed no sense of triumph at having audaciously and successfully combated him, and she appeared now only partially to be aware of Hodder"s presence. His interest, his curiosity mounted suddenly again, overwhelming once more the antagonism which he had felt come and go in waves; and once more his attempted cla.s.sification of her was swept away. She had relapsed into an enigma.
"I like the open air," he answered, "and I have always wished to see the garden. I have admired it from the windows."
"It"s been on my mind for some years," she replied, as she led the way down a flight of steps into the vine-covered pergola. "And I intend to change parts of it while I am out here. It was one of my first attempts, and I"ve learned more since."
"You must forgive my ignorant praise," he said, and smiled. "I have always thought it beautiful: But I can understand that an artist is never satisfied."
She turned to him, and suddenly their eyes met and held in a momentary, electric intensity that left him warm and agitated. There was nothing coquettish in the glance, but it was the first distinct manifestation that he was of consequence. She returned his smile, without levity.
"Is a clergyman ever satisfied?" she asked.
"He ought not to be," replied Hodder, wondering whether she had read him.
"Although you were so considerate, I suppose you must have thought it presumptuous of me to criticize your profession, which is religion."