"Dear madam," he answered, leaning forward in his eagerness, "what I heard does not matter; but it does seem to me a pity that such things should be said, and said under your protection."
He was too much in earnest to be self-conscious, even when she regarded him in silence a moment before replying.
"You are perhaps right," she said at length, "although you exaggerate the influence of such things."
"I do not pretend to know whether they are influential or not," he returned simply. "It is only that they do not seem to me to be right.
If they are wrong, they are wrong."
She smiled and sighed.
"Life is not so simple as that," was her reply. "The woman has saved my life. I should have been in my grave months ago but for her. My physician insists now that I haven"t any real right to be out of it. I cannot refuse to allow her to say the thing that she believes, since that thing has a certain proof in my very life."
Philip shook his head.
"It is not for me to judge," said he, "but the way in which all sorts of heresies and strange doctrines are taught and played with in Boston seems to me monstrous. The persons of influence who lend their names and aid"--
He broke off suddenly, recalled by the half-smile in her eyes to the fact that he was condemning her.
"There is much in what you say," Mrs. Frostwinch a.s.sented. "I suppose that the difficulty is that we have ceased to recognize any authority in matters of belief."
"But the church!"
"Yes, there is the church," she said doubtfully, "but to many it has ceased to be an authority, and modern thought allows so much individual freedom. Our church has never claimed to be infallible like the Catholic; and individual freedom of conscience has come pretty generally to mean freedom from conscience."
"Then it is a pity that the authority which is exercised in the Roman church is not exercised in ours."
"Ah, Mr. Ashe, you reckon without the spirit of the age in which we live. But tell me what I can do for you in the matter of the election."
Mrs. Frostwinch was a devout churchwoman in her way, although she was now in appearance following after strange G.o.ds. She readily promised her aid in favor of Father Frontford.
"I agree with you, Mr. Ashe," she said, "that everything possible should be done to stem the tide of laxness which seems advancing everywhere. The mental reservations of Mr. Strathmore are certainly so broad that they may cover anything. I know women who go to his church and simply say the beginning of the creed: "I believe in G.o.d;" and who do not hesitate in private to explain that by the name G.o.d they mean whatever force it is that moves the universe, whether it is intelligent or not."
"How dreadful!" Philip exclaimed. "How can the church endure if this goes on?"
They talked for some time longer, and Mrs. Frostwinch a.s.sured him that she would do her best to secure the votes of the clergymen who were her pensioners. Ashe left her with a pleasant feeling in his heart that he had accomplished his mission without sacrificing his convictions. Yet perhaps more potent still in warming his heart was the remembrance of the pleasant words which Mrs. Fenton had spoken in his behalf. The memory colored all his thoughts of elections, of bishops, and of creeds, as a gleam of rosy light tinges all upon which it falls.
VII
THE SHOT OF ACCIDENT Oth.e.l.lo, iv. 1.
"I knew that she was to send me tickets," Maurice Wynne said, standing with an open note in his hand. "She insisted upon that; but why should she send parlor-car checks too?"
"It is all part of your temptation," Mrs. Staggchase responded, smiling. "Of course if you go as the representative of Mrs. Wilson it is fitting that you go in state. If you were to represent the church now"--
"If I don"t go as a representative of the church," he responded, as she paused with a significant smile, "I go as nothing."
"Oh, I thought that it was Elsie that was sending you. However, it"s no matter. The point is that you are becoming acquainted with the luxuries of life. You are being tried by the insidious softness of the world."
He regarded her with some inward irritation. He had a half-defined conviction that she was mocking him, and that her words were more than mere badinage. He was not without a suspicion that his cousin was sometimes histrionic, and that many things which she said were to be regarded as stage talk. He did not know how far to take her seriously, and this gave him a feeling at once confused and uncomfortable. To be played with as if he were not of discernment ripe enough to perceive her raillery or as if he were not of consequence sufficient to be taken seriously, offended his vanity; and the man whom the devil cannot conquer through his vanity is invulnerable. Wynne had no answer now for the words of Mrs. Staggchase. He contented himself with a glance not entirely free from resentment, at which she laughed.
"I wonder, Cousin Maurice," she said, "if you realize how completely you have changed in the ten days you have been here. It is like bringing into light a plant that has been sprouting in the dark."
He did not answer for a moment, trying to find it possible to deny the charge.
"The fact that you know me better makes me seem different," he answered evasively.
"How much has the fact that you don"t know yourself so well to do with it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, anything you like. I merely suspect that you are not so sure of your vocation as you were in the Clergy House. Even a deacon is human, I suppose; and if life is alluring, he can"t help feeling it. Are you still sure that the clergy should be celibate, for instance?"
He felt her eyes piercing him as if his secret thoughts were open to her, and he knew that he was flushing to his very hair. He hastened to answer, not only that he might not think, but that she might not perceive that he had admitted any doubt to his heart.
"More than ever," he responded. "It is impossible not to see that a clergyman who is married must have his thoughts distracted from his sacred calling."
Mrs. Staggchase leaned back in her chair and regarded him with the smile which he found always so puzzling and so disconcerting.
"You did that very well," she said, "only you shouldn"t have put in the word "sacred." That made it all sound conventional. However, you probably meant it. She is distracting."
The hot blood leaped into his face so that he knew that it was utterly impossible to conceal his confusion.
"I don"t know what you mean," he stammered.
Instantly his conscience reproached him with not speaking the truth. He responded to his conscience that it was impossible in circ.u.mstances like these to say the whole, and that what he had said was not untrue.
He could not know what his cousin meant by her p.r.o.noun, and if the thought of Miss Morison had come instantly into his mind, it by no means followed that it was she of whom Mrs. Staggchase was thinking.
Life seemed suddenly more complex than he had ever dreamed it possible; and before this remark the unsophisticated deacon became so completely confused that for the instant it was his instinctive wish to be once more safely within the sheltering walls of the Clergy House, protected from the temptations and vexations of the world. He was after all of a nature which did not yield readily, however, and the next thought was one of defiance. He would not yield up his secret, and he defied the world to drag it from him. His companion smiled upon him with the baffling look which her husband called her Mona Lisa expression, and then she laughed outright.
"My dear boy," she said, "you are no more a priest than I am; and you are as transparent as a piece of crystal. Well, I am fond of you, and I"m glad to have a hand in proving to you that you are not meant for the priesthood before it"s too late."
"But it hasn"t been proved to me," he cried, not without some sternness.
"Oh, bless you, it"s in train, and that"s the same thing. "Not poppy, nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups of the east" could put you to sleep again in the dream you had in the Clergy House. It will take you a little longer to find yourself out, but the thing is done nevertheless."
As she spoke, a servant came to the door to announce the carriage. Mrs.
Staggchase held out her hand.
"Good-by," she said, as Maurice rose, and came forward to take it. "I hope that we shall see you again in a couple of days. I have still a good deal to show you."
He had recovered his self-possession a little, and answered her with a smile:--
"You make it so delightful for me here that I am not sure you are not right in saying that you are my temptation."
"Oh, I"ve already given up the office of tempter," she responded quickly. "I found a rival, and that I never could endure. You"ll have your temptation with you."