Wynne looked bewildered at Mrs. Frostwinch walking before him in a shimmer of Boston respectability. He had an uneasy feeling that he was pa.s.sing from one pitfall to another. He was keenly conscious of the richness of the voice of the girl by his side, so that he felt that it was not easy for him to disagree with anything which she said. He let her remark pa.s.s without reply.
"For my part," she went on frankly, "I don"t in the least believe in the thing as a matter of theory; but practically I have a superst.i.tion about it, because I"ve seen Cousin Anna. She was helpless, in agony, dying; and now she is as well as I am. If I were ill"--
She broke off with a pretty little gesture as they came within hearing of the others, who had halted at Mrs. Frostwinch"s gate. Wynne said good-by absently, and went on his way down the hill like a man in a dream.
"Well," Mrs. Staggchase said, "you have seen one of Boston"s ethical debauches; what do you think of it?"
"It was confusing," he returned. "I couldn"t make out what it was for."
"For? To amuse us. We are the children of the Puritans, you know, and have inherited a twist toward the ethical and the supernatural so strong that we have to have these things served up even in our amus.e.m.e.nts."
"Then I think that it is wicked," Maurice said.
"Oh, no; we must not be narrow. It isn"t wrong to amuse one"s self; and if we play with the religion of the Persians, why is it worse than to play with the mythologies of the Greeks or Romans? You wouldn"t think it any harm to jest about cla.s.sical theology."
Wynne turned toward her with a smile on his strong, handsome face.
"Why do you try to tangle me up in words?" he asked.
Mrs. Staggchase did not turn toward him, but looked before with face entirely unchanged as she replied:--
"I am not trying to entangle you in words, but if I were it would be all part of the play. You are undergoing your period of temptation. I am the tempter in default of a better. In the old fashion of temptations it wouldn"t do to have the tempter old and plain. Then you were expected to fall in love; now we deal in snares more subtle."
Maurice laughed, but somewhat unmirthfully. There was to him something bewildering and worldly about his cousin; and he had come to feel that he could never be at all sure where in the end the most harmless beginning of talk might lead him.
"What then is the modern way of temptation?" he inquired.
"It shows how much faith we have in its power," she replied, as they waited on the corner of Charles Street for a carriage to pa.s.s, "that I don"t in the least mind giving you full warning. Did you know the lady in that carriage, by the way?"
"It was Mrs. Wilson, wasn"t it?"
"Yes; Mrs. Chauncy Wilson. You have seen her at the Church of the Nativity, I suppose. She is one phase of the temptation."
"I don"t in the least understand."
"I didn"t in the least suppose that you would. You will in time. My part of the temptation is to show you all sorts of ethical jugglery, the spiritual and intellectual gymnastics such as the Bostonians love; to persuade you that all religion is only a sort of pastime, and that the particular high-church sort which you especially affect is but one of a great many entertaining ways of killing time."
"Cousin Diana!" he exclaimed, genuinely shocked.
"I hope that you understand," she continued unmoved. "I shall exhibit a very pretty collection of fads to you if we see them all."
"But suppose," he said slowly, "that I refused to go with you?"
"But you won"t," returned she, with that curious smile which always teased him with its suggestion of irony. "In the first place you couldn"t be so impolite as to refuse me. A woman may always lead a man into questionable paths if she puts it to his sense of chivalry not to desert her. In the second, the spirit of the age is a good deal stronger in you than you realize, and the truth is that you wouldn"t be left behind for anything. In the third, you could hardly be so cowardly as to run away from the temptation that is to prove whether you were really born to be a priest."
"That was decided when I entered the Clergy House."
"Nonsense; nothing of the sort, my dear boy. The only thing that was decided then was that you thought you were. Wait and see our ethical and religious raree-shows. We had the Persian to-day; to-morrow I"m to take you to a spiritualist sitting at Mrs. Rangely"s. She hates to have me come, so I mustn"t miss that. Then there are the mind-cure, Theosophy, and a dozen other things; not to mention the semi-irreligions, like Nationalism. You will be as the G.o.ds, knowing good and evil, by the time we are half way round the circle,--though it is perhaps somewhat doubtful if you know them apart."
She spoke in her light, railing way, as if the matter were one of the smallest possible consequence, and yet Wynne grew every moment more and more uncomfortable. He had never seen his cousin in just this mood, and could not tell whether she were mocking him or warning him. He seized upon the first pretext which presented itself to his mind, and endeavored to change the subject.
"Who is Mrs. Rangely?" he asked. "A medium?"
"Oh, bless you, no. She is not so bad as a medium; she is only a New Yorker. Do you think we"d go to real mediums? Although," she added, "there are plenty who do go. I think that it is shocking bad form."
"But you speak as if"--
"As if spiritualism were one of the recognized ethical games, that"s all. It is played pretty well at Mrs. Rangely"s, I"m told. They say that the little Mrs. Singleton she"s got hold of is very clever."
"Mrs. Singleton," Maurice repeated, "why, it can"t be Alice, brother John"s widow, can it? She married a Singleton for a second husband, and she claimed to be a medium."
"Did she really? It will be amusing if you find your relatives in the business."
"She wasn"t a very close relative. John was only my half-brother, you know, and he lived but six months after he married her. She is clever enough and tricky enough to be capable of anything."
"Well," Mrs. Staggchase said, as they turned in at her door, "if it is she it will give you an excellent chance to do missionary work."
They entered the wide, handsome hall, and with an abrupt movement the hostess turned toward her cousin.
"I a.s.sure you," she said, "that I am in earnest about your temptation.
I want to see what sort of stuff you are made of, and I give you fair warning. Now go and read your breviary, or whatever it is that you sham monks read, while I have tea and then rest before I dress."
Maurice had no reply to offer. He watched in silence as she pa.s.sed up the broad stairway, smiling to herself as she went. He followed slowly a moment later, and seeking his room remained plunged in a reverie at which the severe walls of the Clergy House might have been startled; a reverie disquieted, changing, half-fearful; and yet through which with strange fascination came a longing to see more of the surprising world into which chance had introduced him, and above all to meet again the dark, glowing girl with whom he had that afternoon walked.
III
AS FALSE AS STAIRS OF SAND Merchant of Venice, v. 2.
It was cold and gray next morning when Maurice took his way toward a Catholic church in the North End. He had been there before for confession, and had been not a little elated in his secret heart that he had been able to go through the act of confession and to receive absolution without betraying the fact that he was not a Romanist. He had studied the forms of confession, the acts of contrition, and whatever was necessary to the part, and for some months had gone on in this singular course. To his Superior at the Clergy House he confessed the same sins, but Maurice had a feeling that the absolution of the Roman priest was more effective than that of his own church. He was not conscious of any intention of becoming a Catholic, but there was a fascination in playing at being one; and Wynne, who could not understand how the folk of Boston could play with ethical truths, was yet able thus to juggle with religion with no misgiving.
This morning he enjoyed the spiritual intoxication of the confessional as never before. He half consciously allowed himself to dwell upon the image of the beautiful Miss Morison to the end that he might the more effectively pour out his contrition for that sin. He was so eloquent in the confessional that he admired himself both for his penitence and for the words in which he set it forth. He floated as it were in a sea of mingled sensuousness and repentance, and he hoped that the penance imposed would be heavy enough to show that the priest had been impressed with the magnitude of the sin of which he had been guilty in allowing his thoughts, consecrated to the holy life of the priesthood, to dwell upon a woman.
It was one of those absurd anomalies of which life is full that while Maurice sometimes slighted a little the penances imposed by his own Superior, he had never in the least abated the rigor of any laid upon him by the Catholic priest. It was perhaps that he felt his honor concerned in the latter case. This morning the penance was satisfactorily heavy, and he came out of the church with a buoyant step, full of a certain boyish elation. He had a fresh and delightful sense of the reality of religion now that he had actually sinned and been forgiven.
Next to being forgiven for a sin there is perhaps nothing more satisfactory than to repeat the transgression, and if Maurice had not formulated this fact in theory he was to be acquainted with it in practice. As he walked along in the now bright forenoon, filled with the enjoyment of moral cleanness, he suddenly started with the thrill of delicious temptation. Just before him a lady had come around a corner, and was walking quietly along, in whom at a glance he recognized Miss Morison. There came into his cheek, which even his double penances had not made thin, a flush of pleasure. He quickened his steps, and in a moment had overtaken her.
"Good morning," he said, raising his ecclesiastical hat with an air which savored somewhat of worldliness. "Isn"t it a beautiful day?"
She started at his salutation, but instantly recognized him.
"Good morning," she responded. "I didn"t expect to find anybody I knew in this part of the town."
"It isn"t one where young ladies as a rule walk for pleasure, I suppose," Maurice said, falling into step, and walking beside her.
"I am very sure that I don"t," Miss Morison replied with a toss of her head. "I do it because I was bullied into being a visitor for the a.s.sociated Charities, and I go once a week to tell some poor folk down here that I am no better than they are. They know that I don"t believe it, and I have my doubts if they even believe it themselves, only they wouldn"t be foolish enough to prevaricate about it. Oh, it"s a great and n.o.ble work that I"m engaged in!"