It did not become necessary for Selma to act as Mr. Littleton"s champion, for the stove dealer"s criticism found only one supporter. The New Yorker"s design for the church was so obviously pretty and suitable that a majority of the Committee promptly declared in its favor. The successful compet.i.tor, who had remained a day to learn the result, was solemnly informed of the decision, and then elaborately introduced to the members. In shaking hands with him, Selma experienced a shade of embarra.s.sment. It was plain that his words to her, spoken with a low bow--"I am very much gratified that my work pleases you" conveyed a more spiritual significance than was contained in his thanks to the others.
Still he seemed more at his ease with Mrs. Taylor, who promptly broke the ice of the situation by fixing him as a close relative of friends in Baltimore. Straightway he became sprightly and voluble, speaking of things and people beyond Selma"s experience. This social jargon irritated Selma. It seemed to her a profanation of a n.o.ble character, yet she was annoyed because she could not understand.
Mrs. Taylor, having discovered in Mr. Littleton one who should have been a friend long before, succeeded in carrying him off to dinner. Yet, before taking his leave, he came back to Selma for a few words. She had overheard Mrs. Taylor"s invitation, and she asked herself why she too might not become better acquainted with this young man whose att.i.tude toward her was that of respectful admiration. To have a strange young man to dine off-hand struck her as novel. She had a general conviction that it would seem to Lewis closely allied to light conduct, and that only foreigners or frivolous people let down to this extent the bars of family life. Now that Mrs. Taylor had set her the example, she was less certain of the moral turpitude of such an act, but she concluded also that her husband would be in the way at table. What she desired was an opportunity for a long, interesting chat about high things.
While she reflected, he was saying to her, "I understand that your committee is to supervise my work until the new church is completed, so I shall hope to have the opportunity to meet you occasionally. It will be necessary for me to make trips here from time to time to see that everything is being done correctly by the mechanics."
"Do you go away immediately?"
"It may be that I shall be detained by the arrangements which I must make here until day after to-morrow."
"If you would really like to see me, I live at 25 Onslow Avenue."
"Thank you very much." Littleton took out a small memorandum book and carefully noted the address. "Mrs. Babc.o.c.k, 25 Onslow Avenue. I shall make a point of calling to-morrow afternoon if I stay--and probably I shall."
He bowed and left Selma pleasantly stirred by the interview. His voice was low and his enunciation sympathetically fluent. She said to herself that she would give him afternoon tea and they would compare ideas together. She felt sure that his must be interesting.
Later in the evening at Mrs. Taylor"s, when there was a pause in their sympathetic interchange of social and aesthetic convictions, Littleton said abruptly:
"Tell me something, please, about Mrs. Babc.o.c.k. She has a suggestive as well as a beautiful face, and it is easy to perceive that she is genuinely American--not one of the women of whom we were speaking, who seem to be ashamed of their own inst.i.tutions, and who ape foreign manners and customs. I fancy she would ill.u.s.trate what I was saying just now as to the vital importance of our clinging to our heritage of independent thought--of accepting the truth of the ancient order of things without allowing its lies and demerits to enslave us."
"I suppose so," said Mrs. Taylor. "She certainly does not belong to the dangerous cla.s.s of whom you were speaking. I was flattering myself that neither did I, for I was agreeing with all you said as to the need of cherishing our native originality. Yet I must confess that now that you compare me with her (the actual comparison is my own, but you instigated it), I begin to feel more doubts about myself--that is if she is the true species, and I"m inclined to think she is. Pray excuse this indirect method of answering your inquiry; it is in the nature of a soliloquy; it is an airing of thoughts and doubts which have been hara.s.sing me for a fortnight--ever since I knew Mrs. Babc.o.c.k. Really, Mr. Littleton, I can tell you very little about her. She is a new-comer on the horizon of Benham; she has been married very recently; I believe she has taught school and that she was brought up not far from here. She is as proud as Lucifer and sometimes as beautiful; she is profoundly serious and--and apparently very ignorant. I fancy she is clever and capable in her way, but I admit she is an enigma to me and that I have not solved it. I can see she does not approve of me altogether. She regards me with suspicion, and yet she threw the casting vote in favor of my proposal to open the compet.i.tion for the church to architects from other places. I am trying to like her, for I wish to believe in everything genuinely American if I can. There, I have told you all I know, and to a man she may seem altogether attractive and inspiring."
"Thank you. I had no conception that I was broaching such a complex subject. She sounds interesting, and my curiosity is whetted. You have not mentioned the husband."
"To be sure. A burly, easy-going manufacturer of varnish, without much education, I should judge. He is manifestly her inferior in half a dozen ways, but I understand that he is making money, and he looks kind."
Wilbur Littleton"s life since he had come to man"s estate had been a struggle, and he was only just beginning to make headway. He had never had time to commiserate himself, for necessity on the one hand and youthful ambition on the other had kept his energies tense and his thoughts sane and hopeful. He and his sister Pauline, a year his senior, had been left orphans while both were students by the death of their father on the battlefield. To persevere in their respective tastes and work out their educations had been a labor of love, but an undertaking which demanded rigorous self-denial on the part of each. Wilbur had determined to become an architect. Pauline, early interested in the dogma that woman must no longer be barred from intellectual companionship with man, had sought to cultivate herself intelligently without sacrificing her brother"s domestic comfort. She had succeeded.
Their home in New York, despite its small dimensions and frugal hospitality, was already a favorite resort of a little group of professional people with busy brains and light purses. Wilbur was in the throes of early progress. He had no relatives or influential friends to give him business, and employment came slowly. He had been an architect on his own account for two years, but was still obliged to supplement his professional orders by work as a draughtsman for others. Yet his enthusiasm kept him buoyant. In respect to his own work he was scrupulous; indeed, a stern critic. He abhorred claptrap and specious effects, and aimed at high standards of artistic expression. This gave him position among his brother architects, but was incompatible with meteoric progress. His design for the church at Benham represented much thought and hope, and he felt happy at his success.
Littleton"s familiarity with women, apart from his sister, had been slight, but his thoughts regarding them were in keeping with a poetic and aspiring nature. He hoped to marry some day, and he was fond of picturing to himself in moments of reverie the sort of woman to whom his heart would be given. In the shrine of his secret fancy she appeared primarily as an object of reverence, a white-souled angel of light clad in the graceful outlines of flesh, an Amazon and yet a winsome, tender spirit, and above all a being imbued with the stimulating intellectual independence he had been taught to a.s.sociate with American womanhood.
She would be the loving wife of his bosom and the intelligent sharer of his thoughts and aspirations--often their guide. So pure and exacting was his ideal that while alive to the value of coyness and coquetry as elements of feminine attraction for others, Wilbur had chosen to regard the maiden of his faith as too serious a spirit to condescend to such vanities; and from a similar vein of appreciation he was p.r.o.ne to think of her as unadorned, or rather untarnished, by the gewgaws of fashionable dressmaking and millinery. His first sight of Selma had made him conscious that here was a face not unlike what he had hoped to encounter some day, and he had instinctively felt her to be sympathetic.
He was even conscious of disappointment when he heard her addressed as Mrs. Babc.o.c.k. Evidently she was a free-born soul, unhampered by the social weaknesses of a large city, and illumined by the spiritual grace of native womanliness. So he thought of her, and Mrs. Taylor"s diagnosis rather confirmed than impaired his impression, for in Mrs. Taylor Wilbur felt he discerned a trace of antagonism born of cosmopolitan prejudice--an inability to value at its true worth a nature not moulded on conventional lines. Rigorous as he was in his judgments, and eager to disown what was cheap or shallow, mere conventionalism, whether in art or daily life, was no less abhorrent to him. Here, he said to himself, was an original soul, ignorant and unenlightened perhaps, but endowed with swift perception and capable of n.o.ble development.
The appearance of Selma"s scroll and gla.s.s bedizened house did not affect this impression. Wilbur was first of all appreciatively an American. That is he recognized that native energy had hitherto been expended on the things of the spirit to the neglect of things material.
As an artist he was supremely interested in awakening and guiding the national taste in respect to art, but at the same time he was thoroughly aware that the peculiar vigor and independence of character which he knew as Americanism was often utterly indifferent to, or ignorant of, the value of aesthetics. After all, art was a secondary consideration, whereas the inward vision which absorbed the attention of the thoughtful among his countrymen and countrywomen was an absolute essential without which the soul must lose its fineness. He himself was seeking to show that beauty, in external material expression, was not merely consistent with strong ideals but requisite to their fit presentment. He recognized too that the various and variegated departures from the monotonous homely pattern of the every-day American house, which were evident in each live town, were but so many indicators that the nation was beginning to realize the truth of this. His battle was with the designers and builders who were guiding falsely and flamboyantly, not with the deceived victims, nor with those who were still satisfied merely to look inwardly, and ignored form and color. Hence he would have been able to behold the Babc.o.c.ks" iron stag without rancor had the animal still occupied the gra.s.s-plot. Selma, when she saw the figure of her visitor in the door-way, congratulated herself that it had been removed. It would have pleased her to know that Mr. Littleton had already placed her in a niche above the level of mere gra.s.s-plot considerations. That was where she belonged of course; but she was fearful on the score of suspected shortcomings. So it was gratifying to be able to receive him in a smarter gown, to be wearing white cuffs, and to offer him tea with a touch of Mrs. Taylor"s tormenting urbanity. Not so unreservedly as she. That would never do. It was and never would be in keeping with her own ideas of serious self-respect. Still a touch of it was grateful to herself. She felt that it was a grace and enhanced her effectiveness.
A few moments later Selma realized that for the first time since she had lived in Benham she was being understood and appreciated. She felt too that for the first time she was talking to a kindred spirit--to be sure, to one different, and more technically proficient in concrete knowledge, possibly more able, too, to express his thoughts in words, but eminently a comrade and sympathizer. She was not obliged to say much. Nor were, indeed, his actual words the source of her realization. The revelation came from what was left unsaid--from the silent recognition by him that she was worthy to share his best thoughts and was herself a serious worker in the struggle of life. No graceful but galling att.i.tude of superiority, no polite indifference to her soul-hunger, no disposition to criticise. And yet he was no less voluble, clever, and spirited than Mrs. Taylor. She listened with wrapt interest to his easy talk, which was ever grave in tone, despite his pleasant sallies. He spoke of Benham with quick appreciation of its bustling energy, and let her see that he divined its capacity for greatness. This led him to refer with kindling eyes to the keen impulse toward education and culture which was animating the younger men and women of the country; to the new beginnings of art, literature, and scientific investigation. At scarcely a hint from her he told briefly of his past life and his hopes, and fondly mentioned his sister and her present absorption in some history courses for women.
"And you?" he said. "You are a student, too. Mrs. Taylor has told me, but I should have guessed it. Duties even more interesting claim you now, but it is easy to perceive that you have known that other happiness, "To scorn delights and live laborious days.""
His words sounded musical, though the quotation from Lycidas was unfamiliar to her ears. Her brain was thrilling with the import of all he had told her--with his allusions to the intellectual and ethical movements of Boston and New York, in which she felt herself by right and with his recognition a partner and peer.
"You were teaching school when you married, I believe?" he added.
"Yes."
"And before that, if I may ask?"
"I lived at Westfield with my father. It is a small country town, but we tried to be in earnest."
"I understand--I understand. You grew up among the trees, and the breezes and the brooks, those wonderful wordless teachers. I envy you, for they give one time to think--to expand. I have known only city life myself. It is stimulating, but one is so easily turned aside from one"s direct purpose. Do you write at all?"
"Not yet. But I have wished to. Some day I shall. Just now I have too many domestic concerns to--"
She did not finish, for Babc.o.c.k"s heavy tread and whistle resounded in the hall and at the next moment he was calling "Selma!"
She felt annoyed at being interrupted, but she divined that it would never do to show it.
"My husband," she said, and she raised her voice to utter with a sugared dignity which would have done credit to Mrs. Taylor,
"I am in the parlor, Lewis."
"Enter your chief domestic concern," said Littleton blithely. "A happy home is preferable to all the poems and novels in the world."
Babc.o.c.k, pushing open the door, which stood ajar, stopped short in his melody.
"This is Mr. Littleton, Lewis. The architect of our new church."
"Pleased to make your acquaintance." And by way of accounting for the sudden softening of his brow, Babc.o.c.k added, "I set you down at first as one of those lightning-rod agents. There was one here last week who wouldn"t take "no" for an answer."
"He has an advantage over me," answered Littleton with a laugh. "In my business a man can"t solicit orders. He has to sit and wait for them to come to him."
"I want to know. My wife thinks a lot of your drawings for the new church."
"I hope to make it a credit to your city. I"ve just been saying to your wife, Mr. Babc.o.c.k, that Benham has a fine future before it. The very atmosphere seems charged with progress."
Babc.o.c.k beamed approvingly. "It"s a driving place, sir. The man in Benham who stops by the way-side to scratch his head gets left behind.
When we moved into this house a year ago looking through that window we were at the jumping-off place; now you see houses cropping up in every direction. It"s going to be a big city. Pleased to have you stop to supper with us," he added with burly suavity as their visitor rose.
Littleton excused himself and took his leave. Babc.o.c.k escorted him to the front door and full of his subject delayed him on the porch to touch once more on the greatness of Benham. There was a clumsy method too in this optimistic garrulity, for at the close he referred with some pride to his own business career, and made a tender of his business card, "Lewis Babc.o.c.k & Company, Varnishes," with a flourish. "If you do anything in my line, pleased to accommodate you."
Littleton departing, tickled by a pleasant sense of humor, caught through the parlor window a last glimpse of Selma"s inspired face bowing gravely, yet wistfully, in acknowledgment of his lifted hat, and he strode away under the spell of a brain picture which he trans.m.u.ted into words: "There"s the sort of case where the cynical foreigner fails to appreciate the true import of our American life. That couple typifies the elements of greatness in our every-day people. At first blush the husband"s rough and material, but he"s shrewd and enterprising and vigorous--the bread winner. He"s enormously proud of her, and he has reason to be, for she is a constant stimulus to higher things. Little by little, and without his knowing it, perhaps, she will smoothe and elevate him, and they will develop together, growing in intelligence and cultivation as they wax in worldly goods. After all, woman is our most marvellous native product--that sort of woman. Heigho!" Having given vent to this sigh, Littleton proceeded to recognize the hopelessness of the personal situation by murmuring with a slightly forced access of sprightliness
"If she be not fair for me, What care I how fair she be?"
Still he intended to see more of Mrs. Babc.o.c.k, and that without infringing the tenth or any other commandment. To flirt with a married woman savored to him of things un-American and unworthy, and Littleton had much too healthy an imagination to rhapsodize from such a stand-point. Yet he foresaw that they might be mutually respecting friends.
CHAPTER V.
Selma knew intuitively that an American woman was able to cook a smooth custard, write a poem and control real society with one and the same brain and hand, and she was looking forward to the realization of the apotheosis; but, though she was aware that children are the natural increment of wedlock, she had put the idea from her ever since her marriage as impersonal and vaguely disgusting. Consequently her confinement came as an unwelcome interruption of her occupations and plans.
Her connection with the committee for the new church had proved an introduction to other interests, charitable and social. One day she was taken by Mrs. Taylor to a meeting of the Benham Woman"s Inst.i.tute, a literary club recently established by Mrs. Margaret Rodney Earle, a Western newspaper woman who had made her home in Benham. Selma came in upon some twenty of her own s.e.x in a hotel private parlor hired weekly for the uses of the Inst.i.tute. Mrs. Earle, the president, a large florid woman of fifty, with gray hair rising from the brow, fluent of speech, endowed with a public manner, a commanding bust and a vigorous, ingratiating smile, wielded a gavel at a little table and directed the exercises. A paper on Shakespeare"s heroines was read and discussed.
Selections on the piano followed. A thin woman in eye-gla.s.ses, the literary editor of the _Benham Sentinel_, recited "Curfew must not ring to-night," and a visitor from Wisconsin gave an exhibition in melodious whistling. In the intervals, tea, chocolate with whipped cream and little cakes were dispensed.
Selma was absorbed and thrilled. What could be more to her taste than this? At the close of the whistling exercise, Mrs. Earle came over and spoke to her. They took a strong fancy to each other on the spot. Selma preferred a person who would tell you everything about herself and to whom you could tell everything about yourself without preliminaries.