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Phyllis of Philistia
by Frank Frankfort Moore
April, 2000 [Etext #2155]
The Project Gutenberg Etext of Phyllis of Philistia, by FF Moore
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PHYLLIS OF PHILISTIA
By Frank Frankfort Moore
CHAPTER I.
AN ASTRONOMER WITHOUT A TELESCOPE.
"After all," said Mr. Ayrton, "what is marriage?"
"Ah!" sighed Phyllis. She knew that her father had become possessed of
a phrase, and that he was anxious to flutter it before her to see how
it went. He was a connoisseur in the bric-a-brac of phrases.
"Marriage means all your eggs in one basket," said he.
"Ah!" sighed Phyllis once more. She wondered if her father really
thought that she would be comforted in her great grief by a phrase.
She did not want to know how marriage might be defined. She knew that
all definitions are indefinite. She knew that in the case of marriage
everything depends upon the definer and the occasion.
"So you see there is no immediate cause to grieve, my dear," resumed
her father.
She did not quite see that this was the logical conclusion of the
whole matter; but that was possibly because she was born a woman, and
felt that marriage is to a woman what a keel is to a ship.
"I think there is a very good cause to grieve when we find a man like
George Holland turning deliberately round from truth to falsehood,"
said Phyllis sternly.
"And what's worse, running a very good chance of losing his living,"
remarked the father. "Of course it will have to be proved that Moses
and Abraham and David and the rest of them were not what he says they
were; and it strikes me that all the bench of bishops, and a royal
commissioner or two thrown in, would have considerable difficulty in
doing that nowadays."
"What! You take his part, papa?" she cried, starting up. "You take his
part? You think I was wrong to tell him--what I did tell him?"
"I don't take his part, my dear," said Mr. Ayrton. "I think that he's
a bit of a fool to run his head into a hornet's nest because he has
come to the conclusion that Abraham's code of morality was a trifle
shaky, and that Samson was a shameless libertine. Great Heavens! has
the man got no notion of the perspective of history?"
"Perspective? History? It's the Bible, papa!"
Indignation was in Phyllis' eyes, but there was a reverential tone in
her voice. Her father looked at her--listened to her. In the pause he
thought:
"Good Heavens! What sort of a man is George Holland, who is ready to
relinquish the love and loveliness of that girl, simply because he
thinks poorly of the patriarchs?"
"He attacks the Bible, papa," resumed Phyllis gravely. "What horrible
things he said about Ruth!"
"Ah, yes, Ruth--the heroine of the harvest festival," said her father.
"Ah, he might have left us our Ruth. Besides, she was a woman. Heavens
above! is there no chivalry remaining among men?"
"Ah, if it was only chivalry! But--the Bible!"
"Quite so--the--yes, to be sure. But don't you think you may take the
Bible too seriously, Phyllis?"
"Oh, papa! too seriously?"
"Why not? That's George Holland's mistake, I fear. Why should he work
himself to a fury over the peccadillos of the patriarchs? The
principle of the statute of limitations should be applied to such
cases. If the world, and the colleges of theology, have dealt lightly
with Samson and David and Abraham and Jacob and the rest of them for
some thousands of years, why should George Holland rake up things
against them, and that, too, on very doubtful evidence? But I should
be the last person in the world to complain of the course which he has
seen fit to adopt, since it has left you with me a little longer, my
dearest child. I did not, of course, oppose your engagement, but I
have often asked myself what I should do without you? How should I
ever work up my facts, or, what is more important, my quotations, in
your absence, Phyllis? On some questions, my dear, you are a veritable
Blue-book--yes, an /edition de luxe/ of a Blue-book."
"And I meant to be so useful to him as well," said Phyllis, taking her
father's praises more demurely than she had taken his phrases. "I
meant to help him in his work."
"Ah, what a fool the man is! How could any man in his senses give up a
thing of flesh and blood like you, for the sake of proving or trying
to prove, that some people who lived five or six thousand years ago--
if they ever lived at all--would have rendered themselves liable to
imprisonment, without the option of a fine, if they lived in England
since the passing of certain laws--recent laws, too, we must
remember!"
"Papa!"
"Anyhow, you have done with him, my dear. A man who can't see that
crime is really a question of temperament, and sin invariably a
question of geography--well, we'll say no more about it. At what hour
did you say he was coming?"
"Four. I don't think I shall break down."
"Break down? Why on earth should you break down? You have a mind to
know, and you know your own mind. That's everything. But of course
you've had no experience of matters of this sort. He was your first
real lover?"
Phyllis' face became crimson. She retained sufficient presence of
mind, however, to make a little fuss with the window-blind before
letting it down. Her father stared at her for a moment, and there was
rather a long pause before he laughed.
"I said 'real lover,' my dear," he remarked. "The real lover is the
one who talks definitely about dates and the house agent's commission.
As a rule the real lover does not make love. True love is born, not
made. But you--Heavens above! perhaps I did an injustice to you--to
you and to the men. Maybe you're not such a tyro after all, Phyllis."
Phyllis gave a very pretty little laugh--such a laugh as would have
convinced any man but a father--perhaps, indeed, some fathers--that
she was not without experience. Suddenly she became grave. Her father
never loved her so dearly as when that little laugh was flying over
her face, leaving its living footprints at the corners of her eyes, at
the exquisite curve of her mouth. It relieved her from the suspicion
of priggishness to which, now and again, her grave moods and
appropriate words laid her open. She was not so proper, after all, her
father now felt; she was a girl with the experiences of a girl who has
tempted men and seen what came of it.
She spoke:
"It is a very serious thing, giving a man your promise and then----"
"Then finding that your duty to him--to him, mind--forces you to tell
him that you cannot carry out that promise," said her father. "Yes, it
is a very serious thing, but not so serious as carrying out that
promise would be if you had even the least little feeling that at the
end of three months he was not a better man than you suspected he was
at the beginning. There's a bright side to everything, even a
honeymoon; but the reason that a honeymoon is so frequently a failure
is because the man is bound to be found out by his wife inside the
month. It is better that you found out now, than later on, that you
could not possibly be happy with a man who spoke slightingly of the
patriarchs and their wives. Now I'll leave you, with confidence that
you will be able to explain matters to Mr. Holland."
"What! you won't be here?"
Dismay was in the girl's face as she spoke. She had clearly looked for
the moral support of her father's presence while she would be making
her explanation to the man whom she had, a few months before, promised
to marry, but whom she had found it necessary to dismiss by letter,
owing to her want of sympathy in some of his recent utterances.
"You won't be here?"
"No; I have unfortunately an engagement just at that hour, Phyllis,"
replied Mr. Ayrton. "But do you really think there is any need for me
to be here? Personally, I fancy that my presence would only tend to
complicate matters. Your own feeling, your own woman's instinct, will
enable you to explain--well, all that needs explanation. I have more
confidence in your capacity to explain since you gave that pretty
little laugh just now. Experience--ah, the experience of a girl such
as you are, suggests an astronomer without a telescope. Still, there
were astronomers before there were telescopes; and so I leave you, my
beloved child--ah, my own child once again! No cold hand of a lover is
now between us."
It was not until he was some distance down Piccadilly that it occurred
to him that he should have pictured the lover with a warm hand; and
that omission on his part caused him a greater amount of irritation
than anyone who was unaware of his skill in phrase-making could have
thought possible to arise from a lapse apparently so trifling.
It was not until he had reached the Acropolis and had referred, in the
hearing of the most eminently dull of the many distinguished members
of that club, to the possibility of a girl's experiences of man being
likened to an astronomer without a telescope, that he felt himself
again.
The dull distinguished man had smiled.
CHAPTER II.
HE KNEW THAT IT WAS A TROUBLESOME PROCESS, BECOMING A GOOD
CLERGYMAN, SO HE DETERMINED TO BECOME A GOOD PREACHER INSTEAD.
Phyllis sat alone in one of the drawing rooms, waiting until the hour
of four should arrive and bring into her presence the Rev. George
Holland, to plead his cause to her--to plead to be returned to her
favor. He had written to her to say that he would make such an
attempt.
She had looked on him with favor for several months--with especial
favor for three months, for three months had just passed since she had
promised to marry him, believing that to be the wife of a clergyman
who, though still young, had two curates to do the rough work for him
--clerical charwomen, so to speak--would make her the happiest of
womankind. Mr. Holland was rector of St. Chad's, Battenberg Square,
and he was thought very highly of even by his own curates, who intoned
all the commonplace, everyday prayers in the liturgy for him, leaving
him to do all the high-class ones, and to repeat the Commandments. (A
rector cannot be expected to do journeyman's work, as it were; and it
is understood that a bishop will only be asked to intone three short
prayers, those from behind a barrier, too; an archbishop refuses to do
more than pronounce the benediction.)
The Rev. George Holland was a good-looking man of perhaps a year or
two over thirty. He did not come of a very good family--a fact which
probably accounted for his cleverness at Oxford and in the world. He
was a Fellow of his college, though he had not been appointed rector
of St. Chad's for this reason. The appointment, as is well known (in
the Church, at any rate), is the gift of the Earl of Earlscourt, and
it so happened that, when at college together, George Holland had
saved the young man who a year or two afterward became Earl of
Earlscourt from a very great misfortune. The facts of the case were
these: Tommy Trebovoir, as he was then, had made up his mind to marry
a lady whose piquant style of beauty made the tobacconist's shop where
she served the most popular in town. By the exercise of a great deal
of diplomacy and the expenditure of a little money, Mr. Holland
brought about a match between her and quite another man--a man who was
not even on a subsidiary path to a peerage, and whose only connection
with the university was due to his hiring out horses to those whom he
called the "young gents." Tommy was so indignant with his friend for
the part he had played in this transaction he ceased to speak to him,
and went the length of openly insulting him. Six years afterward, when
he had become Earl of Earlscourt, and had espoused the daughter of a
duke,--a lady who was greatly interested in the advance of temperance,
--he had presented George Holland with the living at St. Chad's.
People then said that Lord Earlscourt was a lesser fool than some of
his acts suggested. Others said that the Rev. George Holland had never
been a fool, though he had been a Fellow of his college.
They were right. George Holland knew that it was a troublesome process
becoming a good clergyman, so he determined to become a good preacher
instead. In the course of a year he had become probably the best-known
preacher (legitimate, not Dissenting) in London, and that, too,
without annoying the church-wardens of St. Chad's by drawing crowds of
undesirable listeners to crush their way into the proprietary
sittings, and to join in the singing and responses, and to do other
undesirable acts. No, he only drew to the church the friends of the
said holders, whose contributions to the offertory were exemplary.
His popularity within a certain circle was great; but, as Lord
Earlscourt was heard to say, "He never played to the pit."
He was invited to speak to a resolution at a Mansion House meeting to
express indignation at the maintenance of the opium traffic in China.
He was also invited by the Countess of Earlscourt to appear on the
platform to meet the deputation of Chinese who represented the city
meeting held at Pekin in favor of local option in England; for the
great national voice of China had pronounced in favor of local option
in England.
Shortly afterward he met Phyllis Ayrton, and had asked her to marry
him, and she had consented.
And now Phyllis was awaiting his coming to her, in order that he might
learn from her own lips what he had already learned from the letter
which he had received from her the day before; namely, that she found
it necessary for her own peace of mind to break off her engagement
with him.
Phyllis Ayrton had felt for some months that it would be a great
privilege for any woman to become the wife of a clergyman. Like many
other girls who have a good deal of time for thought,--thought about
themselves, their surroundings, and the world in general,--she had
certain yearnings after a career. But she had lived all her life in
Philistia, and considered it to be very well adapted as a place of
abode for a proper-minded young woman; in fact, she could not imagine
any proper-minded young woman living under any other form of
government than that which found acceptance in Philistia. She had no
yearning to startle her neighbors. With a large number of young women,
the idea that startling one's neighbors is a career by itself seems to
prevail just at present; but Phyllis had no taste in this direction.
Writing a book and riding a bicycle were alike outside her
calculations of a scheme of life. Hospital nursing was nothing that
she would shrink from; at the same time, it did not attract her; she
felt that she could dress quite as becomingly as a hospital nurse in
another way.
She wondered, if it should come to the knowledge of the heads of the
government of Philistia that she had a yearning to become the wife of
a clergyman, would they regard her as worthy to be conducted across
the frontier, and doomed to perpetual expatriation. When she began to
think out this point, she could not but feel that if she were
deserving of punishment,--she looked on expulsion from Philistia as
the severest punishment that could be dealt out to her, for she was
extremely patriotic,--there were a good many other young women, and
women who were no longer young, who were equally culpable. She had
watched the faces of quite a number of the women who crowded St.
Chad's at every service, and she had long ago come to the conclusion
that the desire to become the wife of a clergyman was an aspiration
which was universally distributed among the unmarried women of the
congregation.
She knew so much, but she was not clever enough to know that it was
her observance of this fact that confirmed her in her belief that it
would be a blessed privilege for such a woman as she to become the
wife of such a clergyman as George Holland. She was not wise enough to
be able to perceive that a woman marries a man not so much because she
things highly of marriage--although she does think highly of it; not
so much because she thinks highly of the man--though she may think
highly of him, but simply because she sees that other women want to
marry him.
In three months she considered herself blessed among women. She was
the one chosen out of all the flock. She did not look around her in
church in pride of conquest; but she looked demurely down to her
sacred books, feeling that all the other women were gazing at her in
envy; and she felt that there was no pride in the thought that the
humility of her attitude--downcast eyes, with long lashes shading half
her cheeks, meekly folded hands--was the right one to adopt under the
circumstances.
And then she saw several of the young women who had been wearing sober
shades of dresses for some years,--though in their hearts (and she
knew it) they were passionately attached to colors,--appearing like
poppies once more, and looking very much the better for the change,
too; and she felt that it was truly sad for young women to--well, to
show their hands, so to speak. They might have waited for some weeks
before returning to the colors of the secular.
She did not know that they felt that they had wasted too much time in
sober shades already. The days are precious in a world in which no
really trustworthy hair dye may be bought for money.
And then there came to her a month of coldly inquisitive doubt. (This
was when people had ceased to congratulate her and to talk, the nice
ones, of the great cleverness of George Holland; the nasty ones, of
the great pity that so delightful a man did not come of a better
family.)
Why should she begin to ask herself if she really loved George
Holland; if the feeling she had for him should be called by the name
of love, or by some other name that did not mean just the same thing?
Of course she had thought a good deal--though her father did not know
it--of love. She had seen upon other people the effect of the
possession of this gift of love, how it had caused them to forget pain
and poverty, and shame, and infamy, and God, and death, and hell. Ah!
that was love--that was love! and she had hoped that one day such a
gift of love would be given to her; for it was surely the thing that
was best worth having in the world! Once or twice she had fancied that
it was at the point of being given to her. There had been certain
thrilling passages between herself and two men,--an interval of a year
between each,--and there had also been a kiss in an alcove designed by
her dearest friend, Ella Linton, for the undoing of mankind, a place
of softened lights and shadowy palms. It was her recollection of these
incidents that had caused her to fumble with the blind cord when her
father had been suggesting to her the disadvantages of inexperience in
matters of the heart. But the incidents had led to nothing, except,
perhaps, a week or two of remorse. But she could not help feeling,
when that month of curious doubt was upon her, that the little thrill
which she had felt when one man had put his arm around her for an
instant, when another man--he was very young--had put his lips upon
her mouth--it was a straightforward kiss--suggested a nearer approach
to love than she had yet been conscious of in the presence of George
Holland. (He had never done more than kiss her hand. Is it on record
that any man did more when dressed with the severity of the cleric?)
This was a terrible impression for a young woman to retain before her
engagement to a man has passed into its third month. Then she began to
wonder if all her previous ideas--all her previous aspirations--were
mistaken. She began to wonder if this was the reality of love--this
conviction that there was nothing in the whole world that she would
welcome with more enthusiasm than an announcement on the part of her
father that he was going on a voyage to Australia, and that he meant
to take her with him.
And then----
Well, then she threw herself upon her bed and wept for an hour one
evening, and for two hours (at intervals) another evening; and then
looked up the old published speeches made by a certain cabinet
minister in his irresponsible days, on a question which he had
recently introduced. Her father was bitterly opposed to the most
recent views of the minister, and was particularly anxious to confront
him with his own phrases of thirty years back. She spent four hours
copying out the words which were now meant by Mr. Ayrton to confound
the utterer.
CHAPTER III.
THE BISHOP KNEW SOMETHING OF MAN, AND HE KNEW SOMETHING OF THE
CHURCH; HE EVEN KNEW SOMETHING OF THE BIBLE.
Her father when he came in commended her diligence. He read over those
damning extracts, punctuating them with chuckles; he would make an
example of that minister who had found it convenient to adopt a course
diametrically opposed to the principle involved in his early speeches.
He chuckled, reading the extracts while he paced the room, drawing
upon his stock of telling phrases, which were calculated to turn the
derision of the whole House of Commons upon his opponent.
Thus, being very well satisfied with himself, he was satisfied with
her, and kissed her, with a sigh.
"What a treasure you are to me, dearest one!" he said. There was a
pause before he added, in a contemplative tone:
"I suppose a clergyman has no need ever to hunt up the past
deliverances of another clergyman in order to confound him out of his
own mouth. Ah, no; I should fancy not."
Regret was in his voice. He seemed to suggest to her that he believed
her powers would be wasted as the wife of a man who, of course, being
a clergyman, could have no enemies.
"Dearest papa!" she cried, throwing herself into his arms, and sobbing
on his shirt front, "dearest papa, I will not leave you. I don't want
to be anyone's wife. I want to be your daughter--only to be your
daughter."
He comforted her with kisses and soothing smoothings of the hair. No,
no, he said; he would not be selfish. He would remember that a father
was the trustee of his child's happiness.
"But I know I can only be happy with you, my father!" she cried; but
it was of no avail. He, being a father and not a mother, was unable to
perceive what was in the girl's heart. He considered it quite natural
that she should be a trifle hysterical in anticipating her new life--
that strange untraveled country! Ah, is there anything more pathetic,
he thought, than a girl's anticipations of wifehood? But he would do
his duty, and he fancied that he was doing his duty when he put aside
her earnest, almost passionate protestations, and told her how happy
she would be with the man who was lucky enough to have won the pure
treasure of her love.
What could she do? The terrible doubts of that month of doubting
broadened into certainties. She knew that she did not love George
Holland; but she had not the courage to face Philistia as the girl who
did not know her own mind. Philistia was very solid on such points as
the sacredness of an engagement between a man and a woman. It was a
contract practically as abiding as marriage, in the eyes of Philistia;
and, indeed, Phyllis herself had held this belief, and had never
hesitated to express it. So nothing was left to her but to marry
George Holland. After all, he was a brilliant and distinguished man,
and had not a score of other girls wanted to marry him? Oh, she would
marry him and give up her life to the splendid duties which devolve
upon the wife of a clergyman.
But just as she had made up her mind to face her fate, Mr. Holland's
fate induced him to publish the book at which he had been working for
some time. It came out just when the girl was becoming resigned to her
future by his side, and it attracted even more attention than the
author had hoped it would achieve.
The book was titled "Revised Versions," and it was strikingly modern
in design and in tone. It purported to deal with several personages
and numerous episodes of the Old Testament, not from the standpoint of
the comparative philologist; not from the standpoint of the
comparative mythologist, but from the standpoint of the modern man of
common sense and average power of discrimination; and the result was
that the breath of a good many people, especially clergymen, was taken
from them, and that the Rev. George Holland became the best-known
clergyman in England.
He dealt with the patriarchs in succession, and they fared very badly
at his hands. He showed that Abraham had not one good act recorded to
his credit, and contrasted his duplicity with the magnanimity of the
ruler of Egypt whom he visited. He dwelt upon the Hagar episode,
showing that the adulterer was also a murderer by intention, and so
forth; while no words could be too strong to apply to Sara, his wife.
Isaac did not call for elaborate notice. He could not be accused of
any actual crime, but if he was a man of strong personality, he was
singularly unfortunate in having failed to impart to his wife any of
that integrity which he may have practiced through life. Her methods
of dealing with him after they had lived together for a good many
years were criminal, considering the largeness of the issue at stake
as the result of his blessing. As for Jacob, not a single praiseworthy
act of his long life was available to his biographer. His career was
that of the most sordid of hucksters. Of eleven of his sons nothing
good is told, but Joseph was undoubtedly an able and exemplary man;
the only thing to his discredit being his utter callousness regarding
the fate of his father, after he had attained to a high position in
Egypt.
The chapter on the patriarchs was followed by one that dealt with the
incidents of the Exodus. The writer said that he feared that even the
most indulgent critic must allow that the whole scheme of Moses was a
shocking one; but he was probably the greatest man that ever lived on
the face of the earth, if he was the leader and organizer of a band of
depredators who for bloodthirst and rapacity had no parallel in
history. How could it be expected that a kingdom founded upon the
massacre of men and cemented by the blood of women and children should
survive? It had survived only as example to the world of the
impossibility of a permanent success being founded upon the atrocious
methods pursued by the worst of the robber states of the East. While
civilization had been spreading on all sides of them, the people of
Israel had remained the worst of barbarians, murdering the men who had
from time to time arisen to try and rescue them from the abysses of
criminality into which they had fallen,--abysses of criminality and
superstition,--until they had filled their cup of crime by the murder
of the One whom the world worships to-day.
Incidentally, of course, the character of Samson was dealt with.
Delilah was shown to be one of the most heroic of womankind, making
greater sacrifices through her splendid patriotism than Joan of Arc.
But Samson----
Ruth was also dealt with incidentally. She was the woman who expresses
her willingness to give up her God at the bidding of another woman,
and who had entered into a plot with that same woman to entrap a man
whom they looked to support them.
Then there was David. It was not the Bath-sheba episode, but the
Abishag, that the author treated at length--one of the most revolting
transactions in history, especially as there is some reason to believe
that the unfortunate girl was, when it was perpetrated, already
attached to one of the sons of the loathsome, senile sensualist.
Perhaps, on the whole, it was not surprising that after the
publication of this book the Rev. George Holland became the best-known
clergyman in England, or that the breath of bishops should be taken
from them. So soon as some of them recovered from the first brunt of
the shock, they met together and held up their hands, saying that they
awaited the taking of immediate action by the prelate within whose see
St. Chad's was situated. But that particular prelate was a man who had
never been known to err on the side of rapidity of action. Nearly a
week had passed before he made any move in the matter, and then the
move he made was in the direction of the Engadine. He crossed the
Channel with the book under his arm. He determined to read it at his
leisure. Being a clergyman, he could not, of course, be expected to
have examined, from any standpoint but that of the clergyman, the
characters of the persons dealt with in the book, and he was naturally
shocked at the freedom shown by the rector of St. Chad's in
criticising men whose names have been held in the highest esteem for
some thousands of years. He at once perceived that the rector of St.
Chad's had been very narrow-minded in his views regarding the conduct
of the men whom he had attacked. It occurred to him, as it had to Mr.
Ayrton, that the writer had drawn his picture without any regard for
perspective. That was very foolish on the part of a man who was a
Fellow of his college, the bishop thought; and besides, there was no
need for the book--its tendency was not to help the weaker brethren.
But to assume that the book would, as some newspaper articles said it
would, furnish the most powerful argument that had yet been brought
forward in favor of the Disestablishment of Church, was, he thought,
to assume a great deal too much. The Church that had survived Wesley,
Whitefield, Colenso, Darwin, and Renan would not succumb to George
Holland. The bishop recollected how the Church had bitterly opposed
all the teaching of the men of wisdom whose names came back to him;
and how it had ended by making their teaching its own. Would anyone
venture to assert that the progress of Christianity was dependent upon
what people thought of the acceptance by David of the therapeutic
course prescribed for him? Was the morality which the Church preached
likely to be jeopardized because Ruth was a tricky young woman?
The bishop knew something of man, and he knew something of the Church,
he even knew something of the Bible; and when he came to the chapter
in "Revised Versions" that dealt with the episode of Ruth and Boaz, he
flung the book into a corner of his bedroom, exclaiming, "Puppy!"
And then there came before his eyes a vision of a field of yellow
corn, ripe for the harvest. The golden sunlight gleamed upon the
golden grain through which the half-naked brown-skinned men walked
with their sickles. The half-naked brown-skinned women followed the
binders, gleaning the ears, and among the women was the one who had
said, "Entreat me not to leave thee." He had read that old pastoral
when he was a child at the knee of his mother. It was surely the
loveliest pastoral of the East, and its charm would be in no wise
impaired because a man who failed to appreciate the beauty of its
simplicity, had almost called Ruth by the worst name that can be
applied to a woman.
The bishop did not mind what George Holland called Abraham, or Isaac,
or Jacob, or Samson, but Ruth--to say that Ruth----
The bishop said "Puppy!" once again. (He had trained himself only to
think the adjectives which laymen find appropriate to use in such a
case as was under his consideration.)
But he made up his mind to take no action whatever against the Rev.
George Holland on account of the book. If the Rev. George Holland
fancied that he was to be persecuted into popularity, the Rev. George
Holland was greatly mistaken, and the bishop had a shrewd idea that
the rector of St. Chad's was greatly mistaken.
(It may be mentioned that he came to this determination when he had
read the book through, and found it was so cleverly written that it
included no heretical phrase in all its pages.)
But so soon as Phyllis Ayrton had read the first review of the book
that fell into her hands, she felt inexpressibly shocked. Great
Heavens! Was it possible that she was actually at that moment engaged
to marry the man who had written such a book--a book that held up
Delilah to admiration, and that abased Ruth? (It was singular how
everyone settled upon Ruth in this connection.)
She did not pause to analyze her feelings--to try and find out if she
was really so fond of Ruth as to make Ruth's insult her own; but
without a moment's delay, without a word of consultation with her
father, she sat down at her desk and wrote a letter to George Holland,
asking him to release her from her promise to marry him; and adding
that if he should decline to do so it would make no difference to her;
she would consider the engagement between them at an end all the same.
She felt, when that letter was posted, as if a great weight were
lifted from her mind--from her heart. Then a copy of "Revised
Versions" arrived for her from the author, and with the ink still wet
upon the pen with which she had written that letter to him, she caught
up the book and covered it with kisses.
Had he seen that action her lover would have been thoroughly
satisfied. A young woman must be very deeply in love with a man when
she kisses the cover of a book which he has just published. That is
what George Holland would have thought, having but a superficial
acquaintance with the motives that sway young women.
Later in the day he had replied to her letter, and had appointed four
o'clock on the following afternoon as the hour when he trusted she
would find it convenient to see him, in order to give him an
opportunity of making an explanation which he trusted would enable her
to see that "Revised Versions," so far from being the dreadful book
she seemed to imagine it to be, was in reality written with a high
purpose.
She had not shrunk from an interview with him. She had sent him a line
to let him know that she would be at home at four o'clock; and now she
sat in her drawing room and observed, without emotion, that in five
minutes that hour would strike.
The clock struck, and before the last tone had died away, the footman
announced the Rev. George Holland.
CHAPTER IV.
SHE HAD NO RIGHT TO ACCUSE HIM OF READING THE BIBLE DAILY.
Phyllis shook hands with her visitor. He sought to retain her hand, as
he had been in the habit of doing, as he stood beside her with
something of a proprietary air. He relinquished her hand with a little
look of surprise--a sort of pained surprise. She was inexorable. She
would not even allow him to maintain his proprietary air.
"Do sit down, Mr. Holland," she said.
"What! 'Mr. Holland' already? Oh, Phyllis!"
He had a good voice, full of expression--something beyond mere musical
expression. People (they were mostly women) said that his voice had
soul in it, whatever they meant by that.
She made no reply. What reply could she make? She only waited for him
to sit down.
"Your letter came as a great shock to me, Phyllis," said he, when he
had seated himself, not too close to her. He did not wish her to fancy
that he was desirous of having a subtle influence of propinquity as an
ally. "A great shock to me."
"A shock?" said she. "A shock, after you had written that book?"
"I fancied you would understand it, Phyllis--you, at least. Of course
I expected to be misrepresented by the world--the critics--the clerics
--what you will--but you---- You had not read it when you wrote that
letter to me--that terrible letter. You could not have read it."
"I had only read one notice of it--that was enough."
"And you could write that letter to me solely as the evidence of one
wretched print? Oh, Phyllis!"
Pain was in his voice. It may have been in his face as well, but she
did not see it; his face was averted from her.
"Yes," she said quietly; "I wrote that letter, Mr. Holland. You see,
the paper gave large extracts from the book. I did not come to my
conclusion from what the newspaper article said, but from what you had
said in your book--from the quoted passages."
"They did not do me justice. I did not look for justice at their
hands. But you, Phyllis----"
"I have read your book now, Mr. Holland----"
"Ah, let me plead with you, Phyllis--not 'Mr. Holland,' I entreat of
you."
"And my first thought on reading it was that I had not written to you
so strongly as I should have done."
"My dear Phyllis, do not say that, I beg of you. You cannot know how
you pain me."
"To be misunderstood by you--/you/."
She got upon her feet so quickly that it might almost be said she
sprang up.
"/You/ must have misunderstood /me/ greatly, Mr. Holland, if you
fancied that you could write such a book as you wrote and not get such
a letter from me. The Bible--Ruth--and you a clergyman--reading it
daily in the church---- Oh! I cannot tell you all that I thought--all
that I still think."
He did not correct the mistake she had made. She had no right to
accuse him of reading the Bible daily in his church. He was not in the
habit of doing that--it was his curates who did it. He watched her as
she stood at a window with her back turned to him. Her hands were
behind her. Her breath came audibly, for she had spoken excitedly.
Then he also rose and came beside her.
"I wrote that book, as I believed you would perceive when you had read
it, in order to remove from the minds of the people--those people who
have not given the matter a thought--the impression--I know it
prevails--that our faith--the truth of our religion--is dependent upon
the acceptance as good of such persons as our very religion itself
enables us to pronounce evil. My aim was to show that our faith is not
built upon such a foundation of impurity--of imperfection. The spirit
which prevails nowadays--the modern spirit--it is the result of the
development of science. This scientific spirit necessitates the
consideration of all the elements of our faith from the standpoint of
reason."
"Faith--reason?"
"If the Church is to appeal to all men, its method must be scientific.
It is sad to think of all that the Church has lost in the past through
the want of wisdom of those who had its best interests at heart, and
believed they were doing it good service by opposing scientific
research. They fancied that the faith would not survive the light of
truth. They professed to believe that the faith was strong enough to
work miracles--to change the heart of man, and yet that it would be
jeopardized by the calculations of astronomers. The astronomers were
prohibited from calculating; the geologists were forbidden to unearth
the mysteries of their science, lest the discovery of the truth should
be detrimental to the faith. They believed that the truth was opposed
to the faith. Warning after warning the Church received that the two
were one; that man would only accept the truth, whether it came from
the lips of the churchman or from the investigations of science.
Grudgingly the Church became tolerant of the seekers after truth--men
who were not greatly concerned in the preservation of the mummy dust
of dogma. But how many thousand persons are there not, to-day, who
think that the Church is on one side, and the truth on the other? The
intolerant attitude of the Church, still maintained in these days,
when the spirit of science pervades every form of thought, has been
productive of probably the largest body that ever existed in the
country, of sensible men and women, who never enter a church door.
They want to know whatsoever things are true; they do not want to be
dredged with the mummy dust of dogma."
"But the Bible--the Bible!"
"It is necessary for me to tell you all that I feel on this subject;
all that I have felt for several years past--ever since I left the
divinity school behind me, and went into the world of thinking men and
women. It is necessary to tell these men and women in unmistakable
language that our faith aims at a perfect type of manhood--at the
perfection of truth. It is necessary to tell them that we do not
regard, except with abhorrence, such types of men as have for
centuries been held up to admiration simply because they have for
centuries been the objects of admiration, of imitation, of veneration,
on the part of the debased people who gave us the earlier books of the
Bible. The memory of Jacob became the dominant influence among the
Hebrew nation; hence the continuous curse that rested upon them, the
curse that rests upon the cheat, the defrauder of his own household,
his brother, his father, his uncle. It is necessary to say that the
world should know that our religion is founded upon truth, purity,
self-sacrifice--that it abhors the cheat and the sensualist. It is
necessary to proclaim to the world our abhorrence of the cult whose
highest development was the Pharisee. The aim of the religion of
Christ is to produce the perfect man, and to root out the Pharisee.
When the Church ceases to connive at falsehood and sensualism; when it
openly professes its abhorrence of the religion of the Hebrews; then,
and then only, will it become the power in the earth which the
exponent of Christianity should become. Humanity had been crying out
for the religion of humanity, that is, Christianity, for centuries,
but the Church tells it that true religion is an amalgamation of the
loveliness of Christianity and the barbarity of Judaism--an impossible
amalgamation, and one which millions of poor souls have perished in a
vain attempt to accomplish. Humanity wants Christ, and Christ only,
and that the Church has hitherto refused to give; hence the millions
of thinking men and women, believers in the religion of Christ, who
remain forever outside the walls of the Church; hence, also, that
terrible record of murder and massacre, perpetrated through long ages
with the sanction of the Church. Where, in the religion of Christ, can
one find the sanction for massacre? It is nowhere to be found except
in the Psalms of the senile sensualist--in the commands of Moses, the
leader of the marauders of the desert. Christ swept away the
barbarities of the teaching of Moses. He perceived how miserably it
had failed; how it had retarded all that was good in man, and
sanctioned all that was evil. He perceived how it had kept the nation
in a condition of barbarity; how it had made it the prey of the
civilized nations around it; how it had made the Hebrew nations the
contempt of civilization; and yet the Church that calls itself the
Church of Christ has not yet had the courage to offer humanity
anything but that impossible task--the amalgamation of the law that
came by Moses and the grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ."
He spoke with all the fervor of the preacher, with pale face,
brilliant eyes, and clenched hands; but in a voice adapted to a
drawing room. Phyllis of Philistia could not but admit that, in the
phrase of Philistia he had spoken in perfect taste. He had not alluded
definitely to the boldness of Ruth or to the calorific course accepted
by the aged David. He had spoken in those general terms which are
adopted by the clergymen who never err against good taste as defined
by the matrons of Philistia.
She did not know whether she admired him or detested him. But she was
certain that she did not love him. He might be right in all that he
had said, but she had freed herself from him. He might be destined to
become one of the most prominent men of the last ten years of the
century, but she would never marry him.
She stood face to face with him when he had spoken.
There was a long silence.
A gleam, a very faint gleam of triumph came to his eyes.
"Good-bye," said she, flashing out her hand to him, and with her eyes
still fixed upon his face.
CHAPTER V.
IN LOVE THERE ARE NO GOOD-BYES.
He was so startled that he took a step backward. She remained with her
hand outstretched.
Was that only the result of the eloquent expression of his views--that
outstretched hand which was offered to him for an instant only as a
symbol of its withdrawal from him forever?
"You cannot mean----"
"Good-by," said she.
"Have I not explained all that seemed to you to stand in need of
explanation?" he asked.
"The book--the book remains. I asked for no explanation," said she.
"But you are too good, too reasonable, to dismiss me in this fashion,
Phyllis. Why, even the bishop--/would sit upon a fence to see how the
book would be received by the public before taking action against the
author/," was what was in his mind, but he stopped short, and then
added a phrase that had no reference to the bishop. "Can you ever have
loved me?" was the phrase which he thought should appeal to her more
forcibly than any reference to the bishop's sense of what was
opportune.
She took back her hand, and her eyes fell at the same moment that her
face flushed.
He felt that he had not been astray in his estimate of the
controversial value--in the eyes of a girl, of course--of the appeal
which he made to her. A girl understands nothing of the soundness of
an argument on a Biblical question (or any other), he thought; but she
understands an appeal made to her by a man whom she had loved, and
whom she therefore loves still, though something may have occurred to
make her think otherwise.
"Can you ever have loved me?" he said again, and his voice was now
more reproachful.
There was a pause before she said:
"That is the question which I have been asking myself for some time--
ever since I read about that book. Oh, please, Mr. Holland, do not
stay any longer! Cannot you see that if, after you have made an
explanation that should satisfy any reasonable person, I still remain
in my original way of thinking, I am not the woman who should be your
wife?"
"You would see with my eyes if you were my wife," he said, and he
believed that she would, so large an amount of confidence had he in
his own power to dominate a woman.
"Ah!" she said, "you have provided me with the strongest reason why I
should never become your wife, Mr. Holland."
"Do not say that, Phyllis!" he cried, in a low voice, almost a piteous
voice. "I must have you with me in this great work which I feel has
been given me to accomplish. I am prepared to make any sacrifice for
the cause which I have at heart--the cause to which I mean to devote
the rest of my life; but you--you--I must have you with me, Phyllis.
Don't give me an answer now. All I ask of you is to think over the
whole matter from the standpoint of one who loves the truth, and who
does not fear the result of those who are investigators. A few years
ago the geologists were regarded as the enemies of the faith. Later
the evolutionists were looked on with abhorrence. Had any clergyman
ventured to assent to that doctrine which we now know to be the
everlasting truth of the scheme of earthly life propounded by the
Creator, he would have been compelled to leave the Church. I do not
know what will happen to me, my Phyllis. No, no! do not say anything
to me now. All that I ask of you is to think--think--think."
"That is it--that is your modern scientific spirit!" she cried. "You,
and such as you, say 'think--think--think' to us--to poor women and
men who are asking for comfort, for protection against the evil of the
world. You say 'think--think--think,' when you should say pray--pray--
pray.' Where are you going to end? you have begun by taking from us
our Bible. What do you propose to give us in exchange for it? No--no,
don't answer me. I did not mean to enter into the question with you--
to enter into any question with you. I have no right to do so."
"You have every right, Phyllis. If I should cause offence to the least
of the little ones of the flock with which I have been intrusted, it
would be better that a millstone were hanged round my neck and that I
were cast into the sea. You have a right to ask and it is laid on me
to answer."
"Then I decline to avail myself of the privilege; I will ask you
nothing, except to say good-by."
"I will not say it, Phyllis, and I will not hear you say it. Three
months ago you told me that you loved me."
"And I fancied that I did, but now----"
"Ah! you think that you have the power to cease loving at a moment's
notice? You will find out your mistake, my child. In love there are no
good-bys. I take your hand now, but not to say good-by; I feel that
you are still mine--that you will be mine more than ever when you
think--think--and pray."
"Ah! You ask me to pray?"
"Pray--pray for me, child. I need the prayers of such as you, for I
feel that my hour of deepest trial is drawing nigh. Do you fancy that
I am the man to take back anything that I have written? Look at me,
Phyllis; I tell you here that I will stand by everything that I have
written. Whatever comes of it, the book remains. Even if I lose all
that I have worked for,--even if I lose you,--I will still say 'the
book remains.' I am ready to suffer for it. I say in all humility that
I believe God will give me grace to die for it."
She had given him her hand. He was still holding it when he spoke his
final sentence, looking, not into her face, but into a space beyond
it. His eyes more than suggested the eyes of a martyr waiting
undaunted for the lighting of the fagots. Suddenly he dropped her
hand. He looked for a moment into her face. He saw that the tears were
upon it. He turned and walked out of the room without a word.
No word came from her.
He knew that he had left her at exactly the right moment. She was
undoubtedly annoyed by the publication of the book; but that was
because she had read some reviews of it, and was, girl-like, under the
impression that the murmur of the reviewers was the mighty voice that
echoes round the world. He felt that she would think differently when
his real persecution began. He looked forward with great hope to the
result of his real persecution. She would never hold out against that.
If the bishop would only take action at once and attempt to deprive
him of his pastorate, there was nothing that he might not look for.
And then he reflected that on the following Sunday the church would be
crowded to the doors. She would see that. She would see the thousands
of the fashionable women--he hoped even for men--who would fill every
available seat, every available standing place in the church, and who
would all be anxious to hear his defense. That would show her that the
publication of this book had raised him far above the heads of the
ordinary clergyman who droned away, Sunday after Sunday, in half empty
churches to congregations that never became interested. Yes, for many
Sundays St. Chad's would be crowded to the doors. And then he trusted
that the bishop would take action against him, and in proportion to
the severity of his persecution on the one hand would be his
popularity on the other hand.
All this would, he felt, advance the cause which he had at heart; for
he was thoroughly sincere in his belief that the views which he
advocated in "Revised Versions" were calculated to place the Church on
a firmer basis, and to cause it to appeal to those persons who, having
been inculcated with the spirit of modern scientific inquiry, never
entered a church porch.
He had not been guilty of an empty boast when he had expressed to her
his readiness to die for the principles which he had enunciated with
considerable clearness in his book; but, at the same time, when he was
walking down Piccadilly he could not avoid the feeling that if he were
only subjected to a vigorous persecution--a high-class persecution, of
course, with the bishop at the head of it, he would be almost certain
to win back Phyllis. Her desertion of him was undoubtedly a blow to
him; but he thought that, after all, it was not unnatural that such as
girl as she should be somewhat frightened at the boldness of the book
which he had published. He had seen the day, not so very long ago,
when he would have been frightened at it himself. At any rate he felt
sure that Phyllis would be able to differentiate between the case of
the author of "Revised Versions" and the case of the mediocre
clergyman who defied his bishop on a question of--what was the
question?--something concerning the twirling of his thumbs from east
to west, instead of from west to east; yes, or an equally trivial
matter. He trusted that she was too discriminating a girl to bracket
him with that wretched, shallow-minded person who endeavored to pose
as a martyr, because he would not be permitted to do whatever he tried
to insist on doing. Mr. Holland thought it had something to say to the
twirling of his thumbs at a certain part of the service for the day,
but if anyone had said that his memory was at fault--that the
contumacious curate only wanted to make some gestures at the
psychological, or, perhaps, the spiritual, moment, he would not have
been surprised. He had always thought that curate a very silly person.
He thanked his God that he was not such a man, and he thought that he
might trust Phyllis to understand the difference between the position
which he assumed and the posturing of the silly curate.
His knowledge of her powers of discrimination was not at fault.
Phyllis never for a moment thought of him as posturing. She did him
more than justice. She regarded him as terribly in earnest; no man
unless one who was terribly in earnest could have written that book--a
book which she felt was bound to alienate from him all the people who
had previously honored him and delighted to listen to his preaching.
Someone had said in her hearing that the preaching of George Holland
was, compared to the preaching of the average clergyman, as the
electric light is to the gas--the gas of a street lamp. She had
flushed with pleasure,--that had been six months ago,--when it first
occurred to her that to be the wife of a distinguished clergyman, who
was also a scholar, was the highest vocation to which a woman could
aspire. She had told her father of this testimony to the ability of
the rector of St. Chad's--pride had been in her voice and eyes.
"The man who said that was a true critic," her father had remarked.
"Electric light? Quite so. In the absence of sunlight the electric
light does extremely well for the requirements of the average man and
woman. Your critic said nothing about volts?"
That was how her father became irritating to her occasionally--leading
up to some phrase which he had in his collection of bric-a-brac.
"Volts!"
Yes, she felt that the sincerity of George Holland would alienate from
him all the people who had previously held him in high esteem.
Although she was a daughter of Philistia, it had never occurred to her
that there is such a thing as a /succes scandale/, and that the effect
of such an incident in connection with the rector of a fashionable
church rarely leads to his isolation.
She did George Holland more than justice, for she could not conceive
his looking forward to a crowded and interested attendance at his
church on the following Sunday and perhaps many successive Sundays.
She could not conceive his thinking what effect the noticing of such
an attendance would have upon her. To her, as to most girls, the
heroic man is all heroic. The picture of the Duke of Marlborough
taking a list of the linen to be sent to the wash while his troops
were getting into position for a great battle is one from which they
turn away. She could not think of George Holland's calculating upon
the effect of a crowded church, with newspaper reporters scattered
throughout the building, taking down every word that might fall from
his lips. She regarded him as a man who had been compelled, by the
insidious influence of what he called scientific thought, to write a
shocking book; but one that he certainly believed was destined to
effect a great reform in the world. Her eyes had filled with tears as
he stood before her with the gleam of martyrdom in his eyes, and for
an instant she felt a woman's impulse--that was a factor which George
Holland had taken into consideration before he had spoken--to give
both her hands to him and to promise to stand by his side in his hour
of trial. But she thought of Ruth and restrained herself. Before he
had reached the door she thought of him as the man from whom she had
managed to escape before it was too late.
She wondered if any of those young women of the church, who had gone
back to their butterfly garments on hearing that Mr. Holland had asked
her to marry him, would hunt out the sober garments which they had
discarded and wear them when they would hear that she was not going to
marry Mr. Holland.
She rather thought that they would get new dresses and hats of the
right degree of sobriety. Fashions change so quickly between February
and May.
And then there was the question of sleeves!
Anyhow they would, she felt, regard themselves as having another
chance. That was how they would put it.
Only for an instant did she become thoughtful. Then she sprang to her
feet from the sofa on which she had thrown herself when her tears were
threatening, and cried:
"Let them have him--let them all have him--all--all!"
That would have been absurd.
CHAPTER VI.
IF A GIRL REALLY LOVES A MAN SHE WILL MARRY HIM, EVEN THOUGH HE
SHOULD WRITE A BOOK.
Phyllis meant the half hour which would elapse before her tea was
brought to her to be a very grateful space. She meant to dwell upon
the achievement of her freedom, for the feeling that she was free was
very sweet to her. The fetters that had bound her had been flung away,
and she now only had a splendid sense of freedom. So sweet was this
sense that she made up her mind that in future it would never do for
her to run any such risk as that to which she had just subjected
herself. How could she ever have been such a fool as to promise to
marry George Holland? That was what she was asking herself as she lay
back on the pillows of the French sofa, and listened to the soft sound
of the carriage wheels of the callers at the other houses in the
square.
What a singular wish that was of hers--to become the wife of a
clergyman! It seemed very singular to her just now. Just now she did
not want to become the wife of anyone, and she hoped that no one would
ask her. She did not want the worry of it. Ah, she would be very
careful in the future: she would take very good care that the fact of
other girls wanting to marry one particular man would not make her
anxious to have him all to herself.
Before her resolutions on this very important point had been fully
considered in all their bearings, her maid entered to ask if she was
at home. The butler had sent a footman to her to make that inquiry,
the fact being that her particular friend, Mrs. Linton, had called to
see her.
Phyllis jumped up, saying:
"Of course I am home to Mrs. Linton. She will have tea with me."
She went to a glass to see if the tears which had been in her eyes--
they had not fallen--had left any traces that the acuteness of Ella
Linton might detect. The result of her observation was satisfactory;
she would not even need to sit with her back to the light.
Then Mrs. Linton was announced, and flowed into the arms of her friend
Phyllis, crying:
"Of course I knew that you would be at home to me, my beloved, even
though you might be in the midst of one of those brilliant speeches
which you write out for your father to deliver in the House and cause
people to fancy that he is the wittiest man in place--so unlike that
dreadful teetotal man who grins through the horse collar and thinks
that people are imposed on. Now let me look at you, you lucky girl!
You are a lucky girl, you know."
"Yes," said Phyllis, "you have called on me. We shall have tea in a
minute. How good of you to come to me the first day you arrived in
town! How well you are looking, my Ella!"
"So glad you think so," said Ella. "I haven't aged much during the
eight months we have been apart. I have had a very good time on the
whole, and so had Stephen, though he was with me for close upon a
month, poor little man! But it is you, Phyllis, it is you who are the
girl of the hour. Heavens! you were farsighted! Who could have
imagined that he would become so famous all in a moment? I must
confess that when you wrote to me that letter telling me of your
engagement, and how happy you were, I was a little cross. I could not
clearly see you the wife of a parson, even so presentable a parson as
Mr. Holland. Oh, of course I wrote you the usual exuberant letter--
what would be the good of doing anything else? But now that he has
become famous--Oh, I want you to bring him with you to my first At
Home--Tuesday week. It's very short notice, I know, but you must come,
and bring him. You are both certain to be in great demand. Why do you
shake your head that way? You need not say that you are engaged for
Tuesday week."
"I will not say that I am engaged at all, in any sense," said Phyllis,
with a very shallow laugh, at laugh that sounded like a ripple among
pebbles; her usual laugh was like a ripple upon a silver sand.
"In any sense--for Tuesday week?"
Ella raised her eyebrows to the extent of the eighth of an inch. She
lowered them in a moment, however, for the tea was being brought in.
It required two able-bodied men (in plush) to carry in a dainty little
silver tray, with a little silver tea-pot of a pattern that
silversmiths, for reasons which have never been fully explained, call
"Queen Anne." One of the men, however, devoted himself to the care of
the hot cakes of various subtle types which were inclosed in silver
covered dishes.
With the lowering of her eyebrows Mrs. Linton's voice lost its
previous inflection.
"I have been fortunate enough to hit upon something distinctly new in
that way"--she indicated the muffin dishes. "A cake that may be eaten
hot without removing one's gloves."
"What a boon!" cried Phyllis. "You got it at Vienna, of course."
"Of course. You will learn all about it when you come."
The able-bodied men withdrew, and before the door was quite closed
behind them, Ella was gazing at her friend, her face alight with
inquiry.
"Now pray explain yourself," she whispered. "Not engaged in any sense
--those were your words. What do they mean?"
"Take them literally, my Ella," said Phyllis.
"Literally? But you wrote to me that you had engaged yourself to marry
Mr. Holland?"
"And now I tell you by word of mouth that I have disengaged myself."
"Good Heavens! You, I fancied, would be the last girl in the world to
promise to marry a man and then back out of it."
"That was what I myself fancied up till Monday last."
"But how can you have changed your mind? Isn't it very unfortunate--
just when the man has become famous?"
"How could it be otherwise, Ella, when the man wrote so horrible a
book as that?"
"Horrible? Is it horrible? I had no idea. I'm no judge of what is
horrible in theology, or metaphysics, or whatever it is. But I do
profess to know when a man has made a hit, whether in theology or
anything else; and I perceive quite clearly that your Mr. Holland--
well, not your Mr. Holland, has made a distinct hit. What sort of face
is that you're making at me? Oh, I see. It's the face of the orthodox
at the mention of something not quite orthodox. Pshut! don't be a
goose, Phyllis."
"I don't intend. Have I not told you that I'm not going to marry Mr.
Holland?"
"That is like one of the phrases which you give to your father, so
that the people might think him clever. Orthodox! Who cares nowadays
for what is dully orthodox? Who ever heard of a hero in orthodoxy
nowadays? The thing is impossible. There may be, of course, thousands
of orthodox heroes, but one never hears anything of them. The planets
Jupiter and Saturn and Mercury and Mars and the rest of them come and
go at their appointed seasons, and no one ever gives them a second
thought, poor old respectable things! but the moment a comet appears
in the sky everyone rushes out to gaze at it, and the newspapers deal
with it from day to day, and the illustrated papers give its portrait.
Nothing could be more unorthodox than your comet. Oh, Phyllis, my
child, don't talk nowadays of orthodoxy or the other--what do they
call it?--heterodoxy. Mr. Holland's name will be in everyone's mouth
for the next year at least, and if his bishop or a friendly church
warden prosecutes him, and the thing is worked up properly, he ought
to be before the public for the next five years."
"Oh, Ella!"
"I'm not overstating the case, I assure you, my dear. A man was
telling me about one Colenso--he was, so far as I could gather, a
first-class man at algebra and heresy and things like that. He was
Bishop of Zanzibar or Uganda or some place, and he wrote a book about
Moses--showing that Moses couldn't have written something or other.
Well, he took a bit of prosecuting, five or six years, I believe, and
he didn't go nearly so far as Mr. Holland does in that book of his.
All this time people talked about little else but Colenso, and his
books made him a fortune. That was before our time, dear--when the
newspapers weren't worked as they are now. Block printing has made
more heroes than the longest campaign on record. Yes, Mr. Courtland
said so two days ago. I think I'll try some more of that lovely cake:
it's like warm ice, isn't it? Oh, you'll not be so foolish as to throw
over your Mr. Holland."
"It is already done," said Phyllis. "I'm so glad that you like the
cake. It is very subtle. What a delightful idea--warm ice!"
"Never mind the cake. I want to hear more of this matter of Mr.
Holland," said Ella. "Do you mean to tell me plainly that you threw
over Mr. Holland because he wrote a book that will bring him fame and
fortune?"
"I have thrown over Mr. Holland because he has written a book to make
people have contempt for the Bible," said Phyllis.
"Then all I can say is that you were never in love with the man,"
cried Ella.
"You may say that if you please."
"I do say it. If a girl really loves a man, she will marry him even
though he should write a book against Darwin. If a girl really loves a
man she will stand by him all the closer when he is undergoing a
course of honorable persecution, with his portrait in every paper that
one picks up."
"I dare say that is true enough," assented Phyllis. "Perhaps I never
did really love Mr. Holland. Perhaps I only fancied I cared for him
because I saw that so many other girls--took to wearing chocolates and
grays and kept their sleeves down just when sleeves were highest."
"Of course it was only natural that you should wish to--well,
colloquially, to wipe the eyes of the other girls. How many girls, I
should like to know, begin to think of a man as a possible husband
until they perceive that the thoughts of other girls are turned in his
direction?"
"At any rate, whatever I may have done long ago--"
"Three months ago."
"Three months ago. Whatever I may have done then, I know that I don't
love him now."
"Don't be too sure, my dear Phyllis. If there is one thing more than
another about which a woman should never be positive, it is whether or
not she loves a particular man. What mistakes they make! No, I'll
never believe that you turned him adrift simply because he wrote
something disparagingly about Solomon, or was it David? And I did so
want you and him for my next day; I meant it to be such a /coup/, to
have returned to town only a week and yet to have the most
outrageously unorthodox parson at my house. Ah, that would indeed have
been a /coup/! Never mind, I can at least have the beautiful girl who,
though devoted to the unorthodox parson, threw him over on account of
his unorthodoxy."
"Yes, you are certain of me--that is, if you think I should--if it
wouldn't seem a little----"
"What nonsense, Phyllis! Where have you been living for the past
twenty-three years that you should get such a funny notion into your
head? Do you think that girls nowadays absent themselves from felicity
awhile when they find it necessary to become--well, disengaged--yes,
or divorced, for that matter?"
"I really can't recollect any case of--"
"Of course you can't. They don't exist. The proper thing for a women
to do when she gets a divorce is to take a box at a theatre and give
the audience a chance of recognizing her from her portraits that have
already appeared in the illustrated papers. The block printing has
done that too. There's not a theatre manager in London who wouldn't
give his best box to a woman who has come straight from the divorce
court. The managers recognize the fact that she is in the same line as
themselves. But for you, my dear Phyllis--oh, you will never do him
the injustice to keep your throwing over of him a secret."
"Injustice? Oh, Ella!"
"I say injustice. Good gracious, child! cannot you see that if it
becomes known that the girl who had promised to marry him has broken
off her engagement to him simply because he has written that book, the
interest that attaches to him on account of his unorthodoxy will be
immeasurably increased?"
"I will not do him the injustice of fancying for a moment that he
would be gratified on this account. Whatever he may be, Ella, he is at
least sincere and single-minded in his aims."
"I have no doubt of it, my only joy. But however sincere a man may be
in his aims, he still cannot reasonably object to the distinction that
is thrust upon him when he has done something out of the common. The
men who make books know that that sort of thing pays. Someone told me
the other day--I believe it was Herbert Courtland--that it is the men
who write books embodying a great and noble aim who make the closest
bargains with their publishers. I heard of a great and good clergyman
the other day who wrote a Life of Christ, and then complained in the
papers of his publishers having only given him a miserable percentage
on the profits. That is how they talk nowadays; the profit resulting
from the Life of Christ is to be measured in pounds, shillings, and
pence."
"Mr. Holland is not a man of this stamp, Ella."
"I'm sure he is not. At the same time if he isn't prosecuted for
heterodoxy no one will be more disappointed than Mr. Holland, unless,
indeed, it be Mr. Holland's publisher. Who would begrudge the martyr
his halo, dear? Even the most sincere and single-minded martyr has an
eye on that halo. The halo of the up-to-date martyr is made up of
afternoon teas provided by fair women, and full-page portraits in the
illustrated papers."
"And all this leads to--what?"
"It leads to--let me see--oh, yes, it leads to your appearance at my
little gathering. Of course, you'll come. Believe me, you'll not feel
the least uncomfortable. You will be The Girl who Sacrificed her Love
for Conscience' Sake. That's a good enough qualification for
distinction on the part of any girl in these hard times. But I might
have known long ago that you would play this part. That sweetly
pathetic voice, with that firm mouth and those lovely soft gray eyes
that would seem to a casual observer to neutralize the firmness of the
mouth. Oh, yes, my Phyllis, you have undoubtedly /la physionomie du
role/."
"What /role/?"
"The /role/ of the girl who is on the side of the Bible."
"I am certainly on the side of the Bible."
"And so am I. So I will look for you to be by my side on Tuesday week,
and as often as you please in the meantime. By the way, you will
probably meet Herbert Courtland at our house. He is the New Guinea
man, you know."
"Of course I know. You talk of wanting heroes in orthodoxy at your
house, while you have Mr. Courtland, the New Guinea explorer, drinking
his tea at your elbow? Oh, go away!"
"I hope you will like him. We saw a good deal of him in Italy, and
will probably see a good deal of him here."
"I'm certain to like him: you like him."
"Ah, that's what you said to the young women who put off their colors
and took to sackcloth in the presence of Mr. Holland. Don't be too
sure that you will like any man because other women like him. Now, I
have, as usual, remained too long with you. I'm greatly impressed with
the situation of the moment. I don't say that I think you are wrong,
mind you. Girls should always be on the side of the Bible. At any rate
you have, I repeat, /la physionomie du role/, and you can't be far
astray if you act up to it. Good-bye, my dearest."
CHAPTER VII.
THE DEFENSE OF HOLLAND.
Ella Linton drove to a certain shop not far from Piccadilly,--the only
shop where the arranging of feathers is treated as a science
independent of the freaks of fashion,--and at the door she met a tall
man with the complexion of mahogany but with fair hair and mustache.
People nudged one another and whispered his name as they walked past
him before standing at the shop window, pretending to admire the
feathers, but in reality to glance furtively round at the man.
The name that they whispered to one another after the nudge was
Herbert Courtland.
He took off his hat--it was a tall silk one, but no one who knew
anything could avoid feeling that it should have been a solar toupee--
when Mrs. Linton stepped from her victoria.
"Oh, you here!" said she. "Who on earth would expect to see you here?"
"You," said he.
"What?"
"You asked me a question. I answered it."
She laughed as they walked together to the door of the feather shop.
"It appears to me that you have a very good opinion of yourself and a
very bad one of me," she remarked, smiling up to his face.
"That's just where you make a mistake," said he.
"How?"
"If I did not think well of you I should not have ordered Parkinson to
make you a fan of the tail of the meteor."
"Oh, Bertie, you have done that?"
"Why should I not do it?"
"But it is the only one in the world."
"Ah, that's just it. You are the only one in the world."
She laughed again, looking up to his face.
"Well, we'll have a look at it, anyway," said she.
They went into the shop to see the tail feathers of that wonderful
meteor-bird which Herbert Courtland had just brought back from New
Guinea with him--the most glorious thing that nature had produced and
a great explorer had risked his life to acquire, in order that Mrs.
Linton might have a unique feathered fan.
About the same time the Rev. George Holland met in the same
thoroughfare his friend and patron, the Earl of Earlscourt.
"By the Lord Harry, you've done for yourself now, my hearty!" cried
the earl. "What the blazes do you mean by attacking the Word of God in
that fashion?"
"Tommy," said the Rev. George Holland, smiling a patronizing smile at
his patron, "Tommy, my friend, if you take my advice you'll not meddle
with what doesn't concern you. You're a peer; better leave the Word of
God to me. I'm not a peer, but a parson."
"I'll not leave it with you; it isn't safe," said the peer. "Anything
more damnably atheistical than that book of yours I never read."
"And you didn't read it, Thomas; you know you only read a screeching
review of it, and you didn't even read that through," said the parson.
"Who told you that?" asked the patron. "Well, at any rate I read what
you said about Ruth. It was quite scandalous! Ruth! Good Lord! what
character is safe nowadays? One of the loveliest of the women of the
Bible--my wife says so. She knows all about them. And the best
painters in the world have shown her standing among the field of oats.
By the Lord, sir, it's sheer blasphemy! and worse than that, it's
making people--good, religious people, mind, not the ruck--it's making
them ask why the blazes I gave you the living. It's a fact."
"I'm sorry for you, Tommy--very sorry. I'm also sorry for your good
religious people, and particularly sorry for the phraseology of their
earnest inquiries on what I am sure is a matter of life and death to
them--spiritually. That's my last word, Thomas."
"And you were doing so well at the Joss-house, too." Lord Earlscourt
was shaking his head sorrowfully, as he spoke. "We were all getting on
so comfortably. That was what people said to me--they said----"
"Pardon me, I'm a parson, therefore I'm not particular; but I can't
stand the way your good religious people express themselves."
"They said, 'It's so d---- pleasant to get hold of a parson who can be
trusted in the pulpit--sermons with a good healthy moral tone, and so
forth. You might bring your youngest daughter to St. Chad's in the
certainty that she would hear nothing that would make her ask
uncomfortable questions when she got home.' It's a fact, they said
that; and now you go and spoil all. The bishop will have a word to say
to you some of these days, my lad. He ran away to the Continent, they
tell me, when your book was published, and it's perfectly well known
that he never runs away unless things look serious. When the bishop is
serious, those that can't swim had best take to the boats."
"I'll ask you for a seat in your yacht, Tommy. Meantime kindest
regards to her ladyship."
"Oh! by the way, it's not true, is it, that the girl has thrown you
over on account of the book?"
For an instant there came a little flush to the face of the Rev.
George Holland; then he shifted his umbrella from one hand to the
other, saying:
"If you mean Phyllis, all I can say in reply is that she is the best
and the truest girl alive at present. I've an engagement at a quarter-
past six."
"Well, good-by. It was my missus who said that the girl would throw
you over on account of that book."
"Ah! Good-by."
"Honestly speaking, George, old man, I think you've made a mistake
this time. People don't mind much about Jacob and Jonah and Jeremiah
and the whole job lot of Sheenies; but they do mind about Ruth. Hang
it all man! she was a woman."
"Ah! so was Jezebel, and yet--ah! good-by. I'll be late for my
appointment."
"See you on Sunday," said the earl, with a broadish smile.
And so he did.
So did the largest congregation that had ever assembled within the
venerable walls of St. Chad's. They heard him also, and so did the
dozen reporters of the morning papers who were present--some to
describe, with the subtle facetiousness of the newspaper reporter, the
amusing occurrences incidental to the church service of the day, and
others to take down his sermon to the extent of half a column to be
headed "The Rev. George Holland Defends Himself." One reporter,
however, earned an increase in his salary by making his headline, "The
Defense of Holland." It was supposed that casual readers would fancy
that the kingdom of Holland had been repelling an invader, and would
not find out their mistake until they had read half through the
sermon.
George Holland had not been mistaken when he had assumed that his
appearance in the church and his sermon this day would attract a large
amount of attention. As a matter of fact the building was crowded with
notable persons: Cabinet ministers (2), judges of the superior courts
(4), company promoters (47), actors and actresses (3), music hall and
variety artists (22), Royal Academician (1). Literature was
represented by a lady who had written a high-church novel, and fashion
by the publisher who had produced it. Science appeared in the person
of a professional thought-reader (female). These were all strangers to
St. Chad's, though some of them could follow the service quite easily.
The habitues of the church included several peers, the members of a
foreign embassy, a few outside brokers, quite a number of retired
officers of both services, and some Members of Parliament and the
London County Council.
One of the chaplains of the bishop occupied a seat in the aisle;
according to the facetious newspaper he held a watching brief.
The rector was, of course, oblivious of his brilliant entourage. He
could not even tell if Phyllis or her father were present. (As a
matter of fact both were in their accustomed seats in their own pew.)
He, as usual, took but a small part in the ritual--as Lord Earlscourt
once remarked, George Holland wasn't such a fool as to keep a dog and
do the barking himself. (It has already been stated that he had a
couple of excellent curates.) But the sermon was preached by himself,
as indeed it usually was after the morning service.
It was the most brilliant of all his efforts. He took as his text the
words, "All Scripture is given by inspiration and is profitable," and
he had no difficulty in showing how vast was the profit to be derived
from a consideration of every portion of the sacred volume, it
appeared to him, than the account given of the early history of the
Hebrew race. That account appealed as an object lesson to all nations
on the face of the earth. It allowed every people to see the course
which the children of Israel had pursued at various periods of their
existence and to profit by such observation. The Hebrews were a
terrible example to all the world. If they were slaves when in the
land of Egypt, that was their own fault. Milton had magnificently
expressed the origin of slavery:
"He that hath light within his own clear breast
May walk i' the noontide and enjoy bright day,
But he that hides dark deeds and foul thoughts . . .
Himself is his own dungeon."
The bondage of Egypt was, he believed, self-imposed. There is no
account available, he said, of the enslavement of the Children of
Israel by the Egyptians, but a careful consideration of the history of
various peoples shows beyond the possibility of a mistake being made,
that only those become enslaved who are best fitted for enslavement. A
king arose that knew not Joseph--a king who could not believe that at
any time there was belonging to that race of strangers a man of
supreme intelligence. The Israelites bowed their heads to the yoke of
the superior race, the Egyptians, and took their rightful place as
slaves. After many days a man of extraordinary intelligence appeared
in the person of Moses. A patriot of patriots, he gave the race their
God--they seemed to have lived in a perfectly Godless condition in
Egypt; and their theology had to be constructed for them by their
leader, as well as their laws: the laws for the desert wanderers, and
a decalogue for all humanity. He was equal to any emergency, and he
had no scruples. He almost succeeded in making a great nation out of a
horde of superstitious robbers. Had he succeeded the record would have
thrown civilization back a thousand years. Happy it was for the world
that the triumph of crime was brief. The cement of bloodshed that kept
the kingdom of Israel together for a time soon dissolved. Captivity
followed captivity. For a thousand years no improvement whatever took
place in the condition of the people--they had no arts; they lived in
mud huts at a period when architecture reached a higher level than it
had ever attained to previously. When the patriot prophets arose,
endeavoring to reform them with words of fire--the sacred fire of
truth--they killed them. One chance remained to them. They were
offered a religion that would have purified them, in place of the
superstition that had demoralized them, and they cried with one voice,
as everyone who had known their history and their social
characteristics knew they would cry, "Not this Man, but Barabbas."
That was from the earliest period in the history of the race the
watchword of the Hebrews. Not the man, but the robber. All that is
good and noble and true in manhood--the mercy, the compassion, the
self-sacrifice that are comprised in true manhood--they cast beneath
their feet, they spat upon, they crucified; but all of the Barabbas in
man they embraced. Thus are they become a hissing in the earth, and
properly so; for those who hiss at the spirit which has always
animated Judaism show that they abhor a thing that is abhorrent. "All
Scripture is profitable," continued the preacher, "and practically all
that is referred to in the text is an indictment of Judaism. The more
earnestly we hold to this truth the greater will be the profit
accruing to us from a consideration of the Scripture. But what more
terrible indictment of the Hebrew systems could we have than that
which is afforded us in the record that the father of the race had
twelve sons? He had. But where are ten of them now? Swept out of
existence without leaving a single record of their destruction even to
their two surviving brethren." He concluded his sermon by stating that
he hoped it would be clearly understood that he recognized the fact
that in England those members of the Hebrew community who had adopted
the methods, the principles, the truths of Christianity even though
they still maintained their ancient form of worship in their
synagogues, were on a line with civilization. They searched their
scriptures and these scriptures had been profitable to them, inasmuch
as they had been taught by those scriptures how impossible it was for
that form of superstition known as Judaism to be the guide for any
people on the face of the earth.
CHAPTER VIII.
I HOPE THAT YOU WILL NOT EVENTUALLY MARRY AN INFIDEL.
Some of the congregation were greatly disappointed. They had expected
a brilliant and startling attack upon some other Bible personages who
had hitherto been looked on with respect and admiration. But the
sermon had only attacked the Jewish system as a whole, and everyone
knows that there is nothing piquant in an attack, however eloquent it
may be, upon a religious system in the abstract. One might as well
find entertainment in an attack upon the Magnetic Pole or a
denunciation of the Precession of the Equinoxes. No one cared, they
said, anything more about the failure of the laws of Moses than one
did about such abstractions as the Earth's Axis, or the Great Glacial
Epoch. It was quite different when the characters of well-known
individuals were subjected to an assault. People could listen for
hours to an attack upon celebrated persons. If Mr. Holland's book had
only dealt with the characteristics of the religion of the Jews, it
would never have attracted attention, these critics said. It had
called for notice simply because of its trenchant remarks in regard to
some of those Bible celebrities who, it was generally understood, were
considered worthy of admiration.
Why could Mr. Holland not have followed up the course indicated in his
book by showing up some of the other persons in the Bible? it was
asked. There were quite a number of characters in the Bible who were
regarded as estimable. Why could he not then have followed up his
original scheme of "showing them up?"--that was the phrase of the
critics. There was Solomon, for instance. He was usually regarded as a
person of high intellectual gifts; but there was surely a good deal in
his career which was susceptible of piquant treatment. And then
someone said that Noah should have a chapter all to himself, also Lot;
and what about the spies who had entered Jericho? Could the
imagination not suggest the story which they had told to their wives
on their return to the camp, relative to the house in which they had
passed all their spare time? They supposed that Jericho was the Paris
of the high class Jews of those days.
Then the conversation of these critics drifted on to the Paris of
to-day, and the sermon and its lessons were forgotten as easily as is
an ordinary sermon. But all the same it was plain that the clergyman
had fallen short of what was expected of him upon this occasion. His
book had gone far, and it was felt that he should have gone one better
than his book, so to speak. Instead of that his sermon had been one to
which scarcely any exception could be taken.
But the bishop's chaplain, who had watched at intervals of praying,
came to the conclusion that the rector of St. Chad's was a good deal
cleverer than the majority of youngish clergymen who endeavor to
qualify for prosecution. It may be unorthodox to cross one's arms with
the regularity of clockwork on coming to certain words in the service,
and young clergymen had been prosecuted for less; but it was not
unorthodox to speak evil of the Jews--for did not the Church pray for
the Jews daily? and can anyone insult a man more than by praying for
him--unless, of course, he is a king, in which case it is understood
that no insult is intended?
The bishop's chaplain prepared a report of the sermon for his
lordship, pointing out its general harmony, broadly speaking, with the
tenets of the Church.
Mr. Ayrton also seemed to perceive a sort of cleverness in the sermon.
There was nothing in it that was calculated to shock even the most
susceptible hearer. Indeed, it seemed to Mr. Ayrton that there was a
good deal in it that was calculated to soothe the nerves of those who
had been shocked by the book. He said something to this effect to his
daughter as they walked homeward. He was rather anxious to find out
what chance George Holland had of being restored to his daughter's
favor.
But Phyllis was firm in her condemnation of the methods of Mr.
Holland.
"He attacks the Jews as a race in order to ridicule the statement in
the Bible that they were God's chosen people, and they were, you know,
papa," she said.
"They took so much for granted themselves, at any rate," said her
father, with some show of acquiescence.
"But they were, and they are to be restored to their own land," said
Phyllis.
"Are they, my dear? I should like to see the prospectus of that
enterprise."
"You are mocking, papa. They are to be restored; it says so in the
Bible quite clearly."
"I am not mocking, Phyllis. If gold is discovered in Palestine, the
Jews may go there in some numbers; but, take my word for it, they
won't go otherwise. They couldn't live in their own land, assuming
that it is their own, which is going pretty far. Palestine wouldn't
support all the Jews alive at present; it's a wretched country--I know
it well. Besides, they don't want to return to it, and furthermore, we
couldn't spare them."
"I believe in the Bible, and I have faith," said Phyllis firmly.
"That's right," said her father. "I hope you may always hold to both.
I think that those girls who expect to be regarded as advanced,
because they scoff at the Bible and at faith, are quite horrid. I also
hope that you will not eventually marry an infidel."
"That would be impossible," said Phyllis firmly.
"Would it?" said her father. "There is a stronger influence at work in
most of us, at times, than religion. I wonder if it will make a victim
of you, my child, though you did send George Holland about his
business."
"I don't quite know what you mean," said Phyllis, with only the
slightest possible flush.
And she did not know what he meant until six months had passed; but
then she knew.
Seeing that she did not know what he meant, her father thanked Heaven
that Heaven had given him a daughter who was unlike other daughters.
He prayed that she might never become like other daughters. He thought
that it would be good for his daughter to remain without experience of
those overwhelming passions which make up the life of a woman and a
man.
Phyllis went out a good deal during the week, and everywhere she found
herself looked at with interest; sometimes she found herself being
examined through a /pince-nez/ as if she were a curious specimen, and
a woman or two smiled derisively at her. She did not know what was
meant by their curiosity--their derision--until one day an old lady
named Mrs. Haddon went up to her and kissed her, saying:
"I made up my mind that I would kiss you, my dear, the first chance I
had. God bless you, my child! You have given your testimony as a woman
should, in these days of scoffing at the truth."
"Testimony?" said Phyllis, quite puzzled. Had not her father felt a
thrill of gratitude on reflecting that she had none of the qualities
of the prig about her? "Testimony?"
"You have testified to the truth, Miss Ayrton, and you shall have your
reward. You have shown that the truth is more to you than--than love--
the love of man--all that women hold sweet in life. You are right Miss
Ayrton; and all true women must love and respect you."
Phyllis turned a very brilliant color, and kept her eyes fixed on the
parquet pattern of the floor.
The dear old lady said a good deal more to her, all in praise of her
act of having given Mr. Holland his /conge/ on account of his having
written that shockingly unorthodox book.
By the end of the week Phyllis Ayrton was looked on as quite as much a
heroine for having given Mr. Holland his /conge/, as Mr. Holland was a
hero for having braved the bishop in writing the book. She wore her
laurels meekly, though she had been rather embarrassed when a ray of
intelligence appeared among the dark sayings of the dear old lady. She
could not help wondering how all the world had become possessed of the
knowledge that she had said good-by to her lover. She considered if it
were possible that Mr. Holland had spread abroad the account of her
ill-treatment of him--he would naturally allude to it as ill-
treatment. The quick judgment of Ella Linton had enabled her to
perceive how valuable to Mr. Holland was the incident of his rejection
by Phyllis. As a beginning of his persecution, its importance could
scarcely be overestimated. But it did not take Phyllis long to
reassure herself on this matter. It was, of course, Ella who had given
the incident publicity. She had done so for two reasons: first, in
order that her little afternoon At Home might have additional luster
attached to it by the presence of a young woman who had, in these days
of a marriage market overstocked with young women (and old women, for
that matter), thrown over an eligible man for conscience' sake; and
secondly, in order that her At Home might have additional luster
attached to it from the presence of the man who allowed himself to be
thrown over by a delightful girl rather than refrain from publishing
what he believed to be the truth.
Mrs. Linton achieved both the objects which, as a good hostess, she
had in view. Mr. Holland put in an appearance in one of Mrs. Linton's
big drawing rooms, and so did Phyllis Ayrton.
Everyone admitted that only a woman of the social capacity--some
people called it genius--of Mrs. Linton could accomplish such a feat
as the bringing into the same room two persons who had given
unmistakable evidence of possessing a conscience apiece--the woman who
had sacrificed the man for conscience' sake, and the man who had
sacrificed the woman under the same influence. It was a social
triumph, beyond doubt.
People talked in whispers of conscience, the advantages and the
disadvantages of its possession, and the consensus of opinion was of
its being quite appropriate in regard to a clergyman, and that it was
not altogether out of place on the part of a spinster, provided that
she had counteracting virtues; but, on the whole, it was perhaps wiser
to leave the conscience with the Nonconformists.
Phyllis did not see George Holland until she had got halfway up the
first of Mrs. Linton's rooms. She did not hear her friend Ella say to
someone, in a low voice of apprehension:
"For Heaven's sake, keep them apart! They are just the sort of people
to greet each other quite cordially; and if they do, no one here will
believe that their engagement is off. People here don't understand how
a delicate conscience works."
That was what Ella murmured to a man who had been invited in order
that he might make himself generally useful. She gave him his
instructions too late, however. Before she had quite completed her
greeting of Phyllis, Mr. Holland was beside them.
He had not forced himself forward with any measure of persistency; no
one seemed to notice any movement on his part until he had shaken
hands with Phyllis, and was chatting with her and Mrs. Linton quite
pleasantly--much too pleasantly for a man with a conscience, someone
said later in the afternoon; but that was someone who wanted to talk
to Phyllis himself.
People watched her when she suffered herself to be gradually withdrawn
from the center of the room to a seat that chanced to be vacant, just
behind the open door of the conservatory. Could it be possible, they
asked one another, that she had indeed given his dismissal to Mr.
Holland the previous week? Why, they were chatting together as
pleasantly as they had ever chatted. Had not the people who talked so
glibly of conscience and its mysterious operations spoken a little too
soon? Or had the quarrel been patched up? If so, which of the two had
got rid of the conscience that had brought about the original rupture?
These questions were answered at divers places by divers persons, all
the time that George Holland and Phyllis Ayrton remained side by side
at the entrance to the conservatory, at the further end of which a
vocal quartette party sang delightfully--delightfully; sufficiently
loud to enable all the guests who wanted to talk to do so without
inconvenience, and at the same time not so loud as to become
obtrusive. It is so seldom that a quartette party manage to hit this
happy medium, people said. They generally sing as if they fancy that
people come together to hear them, not remembering that the legitimate
object of music at an At Home is to act as an accompaniment to the
conversation.
When Phyllis was leaving the house half an hour later, a man was just
entering the first drawing room--a man with a face burnt to the color
of an old mezzotint.
He looked at her for a moment as he passed her, for her face had
suddenly lighted up, as such a face as hers does upon occasions.
The man could scarcely fail to perceive that she knew his name was
Herbert Courtland.
But then he was accustomed to be recognized by women as well as men in
every part of Europe, since he had returned from New Guinea with the
tail feathers of the meteor-bird, which were now being made into a fan
for Mrs. Linton.
CHAPTER IX.
MY FATHER HAS HIS IDEAS ON WHAT'S CALLED REALISM.
The last rumble of applause had died away at the Parthenon Theater,
but the audience were leaving very slowly; they wished to linger as
long as possible within the atmosphere of the building; though, like
the atmosphere of many sacred places, that of the Parthenon was, just
at that time, a trifle unsavory. The first performance of the drama of
"Cagliostro" had just taken place, and, as the first nights at the
Parthenon are invariably regarded as the most exclusive functions of
the year, the stalls and boxes had been crowded. And the distinction
which in Mayfair and Belgravia attaches to those who have been in the
boxes and stalls on Parthenon first night is not greater than that
which, in Bloomsbury and Camden Town, accrues to those who have
occupied places--not necessarily seats--in the other parts of the
house. It is understood, too, that the good will of Bloomsbury and
Camden Town is much more valuable to a play than the best wishes of
Mayfair and Belgravia.
The gracious manager had made his customary speech of thanks,--for
everything produced at the Parthenon was a success,--and while the
general audience were moving away very reluctantly, some distinguished
men and women followed the guidance of a strong Irish brogue as a
flock follows a bell-wether, through a door that led to the stage.
Here the great actor and the ever-charming lady who divided with him
the affections of West as well as East, received their guests'
congratulations in such a way as made the guests feel that the success
was wholly due to their good will.
Mrs. Linton, who was a personage in society,--her husband had found a
gold mine (with the assistance of Herbert Courtland) and she had
herself written a book of travels which did not sell,--had brought
Phyllis with her party to the theater, and they had gone on the stage
with the other notabilities, at the conclusion of the performance.
George Holland, having become as great a celebrity as the best of them
during that previous fortnight, had naturally received a stall and an
invitation to the stage at the conclusion of the performance. He had
not been of Mrs. Linton's party, but he lay in wait for that party as
they emerged from their box.
Another man also lay in wait for them, and people--outsiders--nudged
one another in the theater as the passers down Piccadilly had nudged
one another, whispering his name, Herbert Courtland. Others--they were
not quite such outsiders--nudged one another when Mrs. Linton laid
down her new feather fan on the ledge of the box. It was possibly the
loveliest thing that existed in the world at that moment. No artist
had ever dreamed of so wonderful a scheme of color--such miracles of
color--combinations in every feather from the quill to the spider-web-
like fluffs at the tips, each of which shone not like gold but like
glass. It was well worth all the nudging that it called forth.
But when Mrs. Linton had picked it up from the ledge, beginning to
oscillate it in front of her fair face, the nudging ceased. People
looked at the thing with eyes wide with astonishment, but with lips
mute.
A more satisfactory evening she had never spent, Mrs. Linton felt; and
now the fan was hanging down among the brocaded flowers of her dress,
making them look tawdry as she left the box, and noticed how at least
two men were lying in wait for her party. There was, however, a
frankness in Herbert Courtland's strategy which George Holland's did
not possess. Mr. Courtland was looking directly at her; Mr. Holland
was pretending to be engrossed in conversation with a man in one of
the end stalls.
She lifted a finger and Courtland went to her side. The difficulties
of the jungle along the banks of the Fly River were trifling compared
with the obstacles he had to overcome in obeying her.
"I had no idea that you would be here," she said.
"Where else should I be?" he said, in so low a tone as to be heard
only by her.
"We are so glad," said Mrs. Linton. "I want to present you to my
dearest friend, Phyllis Ayrton."
"A woman!" said he.
"Not yet. She has never met a man. She will to-night," said Ella. Then
she turned to Phyllis, who was walking beside Lord Earlscourt. "Come
here, Phyllis," she said; "you are the only person in London who
doesn't yet know Mr. Herbert Courtland. This is Mr. Courtland."
Thus it was that Phyllis went upon the stage of the Parthenon by the
side of Herbert Courtland instead of by the side of George Holland;
and the little laugh that Mrs. Linton gave was due to her careful
observation of the latter's face when he perceived, as he did in spite
of the engrossing nature of his conversation with his friend in the
end stall, how his designs had been defeated by her tactics. She would
not have minded having Herbert Courtland with her for the hour they
might remain at the theater, but she had made up her mind that it was
not to Phyllis' advantage that Mr. Holland should continue by her side
in public after she had given him his dismissal.
She also perceived, with even greater gratification, that Herbert
Courtland was looking nearly as dissatisfied with the result of her
tactics as George Holland. If he had looked pleased at being by the
side of Phyllis when he expected to be with her--Ella--what would life
be worth to her?
But if he was dissatisfied at being with Phyllis instead of Mrs.
Linton, he did not consider that any reason for neglecting the former.
He wondered if she had any choice in sandwiches--of course she had in
champagne. His curiosity was satisfied, and Phyllis was amply provided
for.
"You are Mrs. Linton's dearest friend," he remarked casually, as they
leaned up against the profile of the Church scene in "Cagliostro," for
they were standing in the "wings"--to be exact--on the O. P. side.
"She is my dearest friend, at any rate," said Phyllis.
"You were not at school together. She is four or five years older than
you."
"Only three. When she got married she seemed to me to be almost
venerable. Three years seemed a long time then."
"But now you fancy that you have formed a right idea of what is meant
by three years?"
"Well, a better idea, at any rate."
"You are still a good way off it. But if you have formed a right
estimate of a woman's friendship----"
"That's still something, you mean to say? But why did you stop short,
Mr. Courtland?"
Phyllis was looking up to his face with a smile of inquiry.
"I was afraid that you might think I was on the way to preach a sermon
on the text of woman's friendship. I pulled myself up just in time.
I'm glad that I didn't frighten you."
"Oh, no; you didn't frighten me, Mr. Courtland. I was only wondering
how you would go on--whether you would treat the topic sentimentally
or cynically."
"And what conclusion did you come to on the subject?"
"I know that you are a brave man--perhaps the bravest man alive. You
would, I think, have treated the question seriously--feelingly."
He laughed.
"The adoption of that course implies courage certainly. All the men of
sentimentality--which is something quite different from sentiment,
mind you--have taken to writing melodrama and penny novelettes. You
didn't hear much sentimentality on this stage to-night, or any other
night, for that matter."
"No; it would have sounded unreal. A Parthenon audience would resent
what they believed to be a false note in art; and a Parthenon audience
is supposed to be the concentration of the spirit of the period in
thought and art; isn't it?"
"I don't know. I'm half a savage. But I like to think the best of a
Parthenon audience; you and I formed part of that concentration
to-night--yes, I like to think the best of it. I suppose we know--we,
the Parthenon audience, I mean--what our feelings are on the art of
acting--the art of play-writing."
"I shouldn't like to have to define my feelings at a moment's notice."
"One must make a beginning, and then work up gradually to the
definition."
"For instance----"
"Well, for instance, there's something that people call realism
nowadays."
"My father has his ideas on what's called realism," Phyllis laughed.
" 'Realism in painting is the ideal with a smudge.' "
"I should like to hear what you think of it?"
He also laughed sympathetically.
"Oh, I only venture to think that realism is the opposite to reality."
"And, so far as I can gather, your definition is not wanting in
breadth--no, nor in accuracy. Sentimentality is the opposite to
sentiment."
"That is a point on which we agreed a moment ago. My father says that
sentiment is a strong man's concealment of what he feels, while
sentimentality is a weak man's expression of what he doesn't feel."
"And the Parthenon audience--you and I--laugh at the latter--that is,
because we have practiced some form of athletics. The bicycle has
given its /coup de grace/ to sentimentality. That man over there with
the head and face like a lion's, and that woman whose face is nature
illuminated, have long ago recognized the shallowness of
sentimentality--the depths of sentiment. We could not imagine either
of them striking a false note. They have been the teachers of this
generation--the generation to which you belong. Great Heavens! to
think that for so many years human passion should be banished from
art, though every line of Shakspere is tremulous with passion! Why,
the word was absolutely banished; it was regarded as impure."
"I know that--I was at a boarding school. The preceptresses regarded
as impure everything that is human."
"Whereas, just the opposite is the case?"
"I didn't say that, Mr. Courtland."
"You could scarcely say it. I am only beginning to think it, and I
have lived among savages for years. That man with the lion's face has
not feared to deal with passion. All actors who have lived since
Garrick have never gone further than to illustrate passion in the
hands of a man; but that lion-man, whose stage we are now standing on,
shows us not the passion in the hands of a man, but the man in the
hands of the passion. The man who tears the passion to tatters is the
robustious periwig-pated fellow; the actor, who shows us the man torn
in tatters by the passion, is the supreme artist. I am no authority on
modern literature; but I must confess that I was astonished at the
change that a few years have brought about. I was in a proper position
for noticing it, having been practically without books for two years."
"Is it a change for the better, do you think, Mr. Courtland?"
"I feel certain that it is for the better. I refer, of course, only to
the books of those real investigators--real artists. I refer to the
fountain-heads, not to the hydrants laid down by the water companies
at the end of about ten miles of foul piping. I don't like the product
of the hydrants. I like the springs, and, however natural they may be,
I don't find anything impure in them. Why I love the Bible is because
it is so very modern."
"You don't think, then, that it is yet obsolete, Mr. Courtland?"
"No book that deals so truly with men and women can ever be obsolete,
the fact being that men and women are the same to-day as they were ten
thousand years ago, perhaps ten million years ago, though I'm not
quite so sure of that. The Bible, and Shakspere, and Rofudingding, a
New Guinea poet, who ate men for his dinner when he had a chance, and,
when he had finished, sang lyrics that stir the hearts of all his
fellow-islanders to this day,--he lived a hundred years ago,--dealt
with men and women; that is why all are as impressive to-day as they
were when originally composed. Men and women like reading about men
and women, and it is becoming understood, nowadays, that the truth
about men and women can never be contemptible."
"Ah, but how do we know that it is the truth?"
"Therein the metaphysician must minister to himself. I cannot suggest
to you any test of the truth, if you have none with you. Everyone
capable of pronouncing a judgment on any matter must feel how
truthfully the personages in the Bible have been drawn."
"Yes; the Bible is the Word of God."
"I believe that it is, most certainly. That profound wisdom; that
toleration of the weaknesses of men; that sympathy with men, who
cannot fathom the mysteries of life, and the struggle for life of all
things that love life; that spirit I call God, and I don't think that
a better name has been found for it."
"It--for /it/? You think of God as merely a force of nature?"
"Just the contrary. God is the spirit that lives in warfare with
nature. Great Heavens! isn't that the truth of which the whole Bible
is the allegory? Nature and nature's laws constitute the Devil. God is
the opposing Force. It is a law of nature to kill off the weak, to
crush that which has fallen in the struggle. It is God who helps the
weak--who helps the feeble."
"But merely a force?"
"Oh, I have no private opinion on that part of the question. I am not
like that modern philosopher who fancied he had solved the whole
problem by spelling God with a small g. But don't you think that we
have gone quite far enough in our exchange of confidence for a first
meeting? You are what the Italians call /simpatica/--that is, more
than merely sympathetic. You look at one, and lead one on to confide
in you as one does not confide in most girls. You are a thoroughly
dangerous young woman, Miss Ayrton, though you are Mrs. Linton's
dearest friend. By the way, can you make her confide in you?"
There seemed to be a measure of curiosity, not to say anxiety, in the
tone of this inquiry.
"Well, she makes me confide in her. I wonder if that is just the same
thing," said Phyllis.
"It's not exactly the same thing," said he. "But it's the proper
course for dearest friends to adopt toward each other. For the
maintenance of a firm friendship between any two persons, only one
should confide; the other should be strictly the confidante. By the
way, I wonder what is the average duration of the dearest friendship
between two women."
"Why should it have any limits?" said Phyllis gravely. "What is the
duration of the friendship between two men?"
"It mostly depends on when the woman makes her appearance," said he,
with a laugh.
"Ah! So that---- Ah, never mind. Ella was my dearest friend before Mr.
Linton put in an appearance."
"And he was mine before she put in an appearance," said he.
"I didn't know that," said Phyllis.
"There, you see, is my contention borne out," said he. "You are the
one who confides; she is the one who receives the confidences, and
respects them, I'm sure. I hope that you will do the same, Miss
Ayrton. Don't let anyone know that I confided in you all that I think
on the subject of the old Adam and the new Eve."
"No one except Ella Linton, and you know that I can keep nothing from
her if we are to remain dearest friends. Perhaps she knows already the
limits of your belief, Mr. Courtland."
"She does--she does."
At that moment Ella Linton came up with Lord Earlscourt.
"Has Mr. Courtland been telling you all about the bird of paradise?"
she asked of Phyllis, while she waved the tail feathers of the
loveliest of the birds of paradise before her face.
"The bird?--not the /bird/," laughed Phyllis.
"But the topic was paradise?" Ella joined in the laugh--yes, to some
extent.
"I talked of Adam--the old one of that name," said Mr. Courtland.
"And Eve--the new one of that name," said Phyllis.
"Theology is in the air!" cried Ella. "Even the stage of a theater is
not free from the taint. It must be the case of Mr. Holland. Where is
Mr. Holland, by the way, Lord Earlscourt?"
"I haven't seen him for some time. He must have gone away. I'm not Mr.
Holland's keeper, thank Heaven!" said Lord Earlscourt, with heartfelt
devoutness.
"Now you know that everyone holds you accountable for what he has
done!" said Ella.
"Then that's just where everyone makes a mistake," said he. "Great
Lord! is it your idea of British justice to persecute the wrong man?
Why doesn't the bishop do his duty? What do we pay him for?"
"We won't abandon our charity at the call of theology," said Ella.
"Theology--represented by Lord Earlscourt," said Mr. Courtland.
"You don't know how I've been abused during the past fortnight, indeed
you don't," moaned Lord Earlscourt. "Why, there's my own wife, she
abused me like a cab-driver because George Holland had been with us on
the platform when the Chinese teetotalers came here to protest against
the public houses in England; she says that his backsliding will put
back the cause a quarter of a century. Then there are the other
churchwardens; they look on me as if I had been making a suggestion to
raffle the sacred plate. George Holland has a run for his money, but
I've had no fun out of it."
"It does seem hard," said Courtland. "But it's plain that the case
calls for persecution, and why not persecute you? Someone must be
persecuted, you'll admit."
"Then why the--"
"I thought that your good old Bunyip would look in on us before long,"
said Courtland. "There's no possibility of discussing delicate points
in theology without him."
"I think we had better go home," said Ella.
"We must have some consideration for our host," said Courtland. "We
didn't all play the part of /Cagliostro/ to-night."
During the movement of her circle and the adjustment of wraps,
preparatory to the delivery of a valedictory word of congratulation to
the great actor, Ella said in a low tone to Herbert Courtland:
"Cagliostro? No; we didn't all play the part; but--well, Cagliostro
was a weaver of spells."
There was a pause before he said:
"Yes, but the art did not die with him. He had a daughter to whom he
taught his art."
"Not that I ever heard of," said she. "What do you think of Phyllis
Ayrton?"
"I think that she is the dearest friend of my dearest friend," he
replied.
"And I should like her to become the dearest friend of my dearest
friend."
"That would be impossible," he said.
Then the felicitous valedictory word was said to the great actor and
actress, and Mrs. Linton's carriage received Phyllis. Lord Earlscourt
took a seat in Mr. Courtland's hansom.
"What do you think about Mr. Courtland?" inquired Ella of her dearest
friend, as they lay back with their heads very close together.
There was a long pause before Phyllis replied:
"I really don't know what I think about him. He is, I suppose, the
bravest man alive at present."
"What? Is that the result of your half hour's chat with him?"
"Oh, dear, no! but all the same, it's pleasant for a girl to feel that
she has been talking to a brave man. It gives one a sense of--of--is
it of being quite safe?"
"Good gracious, no! just the opposite--that is---- Oh, you don't
understand."
"No, I don't."
"Never mind. Tell me what he talked about?"
"Oh, everything! God."
"I know that it was in the air. He has ideas, I believe. He never
talked on that topic to me. I hope you found him to be quite sound,
theologically."
"But it seems rather funny, doesn't it?" said Phyllis; "but I really
don't think that when I was listening to him I considered for a moment
whether he was sound or the opposite in his views."
"Funny? It would have been rather funny if you had done that," laughed
Ella. "The question that a healthy girl--and you are a healthy girl,
Phyllis--asks herself after talking to such a man as Herbert Courtland
is not, Is his theology sound? What healthy girl cares the fraction of
a farthing about the theology of a man with a face like Herbert
Courtland's and arms like Herbert Courtland's? You talked with him for
half an hour, and then come to me and say that you suppose he is the
bravest man alive in the world. That was right--quite right. That is
just what every healthy girl should say. We understand a man's thews
and sinews; we likewise understand what bravery in a man is, but what
do we know, or, for that matter, care about his theology, whether it
is sound or the opposite? Nothing. We don't even care whether he has
any theology or not."
"Good gracious, Ella! one would fancy that you thought----"
"Thought what?"
"I don't quite know. You see I met Mr. Courtland quite casually, just
as I met a dozen men at various places during the week. Why should you
question me more closely about him than about the dozen other men? He
only talked a little more widely, and perhaps wildly. His bravery is
no more to me than his theology."
"Of course it isn't, Phyllis. But there was the case of George
Holland--"
"That is very different, Ella. I had engaged myself to marry George
Holland. It would be impossible for me to marry any man who had shown
his contempt for--for everything that I regard as sacred."
"I believe it would, if you didn't love that man. But if you loved the
man---- Oh, when you come to know what it means to love you will
understand all. A woman before she loves is--what is she, an egg
before it is hatched? That sounds ridiculous. Better say a green
chrysalis before it breaks into a butterfly; for the transition comes
at once. Theology! Oh, my Phyllis, haven't you read in history, true
history--novels written by men who know us and how we were created,
and why--haven't you read what women do when they truly love a man?
How they fling every consideration to the winds: heaven--home--husband
--God--Mrs. Grundy? Theology! Ah, you are a healthy girl. You never
cared a scrap for George Holland. You were glad when the excuse
presented itself in order to throw him over."
"Yes; I believe that is quite true."
Ella's cry of surprise, and her laugh that followed, shocked her
companion, and feeling that this was the case, the one who laughed
hastened to make her apologies.
"Don't be annoyed with me, dear," she cried. "But I really couldn't
help that laugh when I thought of your earnestness the week before
last. Then, you will remember, you were in great pain because of the
heterodoxy of George Holland. Didn't I tell you at that time that you
had never loved him? You were ready to assure me that you had, and
that you were making a great sacrifice to your principles?"
"I remember very well," said Phyllis, with a sound that was not far
removed from a sob.
"Ah, you are a puzzle to yourself, you poor little chrysalis," said
Ella, putting the meteoric feathers playfully down upon the serious
face of Phyllis--its seriousness was apparent beneath the light of the
carriage lamp. "No, don't make the attempt to explain anything to me.
Don't try to reconcile your frankness now with your pretense then,
because you'll certainly make a muddle of it, and because no such
attempt is necessary to be made to me. I know something of the girl
and her moods--not a great deal, perhaps, but enough to prevent my
doing you an injustice. You are perfectly consistent, my Phyllis."
"Oh, consistent?"
"Perfectly consistent with your nature as a girl. It is the nature of
a girl to change with every wind that blows. It is only the female
prig who acts consistently under all circumstances. In a world the
leading of which is its men, inconsistency is the best nature of a
healthy girl made to be loved by men. One doesn't sneer at the
weathercock because one hour it points to the north and the next to
the east. 'Tis its nature to. 'Tis our nature to change with every
breeze of man that bears down on us. That's why they love us and
detest the prigs. Here we are at your house. I hope you don't keep
your maid up for you. I would scorn to keep a girl out of her bed for
the sake of brushing my hair. Good-night, dear, and dream of the
paradise that awaits you--a paradise in which there are birds to be
shot, birds of paradise to make feather fans for women who hold them
to their bosoms one minute, and the next dispose of them to Mr. and
Mme. Abednego with last season's opera wrap. There's a parable for you
to sleep upon."
"And you--you?" cried Phyllis.
"Oh, as for me, I'll, I'll--well, I think I'll put my meteor fan on
the pillow beside my own to-night. I'm still newfangled with my toy
and--well, I'm a woman."
At this instant the carriage pulled up to Mr. Ayrton's hall door and
the footman jumped down from the box to run up the steps and ring the
bell.
"Good-night," said Phyllis. "I enjoyed my evening greatly, and the
drive home best of all."
Ella Linton's laugh was smothered among the delicate floss of the
feathers which she held up to her face.
CHAPTER X.
IT IS THE PRICE OF BLOOD.
Phyllis had a good deal to think of after she had sat for half an hour
with her father in the room where they worked together for the
discomfiture of the opposite party, and had given him some account of
the representation of the play at the Parthenon. Her father was
delighted to find her in high spirits. So many people come back from
the theater looking glum and worn out, yawning and mumbling when asked
what they have seen and what it had all been about. Phyllis was not
glum, nor did she mumble. She was able to describe scene after scene,
and more than once she sprang from her seat, carried away by her own
powers of description, and began to act the bits that had impressed
her--bits the force of which could only be understood when described
with gestures and pretty posturing.
Her father thought he had never seen anything so pretty in his life.
(What a girl she was, to be sure, to have so easily recovered from the
effects of that terrible ordeal through which she had passed--having
to dismiss at a moment's notice the man whom she had promised to
marry!) He had certainly never seen anything so fascinating as her
pretty posturing, with the electric lights gleaming over her white
neck with its gracious curves, and her firm white arms from which her
gloves had been stripped.
It had been his intention to describe to her a scene which had taken
place in the House of Commons that night--a scene of Celt and Saxon
mingling in wild turmoil over a question of neglected duty on the part
of a Government official: not the one who was subsequently decorated
by the sovereign a few days after his neglect of duty had placed the
country in jeopardy, and had precipitated the downfall of the ministry
and the annihilation of his party as a political factor; not this man,
but another, who had referred to Trafalgar Square as the private
thoroughfare of the crown. The scene had been an animated one, and Mr.
Ayrton had hoped to derive a good deal of pleasure from describing it
to his daughter; but when he had listened to her, and watched her for
a few minutes, he came to the conclusion that it would be absurd for
him to make an effort to compete with her. What was his wretched
little story of Parliamentary squalor compared with these
psychological subtleties which had interested his daughter all the
evening?
He listened to and watched that lovely thing, overflowing with the
animation that comes from a quick intelligence--a keen appreciation of
the intelligence of the great artists who had interpreted a story
which thrilled the imagination of generation after generation, and he
felt that Parliament was a paltry thing. Parliament--what was
Parliament? The wrangle of political parties over a paltry issue. It
had no real life in it; it had nothing of the fullness and breadth of
the matters that interested such people as had minds--imagination.
"You are tired," she cried at last. "It is thoughtless of me to keep
you out of your bed. You have had a weary night, I am sure. Was it the
Irish again, or the horrid teetotalers?"
"It was both, my dear," said he. "Phyllis," he added solemnly, "an
Irish teetotaler is a fearful thing."
"You shall forget all the intemperate teetotalers in a beautiful
sleep," said she, putting her arms around his neck. "Good-night, papa!
It was so thoughtless of me to keep you up. It is one o'clock."
"It appears to me that you are the one who should be ready to
succumb," said her father. "I had nothing to stimulate my imagination.
Practical politics has not yet discovered a good working reply to the
man who calls his fellow-man a liar, so the political outlook is not
very cheering."
"That is what is greatly needed: a satisfactory retort--verbal, of
course--to that every-day assertion."
"It has become the most potent influence in the House of Commons,
during the past year or two; and the worst of the matter is that the
statement is nearly always correct."
"Then there is all the greater need for a /modus vivendi/"--she had an
ample acquaintance with the jargon of diplomacy. "I don't despair of
Parliament being able to suggest an efficient retort."
"Parliament: two ragamuffins quarreling up an entry over a rotten
orange. Good-night, my child!"
She was at last in her own room: an apartment of gracious-tinted
fabrics and pink satin panels; of tapestried sofas made by French
artists before the lovely daughter of Maria Teresa went to her death.
She switched on the lights in the candle sconces, and threw herself
down upon one of the sofas. Her theater wrap and fan she had laid over
a chair.
It was not to the drama which she had seen superbly acted at the
Parthenon that her thoughts went out; but to the words which her
dearest friend had spoken when driving back from the theater.
What words were they?
She could not recollect them now; but she was still conscious of the
impression which they had produced upon her while they were being
spoken. That impression was that up to that instant all the issues of
her life had been unworthy of a moment's consideration. She had taken
what she believed to be a deep interest in many matters during the
five years that she had been the head of her father's house. She had,
she knew, been of the greatest help to her father in his political
life, not merely turning her memory to good account in discovering the
incautious phrases in the speeches of the men who were foolish enough
to be his opponents, but actually advising him, when he asked her, on
many matters about which the newspapers had been full. Then she had
taken an active part in more than one of those "movements" which
became the topic of a London season until compelled by an invisible
but all-powerful authority to move on and make way for the next new
thing. She had moved with every movement, and had proved her capacity
to control herself when the movement became uncontrollable. And then
she had thought how worthy a position in life would be that of the
wife of the rector of a church like St. Chad's.
That idea had remained with her, as had already been said, for some
months, until, to be exact in regard to the date, the other young
women, whom she had been watching with interest, had bought their
brilliant blouses with the newest and, consequently, most abnormal
sleeves, casting aside the sober-hued bodices which they had worn in
hope.
How paltry were all these aspirations, these undertakings!
That was what was dinning in her ears all the time Ella had been
talking in the carriage.
But why, why, why should all her previous interests, including the
consideration of the questions of orthodoxy and the other thing, seem
so ridiculously small while Ella was speaking?
That was the question which puzzled her. Had Ella shown her a way to
something better, something higher, something better worthy of the
aspiration of a woman? She could not say that that had been the drift
of her large discourse. What she had said had actually been puzzling
in its vagueness, its daring images--all images are vague; its
allegories--all allegories are indefinite.
And yet--and yet--and yet----
With a motion of impatience Phyllis sprang to her feet. After a pause
she went to a little satin-wood cabinet which she had turned into a
bookshelf, and took out her Bible. She had never slept a night for
years without reading a chapter; and in order to avert the possibility
of her own feelings or fancies of the moment making any invidious
distinction between the various component parts of a book which is
profitable in every line, she had accustomed herself to read the
chapters in consecutive order from The Genesis to The Revelation.
Sometimes, when she found herself face to face of a night with a
purely genealogical chapter, Phyllis of Philistia had difficulty in
crushing down her unworthy desire to turn to some chapter that seemed
to her frail judgment to contain words of wider comfort to the
children of men than a genealogical tree of the Children of Israel;
but she had never yielded to so unworthy an impulse. Who was she that
she should suggest that one part of the Sacred Book was calculated to
be more profitable than another? Was it not all the Bible?
She had plowed her way through the slough of Hebrew names upon these
occasions, and the blessing of the words had been borne to her in the
form of a sweet sleep.
Her chapter for this night was that which describes the campaign of
David, during which he and his hosts were besieged in their
earthworks, and how the three mighty men had made a sortie through the
camp of the enemy in order to obtain for their leader a cup of water.
She continued the chapter to the end, but all through it those words
were ringing in her ears:
"It is the price of blood; it is the price of blood."
And as she knelt down beside her bed, her bare white feet peeping out
from beneath the drapery of her white night-dress, in a posture that
would have made the most human atheist believe in the beauty of
devotion, those words were still in her ears: "The price of blood; the
price of blood."
Good Heavens! How could she carry that feather fan? How could Ella
Linton hold it up to her face--hold her face down to it, flutter its
fairy fluff upon her cheeks? It was the price of blood. Herbert
Courtland had run a greater risk to obtain those feathers than David's
mighty men had run to draw the water from the well. She had heard all
about the insatiable savagery of the natives of New Guinea. Paradise?
Who had named those birds the birds of paradise? She recollected how
the feathers which Ella had whirled about had held in the very center
of every wonderful disc of rich purple, edged with unequal radiating
lines of gold, a single spot of brilliant crimson, with a tiny star of
silver in the center. The effect of the sunlight glinting over this
combination on the thousand feathers that swept after the bird had
caused Herbert Courtland, the first white man who had seen this glory
of glories, to call it the meteor-bird. But those crimson drops: were
they not the blood of the men who had perished miserably while
endeavoring to wrest its marvels from the tropical forests of that
great island?
Paradise?
And Ella could treat those feathers as though they had been plucked
from a tame pheasant? And now she was lying in her bed with the fan on
the pillow beside her!
How could she do it? That was what the girl asked herself while she
lay awake on her own bed. Would Ella not see, on the white pillow
beside her head, the crimson stains of the feathers that had been
snatched out of the dripping red hand of death, but the man who had
not feared to grapple with death itself in that hell which people
called a paradise?
But the man, the man who had gripped death by the throat and had torn
the feathers from his grisly, fleshless fingers,--her imagination was
very vivid at night, especially after reading a thrilling chapter of
Hebrew massacre,--that man had talked with her upon such trifles as
books and plays, strange pageants enacted among paper and canvas
unrealities of life. She had actually been leaning against some of
these painted scenes while the man who had fought his way into the
depths of that forest which no white man but himself had yet
penetrated,--the man whose life had, day by day and night by night,
been dependent upon the accuracy of his rifle aim,--had talked with
her.
That was really the sum of all her thoughts. She did not try to recall
the words that he had spoken; it was simply the figure of the man who
had been before her that now remained on her mind. She did not stop to
think whether or not he had spoken as a man with intellect would
speak; whether he had spoken as a man whose orthodoxy was beyond
suspicion would speak. The question of his orthodoxy, of his intellect
(which may be just the opposite), did not occur to her. All she felt
was that she had been talking face to face with a man.
So that the result of her evening's entertainment, after she had read
her inspiring chapter in the Bible and said her bedside prayer, she
might have defined in precisely the same words as she had spoken to
her friend Ella when Ella had asked her, immediately on entering the
carriage, what she thought of Herbert Courtland.
"He is the bravest man in the world at present."
She did not fall asleep for a considerable time.
CHAPTER XI.
I'M AFRAID THAT I MUST HAVE PRINCIPLE ON MY SIDE.
"It is quite ridiculous, besides being untrue," said Phyllis, when she
had read the article in the newspaper to which her father called her
attention one morning, a week after the criticism on "Cagliostro" had
appeared. The article was headed:
"DYNAMITE VERSUS EVANGELIZATION,"
and it came out in a weekly paper devoted to the interests of
Nonconformists.
"It is with the deepest regret that we have to call the attention
of our readers and the public [the article ran] to the series of
charges brought by the Revs. Joseph Capper and Evans Jones, the
eminent pioneers of the Nonconformist Eastern Mission, against a
gentleman to whom a considerable amount of honor is just now being
given by the Royal Geographical Society, the Ethnological
Institute, the Ornithological Association, and other secular
organizations, on account of his exploration in the Island of New
Guinea. It is scarcely necessary to say that we allude to Mr.
Herbert Courtland. The position which has been occupied for
several years by the two distinguished ministers whose self
sacrifice in endeavoring to spread the Light through the dark
places of the tropical forests of a savage land is well known to
the subscribers to the N. E. M., precludes the possibility of a
mistake being made in this matter, and yet they declare in a
letter which we publish this morning that the manner in which Mr.
Courtland pursued his so-called explorations in the forests which
line the banks of the Fly River has practically made impossible
all attempts at mission work in that region. In several directions
it is not denied that Mr. Courtland entered into friendly
relations with some native tribes; but instead of endeavoring to
make the poor benighted creatures acquainted with the Truth, he
actually purchased as slaves over a hundred of them to aid him in
penetrating the Kallolu forest, where, it will be remembered, he
succeeded in shooting the much illustrated meteor-bird, as well as
several other specimens which will delight the members of the
Ornithological Association rather than professing Christians. Our
distinguished correspondents state, and we have no room to doubt
their word, that Mr. Courtland purchased his slaves by a promise
to assist the head man of their tribe against his enemies
belonging to another tribe--a promise which he only too amply
fulfilled, the result being an indiscriminate slaughter of savages
who, though avowed cannibals, might eventually have embraced the
truths of Nonconformity. The elephant rifles of the explorer did
their deadly work only too efficiently; but we trust that, for his
own sake, Mr. Courtland will be able to bring forward trustworthy
evidence to rebut the suspicion of his having upon at least one
occasion induced even the friendly natives to believe that he
possessed the power of the Deity to perform miracles, and upon
another occasion of having used dynamite against them by which
hundreds were destroyed in cold blood. It is the evil influences
of such irresponsible men as Mr. Courtland, whose ill-directed
enterprise we cannot in justice to him refrain from acknowledging,
that retard the efforts of those noble pioneers of Nonconformity
who have already made such sacrifices for the cause, and who
rejoice at the difficulties with which they find themselves beset.
We understand that a question will be put to the Minister for the
Annexation Department in the House of Commons toward the latter
end of the week, on the subject of the alleged excesses of the
most recent explorer (so-called) of New Guinea--excesses which if
committed in Bulgaria or Armenia, or even Ireland, would have
called for an expression of the horror of Christian Europe; and we
may mention that subscriptions on behalf of the Revs. Joseph
Capper and Evans Jones will be received at the office of this
paper to enable them to substantiate the truth of their
statements."
"It is quite ridiculous, besides being untrue, papa," cried Phyllis;
"and I hope that you will not fail to take his part and show the
falsehood of such accusations. Could anything be more absurd than that
about the slaves? Slaves! Dynamite!"
"Leading up to subscriptions--don't forget that," said her father. "If
subscriptions are to be forthcoming, they must be got up. Traffic in
human flesh, insults to aborigines, Siberia, the conversion of the
Jews--all these appeal directly to the pockets of the Great English
People. Any one of them will constitute an excellent peg on which to
hang an appeal to the pocket. Those two distinguished pioneers of--
well, shall we say civilization or Nonconformity?--understand their
business, my dear."
"It is no part of their business to try and hold a brave man up to the
execration of everyone."
"I'm not so sure of that. The technicalities of the mission field are
not so apparent all at once. The Vineyard--well, the system of vine-
culture of some of the organizations is a trifle obscure."
Phyllis became impatient.
"The House of Commons--a question is to be asked in the House. Then
you must ask another, papa, showing the nonsense of the first."
"Heavens above! Why should I be dragged into the quarrel, if it is a
quarrel, of Herbert Courtland on the one hand and the Reverends Joseph
Capper and what's the other, Smith--no, Jones--Evans Jones? I
shouldn't wonder if he is of Welsh extraction."
"You will surely not stand passively by and hear a brave man
slandered. That would be unlike you, papa. No; you are bound to
protest against the falsehood."
"Am I indeed? Why? Because the slandered man, if he is slandered, is
the friend of my daughter's friend?"
"Exactly--that's quite sufficient for you to go upon--that and the
falsehood."
"If it is a falsehood."
"If--oh, papa--if?"
"If I have your personal guarantee that the statements are
unsubstantiated----"
"Now, you are beginning to jest. I cannot jest on so serious an issue.
Think of it--slaves--dynamite!"
"Both excellent words for missionaries to send home to England--almost
equal to opium and idols from the standpoint of the mission-box."
Phyllis was solemn for a moment; then she burst into a merry laugh
that only wanted a note of merriment to be delightful. Her father did
not miss that note. He was thinking of another phrase.
"Now, why shouldn't you say that or something like that, my father?"
cried the girl. "Something to set the House laughing before the
Minister of the Annexation Department has had time to reply? You can
do it, you know."
"I believe I could," said Mr. Ayrton thoughtfully. "But why, my child;
why?"
"Why! Why! Oh, if one only said good things when there was a reason
for saying them, how dull we should all be! Any stick for a dog--any
jest is good enough for the House of Commons."
"Yes; but suppose it is inferred that I am not on the side of the
missionaries? What about Hazelborough?"
Hazelborough was the constituency which Mr. Ayrton represented in the
House of Commons.
"My dear father, where would you be if you couldn't steer through the
Hazelborough prejudices now and again? You can always say something so
good as to make people not care which way it cuts."
"What? Oh, Phyllis! I am ashamed of you. Besides, the people of
Hazelborough have got to be extremely sensitive. They have caught the
Nonconformist Conscience. The bacillus of the Nonconformist Conscience
was rampant a short time ago, and it has not yet been stamped out. I'm
afraid that I must have principle on my side--some show of principle,
at any rate--not so wide as a church door or so deep as a well, but
still----"
"And you will, too, papa. I'll see Ella and get her to find out from
Mr. Courtland what is the truth."
"Well, perhaps it mightn't be wise to rush into extremes all at once!
I wouldn't insist on the truth, if I were you. What's the House of
Commons that it should be cockered up with the truth? All that is
needed is enough to go on with. An electro-plating of veracity is in
keeping with the economic tendencies of the age."
"I am not afraid of the truth," cried Phyllis, without giving the
cynicism of her father the tribute of a smile. "Mr. Courtland would, I
know, be incapable of doing anything unworthy of--of----"
"Let us say an explorer," suggested her father. He knew that the word
which was in her mind was /Englishman/. She only checked herself when
her imagination caused her to perceive the average silk-hatted man
with his tongue in his cheek at the utterance of the phrase. "Let us
say 'unworthy of an explorer,' " repeated her father; "that is an
elastic phrase."
Phyllis was irritated.
"I have talked with him," she said a trifle coldly.
"Yes," said her father, "once."
"I should have said that I know Ella."
"And yet Ella is a woman!"
"Oh, the charges are too ridiculous! Slaves! What nonsense! We all
know what slavery is. Well, where are his slaves now? If he only hired
the natives for a month or two they were only servants, not slaves.
The thing is manifestly ridiculous."
"Then why should we trouble ourselves with the attempt to rebut it?"
"Because so many people are idiots nowadays," cried Phyllis warmly.
"Because, no matter how ridiculous a charge which is brought against a
distinguished person may be, some people will be found ready to
believe in its truth. Never mind; I'll find out the truth; I'll go to
Ella."
"The fountain-head indeed," said Mr. Ayrton. "When in search of the
truth, go to a woman."
"I will, at any rate," said Phyllis.
And she went thither.
CHAPTER XII.
DYNAMITE--SLAVE-DEALING--MASSACRES--ARMENIA!
Phyllis, of course, knew when to go to Ella with the certainty of
finding her at home. At the luncheon hour Mrs. Linton was always
visible to the three friends whom she had within the confines of
Mayfair. She considered herself blessed among women in the numerical
strength of her friendships; and so perhaps she was; she had three.
She was in one of her drawing rooms--the one that was decorated with
water colors set in fluted panels of yellow silk--not the one with the
pink blinds so beloved by those of her visitors who had reached an age
to regard a pink light as a woman's best friend. She was wearing a new
gown which Phyllis, in spite of her enthusiasm on behalf of a brave
man maligned, found admirable both as regards fabric, fit, and
fashion.
Then followed a word or two of commendation of the artists who had
been concerned in its production. They had not been absurd about the
sleeves, and they had not vetoed the sweep of lace--it was about half
a yard wide--which the person who occupied so insignificant a position
as is usually allocated to the mere wearer of the gown had suggested
for the bodice. The gown was an unequivocal success, and had Ella seen
the disgraceful article which had appeared in the /Spiritual Aneroid/
on the subject of Mr. Courtland's explorations?
Ella smiled a slow smile, as the question joined the congratulation
without the lapse of a breath.
"The /Spiritual Aneroid/? Who is the /Spiritual Aneroid/? What is the
/Spiritual Aneroid/?" she asked. "Oh, a newspaper. What could a
newspaper with such a funny name have to say about Mr. Courtland?"
"I have brought it with me," said Phyllis. "It is quite disgraceful.
I'm sure you'll agree with me."
"I'm certain of it."
Ella accepted the proffered paper and glanced down the article pointed
out to her by Phyllis. Phyllis' eyes were gleaming as she placed her
finger on the words, "Dynamite /versus/ Evangelization," but Ella's
eyes did not gleam while she was reading all the words printed beneath
the heading. She folded the paper and glanced carelessly at the name
at the top of the outside page and said, "Well?"
"Was there ever anything so disgraceful?" cried the girl. "Was there
every anything so false?"
"Is it false?" asked Ella.
"How can you doubt it? Do you fancy that Mr. Courtland would be a
slave-dealer?"
"I wonder how he'd look in the broad flat hat which appears in all the
pictures of the slave-dealers? Rather well, I fancy," said Mrs.
Linton.
"Oh, how can you talk of his looking well or ill when you read such an
attack upon him?" said Phyllis, jumping up with a charmingly rosy
face. "Surely it is something to you when so distinguished a man--your
friend as well--is attacked!"
"If we were traveling with him across the desert in a caravan, should
we mind much if the whole caravan were attacked by Bedouins or
missionaries or people of that stamp, my dear? Of course we shouldn't.
We should feel that he would be equal to the defense of all of us, and
himself as well."
"Oh, of course; but this is quite another thing, isn't it?"
"Where is the difference? If anybody minds the nonsense printed in
that thing, Herbert Courtland will certainly be able to defend himself
when called on to do so."
Phyllis seated herself once again.
"But a question is to be asked in Parliament about him?" she
suggested.
"And can you, the daughter of a member of that Parliament, honestly
tell me that you fancy that any human being minds how many questions
are asked about him in the Questionable House?"
"But the least breath of suspicion--dynamite--slave-dealing--massacres
--Armenia. Oh, the article is certain to be copied into dozens of
other papers--the public do so like to get hold of some scandal
against a man who has done something great."
"They do indeed. Would you suggest organizing a committee of ladies
for the protection of Mr. Courtland?"
"Don't talk nonsense, Ella. I though that you were his friend, and
that you would be as indignant as I was at that disgraceful attack
upon his reputation."
"I don't think that it will place his reputation in jeopardy, unless
with the readers of that paper, and they are not worth taking into
account, are they?"
"Papa says the thing has a large circulation among a certain class. I
want him to ridicule the question which is threatened in that article;
he knows how to do that kind of thing very well."
"Is it come to that, my Phyllis? Were you really so greatly interested
in the one conversation you had with him as to constitute yourself his
champion?"
Above all things Phyllis was truthful. She had never had an experience
of love--that passion which can change the most truthful of womankind
into the least scrupulous. There was no pause between Ella's question
and Phyllis' answer.
"Certainly the one conversation that I had with him interested me--I
told you so returning in the carriage. Has he never succeeded in
interesting you, Ella? He told me that you were his friend--I believe
he said his dearest friend."
"And I believe that he told you the truth," said Ella. "But, being his
best friend and a woman, I refrain from constituting myself his
champion. You see we live in Philistia, my Phyllis, and the champions
that Philistia sends forth usually come to grief; there was the case
of one Goliath of Gath, for example. I have no desire to have stones
slung at me by the chosen people."
"I'm not quite sure that I understand you," said Phyllis, with a very
pretty pucker on her forehead. "You don't mean to say that a woman
should not do her best for a man whom she knows to be maligned? You
don't suggest that she should stand silently to one side while people
are saying what's false about him?"
"I say that it's unwise in Philistia; though I admit that it is of the
greatest advantage to the man, for people at once cease maligning him
and take to maligning her."
"If she is any sort of a woman she will not mind that, however unjust
it may be. In this case, however, I don't think there is much risk:
even the most unscrupulous person could hardly say that--that----"
"That we were becoming Herbert Courtland's champions, because we were
in love with him?"
"Well, I don't know. Wasn't that what you meant to suggest people
would say of a woman who became a man's champion?"
"Something in that way. How straightforwardly you speak out what's on
your mind!"
"Oh, I'm a girl of to-day. I have got over all those absurd
affectations of childishness which used to be thought feminine long
ago. The gambols of the kitten were once thought the most attractive
thing on earth, and they are very interesting: but for the full-grown
cat to pretend that it is perfectly happy with a ball of worsted, when
all the time it has its heart set on a real mouse, is nonsense."
"That is an allegory, a subtle parable, Phyllis. But I fancy I can
interpret it. You are quite right. Men know that we, the full-grown
cats, take no interest in the ravelings of wool as mediums of
diversion--that we have our hearts set on mice. Oh, yes! it is much
better to be straightforward in our speech--it is even sometimes
better to be quite straight in our ways as well. It usually prevents
misunderstanding. There is scarcely a subject that women may not talk
about to men in the most direct way, nowadays. But about the question
of championship----"
Here the door of the room was thrown open and Mr. Herbert Courtland
was announced.
"I quite forgot to mention that Mr. Courtland was lunching with us
to-day, Phyllis," said Ella, while shaking hands with her visitor.
"Now you will have a chance of getting the slave-dealer's account of
the whole business. Are you a slave-dealer, Bertie? If so, why don't
you wear the usual broad-leaved hat of your order?"
"It is I who am the enslaved one," said Mr. Courtland, laying his hand
to the left of the buttons of his white waistcoat and bowing the bow
of the early years of the century, with a glance at each lady.
"What a pretty reminiscence of the age of artificiality!" said Ella;
"and what an apt commentary upon the subject we were talking about,
Phyllis! We were discussing the merits of directness in speech and
straightness in every way. We were ridiculing the timid maid--all
sandals and simper--of forty years ago. Why should men and women have
ever taken the trouble to be affected? Let us go in to lunch and eat
with the appetites of men and women of the nineties, not with the
nibblings of society of the fifties. Come along, Phyllis. Mr.
Courtland will tell us all about his dreadful goings on, his slave-
dealings, his dynamitings. Have you seen that article in the--what's
the name of the paper, Phyllis?"
"The /Spiritual Aneroid/," said Phyllis.
"I haven't been so fortunate," said he.
"Then we shall take the paper into the dining room with us, and place
it before you. If you were guilty of the doings that the article
details, you would do well to--to--well, to adopt the picturesque
costume incidental to ruffianism--the linen jacket of the slave-
trader, the mangy fur collar of the dynamity man of war. Have you ever
trafficked in human beings, Mr. Courtland?"
"Well, yes," said he. "I have done a little in that way, I admit."
"And dynamite--have you ever massacred people with dynamite?" Ella
continued.
"Well, when my dynamite exploded, the people who were in the immediate
neighborhood were never just the same afterward," said he.
"Finally, did you allow yourself to be worshiped as God?" she asked.
"Yes, I got them to do that," he replied. "I have experienced all
human sensations, including those of a god in working order."
"Then I hope you will make a good lunch. We begin with white-bait."
"I am quite satisfied to begin with white-bait," said he.
CHAPTER XIII.
EVEN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS DOESN'T MATTER MUCH.
"I did not intend to stay for lunch," said Phyllis, "but your
overpowering will swept me along with it, Ella. But I hope you will
let me say that I don't think you should jest about what is--what some
people at any rate think very serious."
"Phyllis is of Philistia," said Ella, "and Philistia was always given
to ordeal by champions. She thinks the attack made upon you by two
missionaries in their newspaper organ quite disgraceful. It doesn't
seem so disgraceful after all."
"I haven't seen the attack," said he. "But I feel it to be very good
of Miss Ayrton to think it disgraceful."
"Of course I thought it disgraceful," said Phyllis, "and I came to
Ella to talk it all over. The article accuses you of atrocities, and
said that a question would shortly be put to the Minister of the
Annexation Department in the House of Commons. Now, I know that there
is nothing my father enjoys more than snubbing those detestable men
who endeavor to get up a reputation for philanthropy, and temperance,
and bimetallism, and other virtues, by putting questions on the paper;
and he could, I think, ask some counter question in this particular
case that would ridicule the original busybody."
"It was very good of you to think so, Miss Ayrton," said he. "I can't
say that, personally, I mind all the attacks that all the missionaries
who earn precarious salaries in South Seas may make upon me; but I
must confess that I have a weakness for seeing busybodies put to
shame."
"You may depend upon Mr. Ayrton's satire," said Ella. "It never misses
the point in the harness. The barb of the dart is, I believe, Mr.
Ayrton's, the feather at the other end is Phyllis'."
"Only once that happened," said Phyllis. "Oh, no! papa manufactures
his own darts, from feather to tip."
"But supposing that the charges brought against me are true?"
suggested Mr. Courtland.
"Why, then, can't you see there is all the greater need for ingenuity
in your defense?" said Ella.
"It is impossible to think of the charges as true," said Phyllis
stoutly.
"For example?" said he.
"Well, the article said that you had made slaves of some of the
natives of New Guinea, purchasing them by a promise to help a native
chief against his enemies."
"There wasn't much harm in that: I did it," said he.
"And then it went on to say that you kept your promise," said Phyllis.
"What! They accused me of keeping my promise?" said he. "Well, I'm
afraid I can't deny that charge either."
"Did you really slaughter the natives?" cried Phyllis.
The interest which she felt appeared in her eyes.
"I did my best for the savages who had purchased my services," he
replied. "The campaign was not a protracted one. Two days after the
outbreak of hostilities brought things to a climax. We fought our
decisive battle--the Sedan of King Mubamayo. You see, I had a
trustworthy Winchester. I believe that about seventy of the enemy bit
the dust."
"Only seventy? That was unworthy of you, Mr. Courtland," cried Ella.
"Nothing short of thousands counts as a civilized battle. Seventy! Oh,
I'm afraid you don't do yourself justice."
"Of course a battle is a battle," said Phyllis stoutly. "If you hadn't
killed them they would have killed you. You were in the right, I'm
sure."
"I'm not so sure of that," said he, shaking his head. "To tell you the
truth, the elements of the crisis of Headman Glowabyola were somewhat
involved. The original dispute was difficult for a foreigner to
understand--it was, in fact, the Schleswig-Holstein question of
Kafalonga."
"You settled it, anyway," suggested Ella. "You were the Bismarck of
what's-its-name?"
"I doubled the parts of Bismarck and Von Moltke," said he.
"And that's why they worshiped you as their god? I don't wonder at the
heathen in his blindness doing that. Any man who was the same as
Bismarck and Von Moltke would certainly shoulder a deity out of his
way," laughed Ella.
"It so happened, however, that my deification was due neither to my
recognition as a diplomatist nor as a military strategist," said the
explorer. "No, they wanted something beyond the mere fighting man to
worship, and my knowledge of that fact combined with their paeans of
victory--to the /obbligato/ of a solid iron-wood drum beaten with the
thigh bones of the conquered--to keep me awake at night. But one
morning the headman came upon me when I was about to boil my kettle to
make myself a cup of tea. I had a small lamp that burned spirits, and
he stood by while I filled it up from the bottle that I carried with
me. He took it for granted that the spirit was water, and he was
greatly impressed when he saw it flare up as I applied a lighted match
to it. He asked me if I possessed the power to set water in a blaze,
and I assured him that that was something for which I had long been
celebrated; adding that when I had had my breakfast I meant to while
away an hour or two by setting fire to the ocean itself. He implored
of me to reconsider my decision, and when I had poured a little spirit
into the hollow of my hand and lighted it in the presence of his most
eminent scientists, they said that they also desired to associate
themselves with the headman's petition. I was, however, inexorable; I
walked down to the beach and had just struck a match on the brink of
the ocean when the whole tribe prostrated themselves around me,
promising to continue worshiping me if I would only stay my hand.
Well, what could I do? I weakly yielded and spared the multitudinous
sea from being the medium of what would in all likelihood have been
the greatest conflagration on record. From that moment, I'm happy to
say, they worshiped me as their supreme deity, and I'm bound to say
that I behaved as such; I was certainly the most superior class of god
they had ever had, and they gave me a testimonial to this effect in
case I might ever be looking out for a new situation."
"That was how you managed to get such a collection of birds, including
my meteor-bird," said Ella. "But Phyllis of Philistia is shocked at
the bare recital of such a tale of idolatry. Are you not, Phyllis?"
"I think I am a little shocked," said Phyllis. She did not say that
her first thought just then was that the feather fan was not, after
all, the price of blood: it was something much worse. "It was an
encouragement of idolatry, was it not, Mr. Courtland?"
"Scarcely," said he. "On the contrary, it was an honest attempt to
lead them from their idols to something higher and better."
"You are something higher and better," suggested Ella.
"Quite so; I am a little lower than the angels, but a good deal higher
than the awful image which they worshiped before I turned up," said
he. "The whole tribe admitted in the most honorable manner that I was
by far the best god they had ever had; they had not an unlucky day so
long as they worshiped me, and I retained my Winchester and a full
supply of cartridges."
"The testimony was flattering," said Ella. "But still Phyllis is
shocked."
"I am," said Phyllis. "I believe in God. Mr. Courtland believes in a
Principle."
"Anyhow, I led some thousands of savages from idolatry and cannibalism
to something higher, and that's a better record than most gods of my
acquaintance can show. Everything must be done gradually to be done
permanently. Nothing could be more absurd than the /modus operandi/ of
your missionary. Most of them have got rid of their Christianity to
make way for their theology. They endeavor to inculcate upon the
natives the most subtle points of their theological system,
immediately after they have preached against the wickedness of economy
in the matter of clothing."
"A large missionary work might be done among husbands at home,"
said Ella. "But what about the dynamite, that is the charge which
still hands over you--a charge of dynamite?"
"That was my worst hour," said Courtland. "I had gone up the Fly River
in my steam launch to a point never previously reached by a European.
I was fortunate enough to get some specimens that had never been seen
before, and I was returning to the coast. My engineer and I were
captured when ashore one night getting fuel for our furnace. They took
us into the forest a long way, binding our hands with the fiber of one
of the creepers, and I had no trouble whatever gathering that it was
their intention to make a feast of us--a sort of high tea, it was to
be, for they began brewing the herbs which I knew they used only when
they were cannibalizing. We were courteously permitted to watch these
preparations, for it was rightly assumed that they would be in some
degree interesting to us. We were, indeed, greatly interested in all
we saw, but much more so when, toward evening, a number of the natives
arrived on the scene carrying with them some of the stores which they
had found aboard the steam launch. They broke open with a stone
hatchet some tins of preserved meat, and seemed to enjoy the contents
greatly. The biscuits they didn't care for much, and the cakes of soap
which they began to eat could not honestly be said to be an entire
success as comestibles. But while we watched them at these /hors
d'oeuvres/ to the banquet at which we were expected to take a
prominent part, a straggler came up with some reserve supplies; I saw
them; tins of dynamite--we carried dynamite for blowing up the snags
that obstructed the narrower reaches of the river. We watched the
thieves crowd around the bearer of the tins, and we saw that the
general impression that prevailed in regard to them was that they had
come upon some of the most highly concentrated beef they had ever had
in their hands. When they laid the tins among the hot ashes of their
fires and began to break them open with their stone hatchets, my
engineer thought with me that all the interest there would be in the
subsequent proceedings could not possibly compensate us for the waste
of precious time which would be entailed by our remaining. We bolted
in spite of our fettered hands, but before we had got more than a
couple of hundred yards from the camp, there took place the severest
earthquake, coincidental with a thunderstorm and the salute of a
battery of a thousand heavy guns. We were whirled into the air like
feathers in a breeze, but managed to cling--our bonds being broken--to
some of the boughs among which we found ourselves. Shortly afterward,
a quarter of an hour or so, there came on the heaviest shower I had
ever experienced. Such a downpour of branches of trees, gnarled roots,
broken fruits, birds' feathers, mutilated apes of many species, and--
well, anatomical specimens! It went on and on until the boughs around
us were made into splinters and we were beaten to the ground with the
force of those missiles, all the dense forest around us echoing to the
shrieks of the lories and parrots, the monkeys and the wildcats."
"And now the missionaries," said Ella, after a pause.
"And what happened after that?" whispered Phyllis.
He shook his head.
"After that we came away," he said. "We couldn't see that there was
any need for us to stay loafing about the forest when we had our
business to mind in another direction. It took us two days, however,
finding our launch."
"And that is what the missionaries call your dynamite outrage against
the natives?" said Ella.
"So it would seem," said he. "I suppose they managed to get some
account of the business; one can't hush up a dynamite outrage even in
the interior of New Guinea."
"But what a gross misrepresentation of facts it was to say that you
had massacred the natives," cried Phyllis indignantly.
He laughed with a shrug.
"Oh, we must all live," he said.
"Unless those who treat tins of dynamite as though they were tins of
brawn," said Ella. Then turning to Phyllis she smiled.
Phyllis had no difficulty interpreting the smile.
"Yes," she said, "your opinion was quite correct: Mr. Courtland
doesn't care what people say, and it doesn't matter in the least what
they do say, or what falsehoods are spread abroad."
"Not in the smallest degree," said Ella. "Herbert Courtland is still
Herbert Courtland."
"But so far as I can gather," said Mr. Courtland, "all that the
missionaries said of me was substantially correct."
"Read the paper and you will see how detestably false all the charges
are," cried Phyllis, rising,--the servants had now left the room,--and
picking up the /Spiritual Aneroid/ from where Ella had laid it on a
chair.
Herbert Courtland had not yet opened it. He took it from her, saying:
"Thank you, Miss Ayrton. But I really don't see that it concerns me
very much whether or not the charges brought against me are true or
false. The matter is certainly one for the--the--ah--/Spiritual
Aneroid/ and its special /clientele/."
"But a question is to be asked about it in the House of Commons. I
said so just now," cried Phyllis.
"And even the House of Commons doesn't matter much," said Ella.
"That is what papa thought," said Phyllis meekly. "Only I know that if
Mr. Courtland thought it worth noticing, papa would be quite pleased
to put a counter question. That is why I came here to-day."
"It was so good of you," said the man.
"My Phyllis is all that is good. Let us return to the drawing room,"
said Ella, rising.
They returned to the drawing room; but when they had been in the
apartment for perhaps four minutes, certainly not five, Phyllis said
it was necessary for her to hurry home in order that the afternoon
letters should be sent to her father at the House.
With another word of appreciation of her kindness, Mr. Courtland held
her hand a second longer than was absolutely necessary to maintain a
character for civility.
"She is the most charming girl in the world," remarked Ella to the
visitor, who remained when Phyllis had left.
"Is she?" said he.
"I know it. Don't you?" asked she.
"How do I know?" he said. "I have thought nothing about it. If you say
she is charming, I am pleased to hear it. It matters no more to me
that the world is full of charming girls than that the kraken is still
at the bottom of the sea. One woman fills all my thoughts. My heart is
full of her."
"And you want her to risk the salvation of her soul for you?"
"Yes; that is just what I want."
He remained with her for another hour.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE HONORABLE MEMBER IS CLEARLY OUT OF ORDER.
Mr. Ayrton met his daughter the next morning with the good news that
he had found among his specimen cases of phrases, one that would
effectually silence the member from Wales who had been nominated by
the Nonconformist Eastern Missionary Society to put that question to
the minister of the Annexation Department on the subject of Mr.
Courtland, the explorer. Mr. Ayrton was the better pleased at his
discovery, because of the inoffensive nature of the phrase which he
had taken out of its case, so to speak. As a rule, he did not mind
being offensive if only his phrase was apt. Only people who had no
artistic appreciation found fault with the tone of some of his most
notable phrases. He did not mind whether they were just or unjust,
they said. As if a man can be both honest and witty at the same time!
It so happened, however, that the party to which Mr. Ayrton belonged
had become greatly concerned in respect of an element that had just
come to the surface to still further complicate the course of
politics. This was the Nonconformist Conscience--hitherto a /quantite
negligeable/ in the calculations of the leaders, but now one that it
appeared absolutely necessary to take into account as a factor. To be
sure, there were a good many people who put their tongues in their
cheeks when any mention was made of the Nonconformist Conscience: they
said it was no more to be taken seriously than the Spector on the
Brocken or the Athanasian Creed. It was only the trick of an
electioneering agent desirous of escaping from an untenable position.
There were other persons, however (mostly Nonconformists), who were
found ready to declare that the Nonconformist Conscience was a Great
and Living Truth. The only point upon which statesmen of all parties
were agreed was that it was worth purchasing. The Nonconformists
themselves, upon whom the Great and Living Truth was sprung, had no
notion at first that it could be turned into a negotiable security
occupying as high a place in the market as, say, Argentine bonds. But
it did not take them very long to find out that even an abstraction
such as this could be turned to good account by discreet maneuvering.
Truth sometimes is heard on an election platform, and yet truth is but
an abstract quality. Why, then should not a Great and Living Truth
become a regular gold mine to its inventor? It was as great an
invention as the art of electroplating, which it closely resembled,
and a quite as nice thing could be made out of it by a little
dexterous manipulation. If the conscience is silver, the Nonconformist
Conscience is at least electroplate of a first-class quality, it was
argued; and a political manifesto, which was practically a financial
prospectus, was issued with a view of floating the Nonconformist
Conscience Company, Limited.
English politics cannot by any possibility be regarded as an exact
science; and thus it was that all political parties were at this time
making bids for shares in the enterprise. The leaders of one party, in
fact, expressed themselves ready to buy up the whole concern, and they
actually tendered bills payable at twelve months for all the vendors'
interest, and it was only when these bills became due and were
returned dishonored that the shadowy character of the transaction was
made plain, and the country was convulsed at the disclosure of the
fact that the vendors had disposed of a perfectly worthless invention,
and that the purchasers had paid for it by promises that were equally
worthless.
All this happened later, however; when the fuss was made about the
atrocities by an explorer in New Guinea, and Mr. Ayrton was
contemplating a counter question that should cast ridicule upon the
missionaries and their champion, he was given to understand by the
leaders of his party, who, it was believed, had a small parcel of
baronetcies done up in official twine, with blank spaces for the name
and address in each, awaiting distribution at the first change of
Government, that he must take no step that might jeopardize the
relations of the party with the vendors of the Nonconformists
Conscience. The /Spiritual Aneroid/ was the leading Nonconformist
organ, and it would not do to sneer at the missionaries whom it
supported. It would be better that all the explorers who had ever
risked their lives on behalf of civilization should go by the board
than that a single vote should be lost to the party, he was assured by
the Senior Whip.
This was rather irritating to the artist in phrases; because it stood
to reason that the majority of his phrases were calculated to be
hurtful to his opponents. He was thus quite elated when he came upon
something which would, he felt sure, call comment in the press at the
expense of the member from Wales without casting any slight upon
Nonconformist Missionary enterprise.
He read out the thing to his daughter, and he was surprised to find
that she was not appreciative of its unique charm. This was rather too
bad, he felt, considering that it was she who had enlisted his
services in this particular matter.
"I don't think Mr. Courtland wants anybody to take his part in
Parliament or out of it," said she. "And that's why I think it would
be better to let that Mr. Apthomas ask his question without
interruption. What can the Minister of Annexation say except that he
has no information on the subject, and that if he had he could not
interfere, as he had no jurisdiction on the Fly River?"
"That is what he will reply as a matter of course," said her father.
"But that will not prevent the newspapers that are on the side of
Wales and the missionaries from saying what they please in the way of
comment on the atrocities in New Guinea."
"Mr. Courtland will not mind whatever they may say," cried Phyllis.
"That was the view I took of the matter in regard to Mr. Courtland's
attitude when you mentioned it to me at first," said he. "I didn't
suppose that he was the man to be broken down because some foolish
paper attacks him; but you were emphatic in your denunciation of the
injustice that would be liable to be done if--"
"Oh, I had only spoken for about half an hour to Mr. Courtland then,"
said Phyllis. "I think I know him better now."
"Yes, you have spoken with him for another half hour; you therefore
know him twice as well as you did," remarked her father. "I wonder if
he admitted to you having done all that he was accused of doing."
He saw in a moment from the little uneasy movement of her eyes that he
had made an excellent guess at the general result of the conversation
at Mrs. Linton's little lunch. He had not yet succeeded in obtaining
any details from his daughter regarding her visit to Ella. She had
merely told him that Ella had kept her to lunch, and that Mr.
Courtland had been there also.
"Yes. I do believe that he admitted everything," he continued, with a
laugh as he thought how clever he was. (He had frequent reasons for
laughing that laugh.)
"No," said Phyllis doubtfully; "he did not admit everything."
"There was some reservation? Perhaps it was melinite that he employed
for the massacre of the innocents of New Guinea, not dynamite."
"No; it was dynamite. But the natives had stolen it from his steam
launch and they exploded it themselves."
Mr. Ayrton lay back in his chair convulsed with laughter.
"And that is the true story of the dynamite massacre?" he cried. "That
is how it comes that, in the words of the /Aneroid/, the works of
evangelization on Nonconformist principles is likely to be retarded
for some time? The missionaries are quite right too. And what about
his miracles--they suggested a miracle, didn't they?"
"Oh, that was some foolishness about setting spirits of wine on fire,"
said Phyllis. "The natives thought that it was water, you know."
Mr. Ayrton laughed more heartily than before.
"That is the crowning infamy," he cried. "My dear Phyllis, it would be
quite impossible to allow so delicious a series of missionary muddles
to pass unnoticed. I think I see my way clearly in the matter."
She knew that he did. She knew that he regarded most incidents in the
political world merely as feeders to his phrase-making capacity. She
knew that it would be impossible to repress him now in the matter of
Courtland and the missionaries; she fully realized the feelings of
Frankenstein.
Only the weakest protest did she make against her father's intended
action; and thus when the day came for Mr. Apthomas' question, that
gentleman from Wales inquired, "If Her Majesty's Minister for
Annexations could give the House any information regarding the so-
called explorations of Mr. Herbert Courtland in the island of New
Guinea, particularly in respect of a massacre of natives by dynamite
in the region of the Fly River; and if it was true that the gentleman
just named had permitted himself to be worshiped as a god by the
aborigines of another region; and if Her Majesty's Minister for
Domestic Affairs was prepared to say that it was legal for one of Her
Majesty's subjects to assume the privileges and functions of a god,
and if the First Lord of the Treasury was prepared to communicate to
the House what course, if any, Her Majesty's government meant to adopt
with a view to the prevention of similar outrages in the same region
in the future?"
Mr. Ayrton rose before the Minister of the Annexation Department had
quite concluded his yawn, and said he trusted that he was in order
(cries of "Yes, yes," from those members who knew that the honorable
member had an enlivening phrase which he wanted to get rid of) in
inquiring, in connection with the same subject, if the right honorable
gentleman could inform the House if there was any truth in the report
current in financial and other circles that the object of the
explorations of Mr. Herbert Courtland was the discovery of a small
mammal of the porcine tribe, and if one of the Law Officers of the
Crown was prepared to assure the House that it would be contrary to
the provisions of the Companies Act, and the Companies Act Amendment
Act, to permit this New Guinea pig to assume the functions of the
director of Limited Liability Companies, whose directorate was largely
composed of members of both Houses of Parliament (great laughter from
honorable gentlemen who were aware that the Mr. Apthomas had no income
beyond the remuneration he received as a director of companies); and
if Her Majesty's Minister for Agriculture was prepared to state that
it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to prohibit the
introduction of, at any rate the males of the mammals just referred
to, considering the rapid increase in representative assemblies of the
English or Welsh bore---- (Great laughter, which prevented the
concluding words of the sentence being audible in the gallery.)
THE SPEAKER: Order! order! The honorable member for Hazelborough must
confine himself strictly to the issued raised by the honorable
gentleman from Wales. The honorable member for Hazelborough is only
permitted to follow the honorable gentleman from Wales by the
indulgence of the House.
MR. AYRTON: Sir, I bow to the ruling of the chair, and will continue
by inquiring if Her Majesty's Minister for the Public Worship
Department can state to the House if it is true that a newspaper
published within the Principality of Wales recently made the
announcement that the honorable member who had just made inquiries
regarding the exploration of Mr. Herbert Courtland, was the idol of
his constituents [Laughter, and cries of "Order!"], and if the right
honorable gentleman is prepared to state that the provisions of the
Idolatry Act are--
THE SPEAKER: The honorable member is clearly out of order. The
question of idolatry in Wales is not at present before the House.
MR. AYRTON: Sir, I give notice that next session I shall move a
resolution regarding idolatry in the Principality of Wales [Laughter
and cheers.]
The minister for Annexation was about to rise when
MR. MUDLARKY (Ballynamuck) asked if the introduction of the guinea
pigs would be prejudicial to the interests of the higher and nobler
Irish animal who, he would remind the Minister for Public Worship, was
not to be confounded with the herd whose example was clearly emulated
by the present government in seeking self-destruction by running down
a steep place into the sea. (Cries of "Order, order!") If there was
any doubt before, the honorable member continued, as to the influence
which was at work in that Gadarene herd, which assumed the functions
of Her Majesty's government, the sounds that now came from the
Treasury Benches would convince even the most skeptical that sacred
history is sometimes repeated by profane, but he could not compliment
the devils, who had the bad taste to--(Several honorable members here
rose amid the cheers of the Irish Members, and a scene of confusion
took place.)
THE SPEAKER [sternly]: Order, Order! The honorable member from
Ballynamuck must resume his seat. He is out of order. The question
before the House is not the good taste of demoniac visitants. I call
upon the right honorable gentleman, the Minister for the Department of
Annexation.
MR. McCULLUM (Blairpukey Burghs): Mr. Speaker, one moment. To save
time, will the right honorable gentleman say if the Highland Crofters,
whose land was stolen from them in order that the members of the Upper
House--
THE SPEAKER: Order! The Minister for the Department of Annexation.
MR. BLISTER (Battersea, Mid): Mr. Speaker, though I don't do any work
myself, I'm the representative of labor, only those contemptible
skunks, the workingmen, don't see that they have a man for a leader--a
man, that's me--that's Joe Blister. And as the Upper House has been
introduced, I'll run, eat, or swear with the best of that lot of tap-
room loafers; I'll do anything but fight them--except, of course, on a
labor platform, and if--
THE SPEAKER: The honorable member is out of order. The Minister for
the Department of Annexations.
THE MINISTER FOR ANNEXATIONS: No, sir; I have no information [Cheers
and laughter.]
The House then went into Committee of Supply.
CHAPTER XV.
BUT MR. COURTLAND---- AH, NEVER MIND!
Mr. Ayrton entertained his daughter with a description of the scene in
the House incidental to the annihilation of Mr. Apthomas. He rather
thought himself that his counter-question had been neat. He had been
congratulated on it by quite a number of his friends in the tea room,
and six messages had been delivered to him by representatives of the
press to the effect that if he could provide them with the exact text
of his counter-question they would be greatly obliged.
"They mean to report it in full?" said Phyllis. She had an ample
experience of the decimation of his questions as well as speeches by
the members of the press gallery. They had reduced it to a science.
"I am much mistaken if they don't comment on it as well," said her
father. "Poor Apthomas! he alone sat glum and mute while everyone
around him was convulsed."
"I hope that Mr. Courtland will not feel hurt at what has occurred,"
said Phyllis doubtfully.
"Mr. Courtland? Who is Mr. Courtland? What has Mr. Courtland to say to
the matter? What business is it of his, I should like to know."
"Well, considering that he was the original subject of the questions,
though I must confess that he didn't remain long so, I don't think it
altogether unreasonable to wonder what he will think about the whole
episode," remarked Phyllis.
"Ah, you always do take an original view of such incidents," said her
father indulgently. "It is so like a woman to try and drag poor
Courtland into the business. You ought to know better than to fancy
that any interest attaches to the original subject of a question in
the House. You'll be suggesting next that some credit should be given
to the youths who pass brilliant examinations in things, and that all
should not be absorbed by their grinders."
"I'm not so silly as that, papa," said she. "No; but Mr. Courtland----
Ah, never mind."
He did not mind.
It so happened, however, that several of the newspapers which
commented on the questions and counter-questions the next day
introduced the name of Mr. Herbert Courtland and his explorations;
though, of course, most attention was directed to what Mr. Ayrton's
party called the brilliant, and the other party the flippant, methods
of Mr. Ayrton. His reference to the New Guinea pig some thought a
trifle too personal to be in good taste, but if politicians refrained
from personalities and were punctilious in matters of taste, what
chance would they have of "scoring," and where would the caricaturists
be? The reputation of a politician is steadily built up nowadays, not
by consistency, certainly; not by brilliant rhetoric; not even by the
unscrupulous exercise of a faculty for organizing impromptu "scenes,"
but by the wearing of a necktie, or a boot, or a waistcoat that is
susceptible of caricature. A very ordinary young man has before now
been lifted into fame by the twists of his mustache, and another of
less than mediocre ability has been prevented from sinking in the
flood of forgetfulness by the kindly efforts of a caricaturist who
supported him by a simple lock on his scalp. Thus it was that Mr.
Apthomas found himself famous before a week had passed, through the
circumstance of being represented in the leading journal of caricature
as a guinea pig, flying, with the spoil of bubble boards of directors
under his arm, from the attack of a number of quaint-looking mammals
wearing collars inscribed "ACCURACY," "CORRECT BALANCE SHEETS,"
"LEGITIMATE SPECULATIONS," and other phrases that suggested the need
for the old guinea pig to give way to a new breed. Underneath the
picture was printed a portion of the counter-question of Mr. Ayrton,
and opposite to it were some verses with a jingling refrain that
everyone could remember, and which everyone quoted during the next few
days.
The firm of publishers who had been fortunate enough to secure the
issue of Mr. Courtland's new book were delighted. If Mr. Ayrton could
only have seen his way to introduce their names and their address in
his counter-question, their cup of happiness would have been complete,
they said. They managed, however, to induce the proprietors of a young
lady who was reputed to be the vulgarest and most fascinating of all
music-hall artistes, to introduce Mr. Courtland's name into one of the
movable stanzas of her most popular lyric: those stanzas which are
changed from week to week, so as to touch upon the topics which are
uppermost in the minds--well, not exactly the minds--of the public. It
is scarcely necessary to say that this form of advertisement is worth
columns of the daily papers; and if Mr. Courtland had only shown
himself appreciative of his best interests and had changed the title
of his book to "The Land of the New Guinea Pig," instead of "The Quest
of the Meteor-Bird," they would have gone to press with an extra
thousand copies.
But even as it was they knew that between the member of Parliament and
the music-hall young lady the sale of the book was a certainty. Their
calculations were not at fault. The publishers sent a liberal
subscription to the Nonconformist Eastern Mission, whose agents had
stimulated public curiosity in Mr. Courtland's new book by suggesting
that he had carried out, single-handed, one of the most atrocious
massacres of recent years; and a diamond brooch to the music-hall
young lady who had so kindly worked in the reference to the book after
dancing one of her most daring hornpipes in the uniform of a
midshipman; they doubled the lines of their announcements in the
advertising columns of the paper that had issued the cartoon of the
New Guinea Pig, and, finally, they sent a presentation copy of "The
Quest of the Meteor-Bird," to Mr. Ayrton.
Then, as everyone was humming the lines of the music-hall young lady:
"From the land of far New Guinea
Came a little pig-a-ninny,"
the daily papers were bound to give two-column reviews to the book on
the day of its publication; and as the rod which Moses cast down
before Pharaoh swallowed up the wriggling rods of the magicians, the
interest attaching to Mr. Courtland's book absorbed that which
attached to all the other books of the season, including "Revised
Versions," though the publishers of the latter moved heaven and earth
(that is to say, the bishop and the people's churchwarden) to get the
Rev. George Holland prosecuted. If either had been susceptible to
reason, and had got up a case against their author, the publishers
declared that Mr. Courtland's book would not have had a chance with
"Revised Versions." To be sure they admitted that the report that Mr.
Holland had been thrown over by the lady who had promised to marry him
had given a jerk forward to the sales; but when Mr. George Holland had
been so idiotically blind to his best interests and (incidentally) the
best interests of his publishers, as to contradict this suggestion of
incipient martyrdom, and thus an excellent advertisement had been
lost, and everyone was, in a week or two, talking about "The Quest of
the Meteor-Bird," while only a few continued shaking their heads over
"Revised Versions."
Meantime, however, Mr. Courtland thought it well to call upon Mr.
Ayrton in order to thank him for his kindness in replying in the House
of Commons so effectively to the questions put to the various
ministers by Mr. Apthomas; and Mr. Ayrton had asked Mr. Courtland to
dinner, and Mr. Courtland had accepted the invitation, Miss Ayrton
begging Mrs. Linton to be of the party, and Mrs. Linton yielding to
her petition without demur.
CHAPTER XVI.
WOULD IT BE WELL WITH MY HUSBAND?
It was on their way back from this little dinner-party that Mr.
Courtland confessed to Ella Linton that he had come to think of her
dearest friend as a most charming and original girl; she had never
once referred to his achievements in New Guinea, nor had she asked him
to write his name in her birthday book. Yes, she was not as other
girls.
"I'm so delighted to hear you say so much," said Ella. "Oh, Bertie!
why not make yourself happy with a sweet girl such as she, and give no
more thought to such absurdities as you have been indulging in?
Believe me, you don't know so well as I do in what direction your
happiness lies."
"I don't know anything about happiness," said he. "I don't seem to
care much, either. When I made up my mind to find the meteor-bird,
don't you suppose that there were many people who told me that, even
if it was found, it was quite unlikely that it would be more succulent
eating than a Dorking chicken? I'm sure they were right. You see, I
didn't go to New Guinea in search of a barndoor fowl. I don't want
domestic happiness, I don't want anything but you--you are my meteor-
bird. I found, after my first visit to New Guinea, that it was
impossible for me to rest until I had found the meteor-bird. I have
found that it is impossible for me to live without you, my beloved."
"You will have to learn to live without me," said she, laying her hand
upon his. They had now reached her house, so that no immediate reply
was possible. He did not attempt to make a reply until they had gone
into a small drawing room, and she had flung off her wrap. They were
alone.
Then he knelt on the rug before her and took both her hands in his own
--a hand in each of his hands--as they lay on her dress. His face was
close to hers: she was in a low chair. Each could hear the sound of
the other's breathing--the sound of the other's heart-beats. That duet
went on for some minutes--the most perfect music in life--the music
which is life itself--the music by which man becomes immortal.
"Do not hold me any longer, Bertie," said she. "Kiss me and go away--
away. Oh, why should you ever come back? I believe that, if you loved
me, you would go away and never come back. Oh, what is this farce that
is being played between us? It is unworthy of either of us!"
"A farce? A tragedy!" said he. "I want you, Ella. I told you that I
could not live without you."
"You want me? You want me, Bertie?" said she. Tears were in her eyes
and in her voice, for there was to her a passion of pathos in those
words of his. "You want me, and you know that it is only my soul that
shall be lost if I give myself to you. God has decreed that only the
soul of the woman pays the penalty of the man's longing for her."
"You soul shall be saved, not lost," said he. "At present it is your
soul that is in peril, when you give your sweetness to the man whom
you have ceased to love--ah! whom you never loved. You will save your
soul with me."
"I shall lose it for all eternity," said she. "Do you think that I
complain? Do you fancy for a moment that I grumble at the decree of
God, or that I rail against it as unjust?"
"You are a woman."
"I am a woman, and therefore you know I will one day be ready to lose
my soul for you, Bertie, my love. Oh, my dear, dear love, you say you
want me?"
"Oh, my God!"
He had sprung to his feet and was pacing the room before her.
"You say that you want me. Oh, my love, my love, do you fancy for a
moment that your longing for me is anything to be compared to my
longing for you?"
"My beloved, my beloved!"
His arms were about her. His lips were upon hers. She kissed him as he
kissed her.
Then she turned her head away so that his kisses fell upon her cheek
instead of her mouth. She turned it still farther and they fell upon
her neck--it was exquisite in its shape--and lay there like red rose-
leaves clinging to a carved marble pillar.
"Wait," she said. "Wait; let me talk to you."
She untwined his arms from about her--the tears were still in her eyes
as she tried to face him.
"Why should you still have tears?" said he. "If anything stood between
us and love, there might be room for tears, but nothing stands between
us now. I am yours, you are mine."
"That is the boast of a man who sees only the beginning of a love;
mine are the tears of a woman who sees its end, and knows that it is
not far off."
"How can you say that? The end? the end of love such as ours? Oh,
Ella!"
"Oh, listen to me, my love! I am ashamed of the part I have played
during the past six months--since we were together on the Arno, and
you are ashamed, too."
"I am not ashamed. I have no reason to be ashamed."
"No; you are not ashamed of the part you have played; but you are
ashamed of me, Bertie."
"Oh you? I--ashamed of you? Oh, my darling, if you talk longer in that
strain I will be ashamed of you."
"You are ashamed of me--I have sometimes felt it. A man with a heart
such as I know yours to be, cannot but be ashamed of a woman, who,
though the wife of another man, allows him to kiss her--yes, and who
gives him kiss for kiss. Oh, go away--go away! I have had enough of
your love--enough of your kisses, enough shame! Go away! I never wish
to see you again--to kiss you again."
She had walked to the other end of the room, and stood under a
Venetian mirror--it shone like a monstrous jewel above her head--
looking at him, her hands clenched, her eyes flashing through the
tears that had not yet fallen.
He had had no experience of women and their moods, and he was
consequently amazed at her attitude. He took a step toward her.
"No--no," she cried angrily. "I will not have any more of you. I tell
you that I have had enough. I find now that what I mistook for love
was just the opposite. I believe that I hate you. No--no, Bertie, not
that, it cannot be that, only---- Oh, I know now that it is not hate
for you that I feel--it is hate for myself, hate for the creature who
is hateful enough to stand between you and the happiness which you
have earned by patience, by constancy, by self-control. Yes, I hate
the creature who is idiotic enough to put honor between us, to put
religion between us, to put her soul's salvation between us."
"Ella, Ella, why will you not trust me?" he said, when she had flung
herself into a chair. He was standing over her with his hands clasped
behind him. He was beginning to understand something of her nature; of
the nature of the woman to whom love has come as a thief in the night.
He was beginning to perceive that she had, in her ignorance, been
ready to entertain love without knowing what was entailed by
entertaining him. "If you would only trust me, all would be well."
She almost leaped from her chair.
"Would it?" she cried. "Would all be well? Would it be well with my
soul? Would it be well with both of us in the future? Would it be well
with my husband?"
He laughed.
"I know your husband," he said.
"And I know him, too," said she. "He cares for me no more than I care
for him, but he has never been otherwise than kind to me. I think of
him--I think of him. I know the name that men give to the man who
tries to make his friend's wife love him. It is not my husband who has
earned that name, Mr. Courtland."
He looked into her face, but he spoke no word. Even he--the lover--was
beginning to see, as in a glass, darkly, something of the conflict
that was going on in the heart of the woman before him. She had
uttered words against him, and they had stung him, and yet he had a
feeling that, if he had put his arms about her again, she would have
held him close to her as she had done before; she would have given him
kiss for kiss as she had done before. It is the decree of nature that
the lover shall think of himself only; but had he not told Phyllis
that his belief was that Nature and Satan were the same? He was
sometimes able to say, "/Retro me, Sathana/"--not always. He said it
now, but not boldly, not loudly--in a whisper. The best way of putting
Satan behind one is to run away from him. Resist the devil, and he
will flee from you. Yes, but, on the whole, it is safer to show him a
clean pair of heels than to enter on an argument with him, hoping that
he will be amenable to logic. Herbert Courtland said his, "/Retro
me/," in a whisper, half hoping, as the gentlewoman with the muffins
for sale hoped, that he would escape notice. For a few moments he
ceased to think of himself. He thought of that beautiful thing before
him--she was tall, and her rosy white flesh was as a peach that has
reached its one hour of ripeness--he thought of her and pitied her.
He had not the heart to put his arms about her, though he knew that to
do so would be to give him all the happiness for which he longed. What
was he that he should stand by and see that struggle tearing her heart
asunder?
"My poor child!" said he, and then he repeated his words, "My poor
child! It would have been better if we had never come together. We are
going to part now."
She looked at him and laughed in his face.
He did not know what this meant. Had she been simply acting a part all
along? Had she been playing a comedy part all the while he was
thinking that a great tragedy was being enacted? Or was it possible
that she was mocking him? that her laugh was the laugh of the jailer
who hears a prisoner announce his intention of walking out of his
cell?
"Good-by," said he.
She fixed her eyes upon his face, then she laughed again.
He now knew what she meant by her laugh.
"Perhaps you may think that you have too firm a hold upon me to give
me a chance of parting from you," said he. "You may be right; but if
you tell me to go I shall try and obey you. But think what it means
before you tell me to leave you forever."
She did think what it meant. She looked at him, and she thought of his
passing away from her forever more. She wondered what her life would
be when he should have passed out of it. A blank? Oh, worse than a
blank, for she would have ever present with her the recollection of
how he had once stood before her as he was standing now--tall, with
his brown hands clenched, and a paleness underlying the tan of his
face. "The bravest man alive"--that was what Phyllis had called him,
and Phyllis had been right. He was a man who had fought his way
single-handed through such perils as made those who merely read about
them throb with anxiety.
This was the man of whom she knew that she would ever retain a memory
--this was the man whom she was ready to send back to the uttermost
ends of the earth.
And this was to be the reward of his devotion to her! What was she
that she could do this thing? What was she that she should refrain
from sacrificing herself for him? She had known women who had
sacrificed themselves to men--such men! Wretched things! Not like that
man of men who stood before her with such a look on his face as it had
worn, she knew, in the most desperate moments of his life, when the
next moment might bring death to him--death from an arrow--from a wild
beast--from a hurricane.
What could she do?
She did nothing.
She made no effort to save herself.
If he had put his arms about her and had carried her away from her
husband's house to the uttermost ends of the earth, she would not have
resisted. It was not in her power to resist.
And it was because he saw this he went away, leaving her standing with
that lovely Venetian mirror glittering in silver and ruby and emerald
just above her head.
"You have been right; I have been wrong," said he. "Don't try to
speak, Ella. Don't try to keep me. I know how you love me, and I know
that if I ask you to keep me you will keep me until you die. Forgive
me for my selfishness, my beloved. Good-by."
She felt him approach her and she felt the hands that he laid upon her
bare shoulders--one on each side of her neck. She closed her eyes as
he put his face down to hers and kissed her on the mouth--not with
rapturous, passionate lips, but still with warm and trembling lips.
She did not know where the kiss ended, she did not know when his hands
were taken off her shoulders. She kept her eyes closed and her mouth
sealed. She did not even give him a farewell kiss.
When she opened her eyes she found herself alone in the room.
And then there came to her ears the sound of the double whistle for a
hansom. She stood silently there listening to the driving up of the
vehicle--she even heard the sound of the closing of the apron and then
the tinkling of the horse's bells dwindling into the distance.
A sense of loneliness came to her that was overwhelming in its force.
"Fool! fool! fool!" she cried, through her set teeth. "What have I
done? Sent him away? Sent him away? My beloved!--my best beloved--my
man of men. Gone--gone! Oh, fool! fool!"
She threw herself on a sofa and stared at the Watteau group of
masquerading shepherds and shepherdesses on the great Sevres vase that
stood on a pedestal near her. The masks at the joining of the handles
were of grinning satyrs. They were leering at her, she thought. They
alone were aware of the good reason there was for satyrs to grin. A
woman had just sent away from her, forever, the bravest man in all the
world--those were Phyllis' words--a king of men--the one man who loved
her and whom she loved. She had pretended to him that she was subject
to the influences of religion, of honor, of duty! What hypocrisy! They
knew it, those leering creatures--they knew that she cared nothing for
religion, that she regarded honor and duty as words of no meaning when
such words as love and devotion were in the air.
She looked at the satyr masks, and had anyone been present in the
room, that one would have seen that her lovely face became gradually
distorted until the expression it wore was precisely the same as that
upon the masks--an expression that had its audible equivalent in the
laugh which broke from her.
She lay back on her broad cushions. One of the strands of her splendid
hair had become loose, and after coiling over half a yard of the
brocaded silk of a cushion, twisted its way down to the floor. She lay
back, pointing one finger at the face on the vase and laughing that
satyr-laugh.
"We know--we know--we know!" she cried, and her voice was like that of
a drunken woman. "We know all--you and I--we know the hypocrisy--the
pretense of religion--of honor--duty--a husband! Ah, a husband! that
is the funniest of all--that husband! We know how little we care for
them all."
She continued laughing until her cushion slipped from under her head.
She half rose to straighten it, and at that instant she caught a
glimpse of her face in the center silvered panel of the Venetian
mirror. The cry of horror that broke from her at that instant seemed
part of her laugh. It would not have occurred to anyone who might have
heard it that it was otherwise than consistent with the incongruity,
so to speak, of the existing elements of the scene. The hideous leer
of the thing with horns, looking down at the exquisite picture of the
/fete champetre/--the distorted features of the woman's face in the
center of the ruby and emerald and sapphire of the Venetian mirror--
the cry of horror mixed with the laugh of the woman who mocked at
religion and honor and purity--all were consistently incongruous.
In another instant she was lying on the sofa with her face down to the
cushion, trying to forget all that she had seen in the mirror. She
wept her tears on the brocaded silk for half an hour, and then she
slipped from where she was lying till her knees were on the floor.
With a hand clutching each side of the cushion she got rid of her
passion in prayer.
"Oh, God! God! keep him away from me! keep him away from me!" was her
prayer; and it was possibly the best that she could have uttered.
"Keep him away from me! keep him away from me! Don't let my soul be
lost! Keep him away from me!"
When she struggled to her feet, at last, she stood in front of the
mirror once again.
She now saw a face purified of all passion by tears and prayer, where
she had seen the soulless face of a Pagan's orgy.
She went upstairs to her bed and went asleep, thanking God that she
had had the strength to send him away; that she had had strength
sufficient to stand where she had stood in the room, silent, while he
had put his arms on her bare shoulders and kissed her on the mouth,
saying "Good-by."
She felt that she had every reason to thank God for that strength, for
she knew that it had been given to her at that moment; it had not
sprung from within her own heart; her heart had been crying out to
him, "Stay, stay, stay!" her heart took no account of honor or purity
or a husband.
Yes, she felt that the strength which had come to her at that moment
had been the especial gift of God, and she was thankful to God for it.
That consciousness of gratitude to God was her last sensation before
falling asleep; and, when morning came, her first sensation was that
of having a letter to write. Before she had breakfasted she had
written her letter and sent it to be posted.
This was the letter:
"MY ONE LOVE: I was a fool--oh, such a fool! How could I have done
it? How could I have sent you away in such coldness last night?
Believe me, it was not I who did it. How could I have done it? You
know that my love for you is limitless. You know that it is my
life. I tell you that my love for you laughs at such limits as are
laid down by religion and honor. Why should I protest? My love is
love, and there can be no love where there are any limits.
"Come to me on Thursday. I shall be at home after dinner, at nine,
and see if I am not now in my right mind. Come to me; come to me,
Bertie, my love."
CHAPTER XVII.
WHAT AM I THAT I SHOULD DO THIS THING?
"At last!"
He sat with the letter before him after he had breakfasted, and
perhaps for a time, say a minute or so, he caught a glimpse of the
nature of the woman who had written those lines to him. If he had not
had some appreciation of her nature he would have spent an hour or two
--perhaps a day or two--trying to reconcile her attitude of the
previous night with the tone of her letter. He did not, however, waste
his time over such an endeavor. He knew that she loved him, and that
she did not love her husband. He knew that she had allowed him to kiss
her, and it had been a puzzle to him for some months why she had not
come to his arms forever--he meant her to be his own property forever.
He had been amazed to hear her allude, as she had done on the previous
night, to such abstractions as honor, religion, her husband. He could
not see what they had to do with the matter in hand. He could not see
why such considerations should be potent to exercise a restraining
influence on the intentions of a man and a woman who love each other.
Well, now it would appear that she had cast to the winds all such
considerations as she had enumerated, and was prepared to live under
the rule of love alone, and it was at his suggestion she was doing so.
For a moment or two he saw her as she was: a woman in the midst of a
seething ocean, throwing up her hands and finding an absolute relief
in going down--down--down into very hell. For a moment or two his
heart was full of pity for her. Who could be a spectator of a woman's
struggles for life in the midst of that turbulent sea of passion which
was overwhelming her, and refrain from feeling pity? That letter which
lay before him represented the agonizing cry of a drowning creature;
one whom the long struggle has made delirious; one who looks forward
to going down with the delight born of delirium.
He recollected a picture which he had once seen--the picture of a
drowning woman. He saw it now before him with hideous vividness, and
the face of the woman was the face of Ella Linton. The agony of that
last fight with an element that was overpowering, overwhelming in its
ruthless strength, was shown upon every feature, and his soul was
filled with pity.
He sprang to his feet and crushed the letter into his pocket. He felt
none of the exultation of the huntsman--only sadness at the fate of
the hunted thing that lay at his feet. Once before the same feeling
had come over him. It was when, after the long struggle up the river,
through the forests, swamps, jungle grass that cut the body of a man
as though it were sharp wire, he fired his shot and the meteor-bird
fell at his feet. After the first few panting breaths that came to him
he had stood leaning on his gun, looking down at that beautiful thing
which he had deprived of life.
"What am I that I should have done this thing?" he had asked himself
on that evening, while the blacks had yelled around him like devils.
"What am I that I should do this thing?" was his cry now, as the voice
of many demons sounded in his ears.
What was he that he should rejoice at receiving that letter from the
woman over whose head the waters were closing?
He ordered his horse and, mounting it, rode to where he could put it
to the gallop. So men try to leave behind them the sneering demons of
conscience and self-reproach. Some of them succeed in doing so, but
find the pair waiting for them on their own doorstep. Herbert
Courtland galloped his horse intermittently for an hour or two, and
then rode leisurely back to his rooms. He felt that he had got the
better of those two enemies of his who had been irritating him. He
heard their voices no longer. He had lost them (he fancied), because
there had come to him another voice that said:
"I love her--I love her."
And whensoever that voice comes to a man as it came to Herbert
Courtland it drowns all other voices. He would love her to the end of
his life. Their life together would be the real life for which men and
women have come into the world. He would go to her, and so far from
allowing her to sink beneath the waters down to hell, his arms would
be around her to bear her up until--well, is it not generally conceded
that love is heaven and heaven is love?
He seated himself at a desk and wrote to her an impassioned line. He
would go to her, he said. If death should come to him the next day he
would still thank God for having given him an hour of life.
That was what he said--all. It expressed pretty well what he felt he
should feel. That reference to God she would, of course, understand.
God was to him a Figure of Speech. He had said as much to Phyllis
Ayrton. But then he had said that he had regarded God to mean the
Power by which men were able (sometimes) successfully to combat the
influences of nature. But had he not just then made up his mind to
yield to that passion which God, as a Principle, has the greatest
difficulty in opposing? Why, then, should he expect that Ella would
understand precisely what he meant in saying that he would thank God
for his hour of life, his hour of love?
He would have had considerable difficulty in explaining this apparent
discrepancy between his scheme of philosophy and his life as a man,
had Phyllis asked him to do so; and Phyllis would certainly have asked
him to do so had she become acquainted with the contents of his letter
to her friend Ella; though Phyllis' father, having acquired some
knowledge of men as well as of phrases, would not have asked for any
explanation, knowing that a man's philosophy is, in its relation to a
man's life, a good deal less important than the fuse is to a bomb. He
would have known that a scheme of philosophy no more brings wisdom
into a man's life than a telescope brings the moon nearer to the
earth. He would have known that for a man to build up a doctrine of
philosophy around himself, hoping that the devil will keep on the
other side of the paling, is as ridiculous as it is to raise a
stockade of roses against a tiger.
Herbert Courtland, however, thought neither of philosophical
consistency nor of the advantages of having on one's side a sound
Principle. He thought of the stockade of roses, not to keep out the
beast but to keep love in. They would live together in the midst of
roses forever, and though each might possibly lose something by the
transaction, yet what they might lose was nothing compared to what
they should certainly win. Of that he was certain, and therefore he
posted his impassioned line with a light heart.
That was on Tuesday. He had still two days that he might employ
thinking over the enterprise to which he was committed; and he
certainly made the most of his time in this direction. Now and again,
as he thought of what was in store for him--for her--he felt as if he
were lifted off the earth, and at other times he felt that he was
crushed into the earth--crushed into it until he had become incapable
of any thought that was not of the earth, earthy. At such moments he
felt inclined to walk down to the docks and step aboard the first
vessel that was sailing eastward or westward or northward or
southward. Then it was that he found but the scantiest comfort in the
consideration of the loveliness of love. Glorifying life! No,
corrupting life until life is more putrid than death.
That was what love was--something to fly from. But still he did not
fly from the vision that came to him when he found himself alone after
spending the evenings in brilliant company--a vision of the lovely
woman who was waiting for him! What had she said? Her soul--her soul
would be lost forevermore?
Well, that showed that she was a woman, at any rate, and he loved her
all the better for her womanliness. He knew very well that if God is a
Figure of Speech with men, the losing of a soul is a figure of speech
with women. The expression means only that they have lost the chance
of drinking a number of cups of tea in drawing rooms whose doors are
now shut to them. That was what Ella meant, no doubt. If she were
openly to set at defiance certain of those laws by the aid of which
society was kept together with a moderate degree of consistency, she
would be treated as an outlaw.
After all, such a fate was not without its bright side. Some happiness
may remain to human beings in that world which is on the hither side
of London drawing rooms; and it would be his aim in life to see that
she had all the happiness that the world could give her.
Pah! He felt his sentiment becoming a trifle brackish. He loved her,
and she loved him. That was more than all the laws and the profits of
society to them. That was the beginning and the end of the whole
matter--the origin of the sin (people called it a sin) and the
exculpation of the sinners. There was nothing more to be said or
thought about the matter. Those who loved would understand. Those who
did not understand would condemn, and the existence of either class
was of no earthly importance to himself or to Ella.
When he awoke on the Thursday morning the feeling of exultation of
which he was conscious was not without a note of depression. So it had
been when the object of his explorations in New Guinea had been
attained, and he looked down at that exquisite thing--that dead
splendor at his feet.
He wondered if the attainment of every great object which a man may
have in life brings about a feeling of sadness that almost neutralizes
the exultation. As he picked up his letters he had a fear that among
them there might be one from Ella, telling him that she had come to
the conclusion that she had written too hastily those lines which he
had received on Tuesday--that, on consideration, she was unwilling to
lose her soul for love of him.
No such letter, however, was among his correspondence. (Could it be
possible that he was disappointed on account of this?) He received an
intimation from Berlin of the conferring of an order upon him in
recognition of his exploration of a territory in which Germany was so
greatly interested. He received an intimation from Vienna that a gold
medal had been voted to him by one of the learned societies in
recognition of his contributions to biological science. He received an
intimation from his publishers that they had just gone to press with
another thousand (the twelfth) of his book, and he received thirteen
cards of invitation to various functions to take place in from three
to six weeks' time, but no line did he receive from Ella.
She was his forever and ever, whether her soul would be lost or saved
in consequence.
He rather thought that it would be lost; but that did not matter. She
was his forever and ever.
CHAPTER XVIII.
HERBERT COURTLAND IS A MAN WHO HAS LIVED WITH HONOR.
It was a long day.
Toward evening he recollected that he had to leave cards upon his host
and hostess of the Monday previous, but it was past six o'clock when
he found himself at the top of the steps of Mr. Ayrton's house. Before
his ring had been responded to a victoria drove up with Phyllis, and
in a moment she was on the step beside him.
She looked radiant in the costume which she was wearing. He thought he
had never seen a lovelier girl--he was certain that he had never seen
a better-dressed girl. (Mr. Courtland was not clever enough to know
that it is only the beautiful girls who seem well dressed in the eyes
of men.) There was a certain frankness in her face that made it very
interesting--the frankness of a child who looks into the face of the
world and wonders at its reticence. He felt her soft gray eyes resting
upon his face, as she shook hands with him and begged him to go in and
have tea with her. He felt strangely uneasy under her eyes this
evening, and his self-possession failed him so far as to make it
impossible for him to excuse himself. It did not occur to him to say
that he could not drink tea with her on account of having an
appointment which he could not break through without the most
deplorable results. He felt himself led by her into one of her drawing
rooms, and sitting with his back to the window while her frank eyes
remained on his face, asking (so he thought) for the nearest approach
to their frankness in response, that a man who has lived in the world
of men dare offer to a maiden whose world is within herself.
"Oh, yes! I got the usual notification of the Order of the Bald
Eagle," said he, in reply to her inquiry. "I shall wear it next my
heart until I die. The newspapers announced the honor that had been
done to me the same morning."
"You cannot keep anything out of the papers," said Phyllis.
"Even if you want to--a condition which doesn't apply to my case,"
said he. "My publishers admitted to me last week that they wouldn't
rest easy if any newspaper appeared during the next month without my
name being in its columns in some place."
"I'm sure they were delighted at the development of the /Spiritual
Aneroid's/ attack upon you," said Phyllis.
"They told me I was a made man," said he.
She threw back her head--it was her way--and laughed. Her laughter--
all the grace of girlhood was in its ring; it was girlhood made
audible--was lightening her fair face as she looked at him.
"How funny!" she cried. "You fight your way through the New Guinea
forests; you are in daily peril of your life; you open up a new
country, and yet you are not a made man until you are attacked by a
wretched newspaper."
"That is the standpoint of the people who sell books, so you may
depend upon its being the standpoint of the people who buy books,"
said he.
"I can quite believe it," said she. "Mr. Geraint, the novelist, took
me down to dinner at Mrs. Lemuel's last night, and he told me that the
only thing that will make people buy books is seeing the author's
portrait in some of the illustrated papers, or hearing from some of
the interviews which are published regarding him that he never could
take sugar in his coffee. The reviews of his books are read only by
his brother authors, and they never buy a book, Mr. Geraint says; but
the interviews are read by the genuine buyers."
"Mr. Geraint knows his public, I'm sure."
"I fancy he does. He would be very amusing if he didn't aim so
persistently at going one better than someone else in his anecdotes.
People were talking at dinner about your having massacred the natives
with dynamite--you did, you know, Mr. Courtland."
"Oh, yes; I have admitted so much long ago. There was no help for it."
"Well, of course everyone was laughing when papa told how the massacre
came about, and this annoyed Mr. Geraint and induced him to tell a
story about a poor woman who fancied that melinite was a sort of food
for children that caused their portraits to appear in the
advertisements; so she bought a tin of it and gave it all to her
little boy at one meal. It so happened, however, that he became
restless during the night and fell out of his cradle. That happened a
year ago, Mr. Geraint said, and yet the street isn't quite ready for
traffic yet."
"That little anecdote of Mr. Geraint makes me feel very meek. If at
any time I am tempted to think with pride upon my dynamite massacre, I
shall remember Mr. Geraint's story, and hang my head."
"We were all amused at Mr. Geraint's lively imagination, but much more
so when Mr. Topham, the under-secretary, shook his head gravely, and
said in his most dignified manner, that he thought the reported
occurrence--the melinite incident--quite improbable. He was going on
to explain that the composition of the explosive differed so
materially from that of the food that it would be almost impossible
for any mother to take the one for the other, when our hostess rose."
"Mr. Topham must have been disappointed. As a demonstrator of the
obvious he has probably no equal even among the under-secretaries. You
discussed him pretty freely in the drawing room afterward, I may
venture to suggest."
"No; we discussed you, Mr. Courtland."
"A most unprofitable topic. From what standpoint--dynamite massacres?"
"From the standpoint of heredity, of course. Can you imagine any topic
being discussed in a drawing room, nowadays, from any other
standpoint? There was a dear old lady present, Mrs. Haddon, and she
said she had been a friend of your mother's."
"So she was; I recollect her very well. I should like to go see her."
"She told us a great deal about your mother, and your sister--a sister
to whom you were greatly attached."
Phyllis' voice had become low and serious; every tone suggested
sympathy.
"I had such a sister," said he slowly. His eyes were not turned toward
her. They were fixed upon a little model of St. Catherine of Siena,--a
virgin among the clouds,--which was set in the panel of an old cabinet
beside him. "I had such a sister--Rosamund; she is dead."
"Mrs. Haddon told us so," said Phyllis. "She talked about your mother,
and your sister, and of the influence which they had had upon your
life--your career."
"They are both dead," said he.
"They did not live to see your triumph; that is what your tone
suggests," said she. "That is what Mrs. Haddon said--the tears were in
her eyes--last night, Mr. Courtland. I wish you could have heard her.
I wish you could have heard what she said when someone made a
commonplace remark as to how sad it was they were dead."
"What did she say, Miss Ayrton?"
"She said, 'No, no; please do not talk about death overtaking such as
they. The mother, who transmits her nature to the son, renews her life
in him; it is not he, but his mother, who lives.' And then she asked,
'Do you suppose that Herbert Courtland ever sets out on any of his
great enterprises without thinking of his mother and sister, without
feeling that he must do something worthy of them, something for their
sake? And you talk of them as if they were dead--as if they had passed
away forever from the concerns of earth!' That is what she said, Mr.
Courtland."
He had bent forward on his low seat, and was leaning his head on one
of his hands. He had his eyes fixed on the parquet of the floor. He
was motionless. He did not speak a word.
"Mrs. Haddon said something more," Phyllis continued, after a pause.
Her voice had fallen still another tone. " 'Yes,' she said, as if
musing, 'dead--dead! A man is as his mother has made him. He is with
her from the moment she loves his father. She is evermore thinking of
him; he is precious to her before the mystery of his birth is revealed
to her. He grows up by her side, and loves her because he knows that
she understands him. She does understand him, and she understands his
father better by understanding her son.' She said that, Mr. Courtland,
and I felt that she had spoken one of the greatest truths of this
mysterious life of ours. Then she said, 'Herbert Courtland is a man
who has lived with honor to himself, with honor to the memory of his
mother, and of his sister, whom he loved. He is a man, and he has not
merely attained distinction in the world; if he is without fear, he is
also without reproach; and ask him if he has not been strengthened in
his fight with whatever of base may have risen up within him, being a
man, from day to day, by the thought that his sister is one with him;
that his purity of heart and of act is the purity of his mother and
his sister, upon which no stain must ever come.' That was all she
said, Mr. Courtland."
There was a long pause after she had spoken. He sat there with his
head bent, his fingers interlaced. He had his eyes fixed upon the
floor. His cup of tea stood untasted beside him on a little Algerian
table.
And she--as she looked at him her soft eyes became dim with tears. She
knew that the words which she had spoken, the words which she had
repeated as they were spoken by the lady whom she had met the previous
night, had awakened many memories within him. She too had her
memories. She knew that there was a certain gratefulness in the midst
of the bitterness of such memories.
That was all she knew.
And the tears continued to well up to her eyes until she was aware
that he had risen from his seat and was standing in front of her. She
drew her hand across her eyes. She saw a movement in his lips. They
were trembling, but no sound came from them. The hand that he
stretched out to her was trembling also. She put her own into it. He
held her hand tightly for a moment, then dropped it suddenly and
almost fled from the room, without uttering a word.
For a few moments she stood where he had left her, and then she went
to a sofa and seated herself upon it. The tears that had come to her
eyes before, now began to fall; she thought, girl that she was, that
she could understand what were the feelings of the man who had just
parted from her. She thought that he was overcome at the reflection
that the distinction which he had won in the world could not be shared
by those whom he loved, those who would have valued far more than he
did the honor that was being done to him.
The pity of it! Oh, the pity of it!
Ella had told her one day when they had talked together about Herbert
Courtland, that he had no relation alive, that he stood alone in the
world. The information had not meant much to her then; but when she
had heard Mrs. Haddon speak on the previous evening about his
attachment to his mother and his sister, she remembered what Ella has
said, and her heart was full of pity for him. She had made up her mind
to tell him all that Mrs. Haddon had said, for surely more sympathetic
words had never been spoken; and her opportunity had come sooner than
she expected. Their chat together had led naturally up to Mrs. Haddon,
and she had been able to repeat to him almost word for word all that
his mother's friend had said.
Her heart felt for him. Surely the sweetest reward that can come to a
man who has toiled and fought and conquered was denied to the man who
had just parted from her. He had toiled and conquered; but not for him
was the joy of seeing pride on the face of those who claimed him as
their kin. His father had been killed when he had charged with a
brigade through the lines of a stubborn enemy--everyone knew the
story. His mother and sister had died when he was beginning to make a
name for himself. He had gone forth from the loneliness of his home to
the loneliness of the tropical forest; and he had returned to the
loneliness of London.
She felt that she had done well to repeat to him the words of his
mother's friend. Those words had affected him deeply. They could not
but be a source of comfort to him when he was overwhelmed with the
thought of his loneliness. They would make him feel that his position
was understood by some people who were able to think of him apart from
the great work which he had accomplished.
Thus the maiden sat musing in the silent room after she had dried her
tears of pity for the man who an hour before had sauntered up to her
door thinking, not of the melancholy isolation of his position in the
world, but simply that two hours of the longest day of his life must
pass before he could kiss the lips of the woman who had given herself
up to him.
Her maid found her still seated on the sofa, and ventured to remind
her that time was fugitive, and that if mademoiselle still retained
her intention of going to Lady Earlscourt's dinner party,--Lady
Earlscourt was giving a dinner party apparently for the purpose of
celebrating her husband's departure for a cruise in Norwegian fjords
in his yacht,--it would be absolutely necessary for mademoiselle to
permit herself to be dressed without delay.
Phyllis sprang up with a little laugh that sounded like a large sigh,
and said if Fidele would have the kindness to switch on the lights in
the dressing room, she would not be kept waiting a moment.
The maid hurried upstairs, and mademoiselle repaired to an apartment
where she could remove, so far as was possible, the footmarks left by
those tears which she had shed when she had reflected upon the
loneliness to which Mr. Herbert Courtland was doomed for (probably)
the remainder of his life.
Mademoiselle had a dread of the acuteness of vision with which her
maid was endowed. She was not altogether sure that Fidele would be
capable of understanding the emotion that had forced those tears to
her eyes.
But that was just where she was wrong. Fidele was capable of
understanding that particular emotion a good deal better than
mademoiselle understood it.
CHAPTER XIX.
THEY HAVE SOULS TO BE SAVED.
When Lord Earlscourt was at home the only two topics that were
debarred from the dinner table were religion and politics; but when
Lord Earlscourt was absent these were the only two topics admitted at
the dinner table. Lady Earlscourt had views, well-defined, clearly
outlined, on both religion and politics, and she greatly regretted
that there still remained some people in the world who held other
views on both subjects; it was very sad--for them; and she felt that
it was clearly her duty to endeavor by all the legitimate means in her
power--say, dinner parties for eight--to reduce the number of these
persons. It was rumored that in the country she had shown herself
ready to effect her excellent object by illegitimate means--say, jelly
and flannel petticoats--as well.
She wore distinctly evangelical boots, though, in the absence of her
husband, she had expressed her willingness to discuss the advantages
of the confessional. She had, however, declined, in the presence of
her husband, to entertain the dogma of infallibility: though she
admitted that the cardinals were showy; she would have liked one about
her house, say, as a footman. She thought there was a great deal in
Buddhism (she had read "The Light of Asia" nearly through), and she
believed that the Rev. George Holland had been badly treated by
Phyllis Ayrton. She admitted having been young once--only once; but no
one seemed to remember it against her, so she was obliged to talk
about it herself, which she did with the lightness of a serious woman
of thirty-two. When a man had assured her that she was still handsome,
she had shaken her head deprecatingly, and had ignored his existence
ever after. She had her doubts regarding the justice of eternal
punishment for temporary lapses in the West End, but she sympathized
with the missionary who said: "Thank God we have still got our hell in
the East End." She knew that all men are alike in the sight of Heaven,
but she thought that the licensing justices should be more particular.
She believed that there were some good men.
She had more than once talked seriously to Phyllis on the subject of
George Holland. Of course, George Holland had been indiscreet; the
views expressed in his book had shocked his best friends, but think
how famous that book had made him, in spite of the publication of Mr.
Courtland's "Quest of the Meteor-Bird." Was Phyllis not acting
unkindly, not to say indiscreetly, in throwing over a man who, it was
rumored, was about to start a new religion? She herself, Lady
Earlscourt admitted, had been very angry with George Holland for
writing something that the newspapers found it to their advantage to
abuse so heartily; and Lord Earlscourt, being a singularly sensitive
man, had been greatly worried by the comments which had been passed
upon his discrimination in intrusting to a clergyman who could bring
himself to write "Revised Versions" a cure of such important souls as
were to be found at St. Chad's. He had, in fact, been so harassed--he
was a singularly sensitive man--that he had found it absolutely
necessary to run across to Paris from time to time for a change of
scene. (This was perfectly true. Lord Earlscourt had gone more than
once to Paris for a change of scene, and had found it; Lady Earlscourt
was thirty-two, and wore evangelical boots.) But, of course, since
George Holland's enterprise had turned out so well socially, people
who entertained could not be hard on him. There was the new religion
to be counted upon. It was just as likely as not that he would
actually start a new religion, and you can't be hard upon a man who
starts a new religion. There was Buddha, for instance,--that was a
long time ago, to be sure; but still there he was, the most important
factor to be considered in attempting to solve the great question of
the reconcilement of the religions of the East,--Buddha, and Wesley,
and Edward Irving, and Confucius, and General Booth; if you took them
all seriously where would you be?
"Oh, no, my dear Phyllis!" continued Lady Earlscourt; "you must not
persist in your ill-treatment of Mr. Holland. If you do he may marry
someone else."
Phyllis shook her head.
"I hope he will, indeed," said she. "He certainly will never marry
me."
"Do not be obdurate," said Lady Earlscourt. "He may not really believe
in all that he put into that book."
"Then there is no excuse for his publishing it," said Phyllis
promptly.
"But if he doesn't actually hold the views which he has formulated in
that book, you cannot consistently reject him on the plea that he is
not quite--well, not quite what you and I call orthodox."
This contention was too plain to be combated by the girl. She did not
for a moment see her way out of the amazing logic of the lady. Quite a
minute had passed before she said:
"If he propounds such views without having a firm conviction that they
are true, he has acted a contemptible part, Lady Earlscourt. I think
far too highly of him to entertain for a single moment the idea that
he is not sincere."
"But if you believe that he is sincere, why should you say that you
will not marry him?"
"I would not marry an atheist, however sincere he might be."
"An atheist! But Mr. Holland is not an atheist; on the contrary, he
actually believes that there are two Gods; one worshiped of the Jews
long ago, the other by us nowadays. An atheist! Oh, no!"
"I'm afraid that I can't explain to you, dear Lady Earlscourt."
Once more Phyllis shook her head with some degree of sadness. She felt
that it would indeed be impossible for her to explain to this lady of
logic that she believed the truth to be a horizon line, and that any
opinion which was a little above this line was as abhorrent as any
that was a little below it.
"If you are stubborn, God may marry you to a Dissenter yet," said Lady
Earlscourt solemnly.
Phyllis smiled and shook her head again.
"Oh, you needn't shake your head, my dear," resumed Lady Earlscourt.
"I've known of such judgments falling on girls before now--yes, when
the Dissenters were well off. But no Dissenter rides straight to
hounds."
Phyllis laughed.
"More logic," she said, and shook hands with her friend.
"That girl has another man in her eye," said her friend sagaciously,
when Phyllis had left her opposite her own tea-table. "But I don't
despair; if we can only persuade our bishop to prosecute George
Holland, she may return to him all right."
She invariably referred to the bishop as if he were a member of the
Earlscourt household; but it was understood that the bishop had never
actually accepted the responsibilities incidental to such a position;
though he had his views on the subject of Lady Earlscourt's cook.
This interview had taken place a week before the dinner party for
which Phyllis was carefully dressed by her maid Fidele while Herbert
Courtland was walking away from the house. In spite of her logic, Lady
Earlscourt now and again stumbled across the truth. When it occurred
to her that Phyllis had another man in her eye,--the phrase was Lady
Earlscourt's and it served very well to express her meaning,--she had
made some careful inquiries on the subject of the girl's male
visitors, and she had, of course, found out that no other man occupied
that enviable position; no social oculist would be required to remove
the element which, in Lady Earlscourt's estimation, caused Phyllis'
vision to be distorted.
George Holland was at the dinner. Phyllis had been asked very quietly
by the hostess if she would mind being taken in by George Holland; if
she had the least feeling on the matter, Sir Lionel Greatorex would
not mind taking her instead of Mrs. Vernon-Brooke. But Phyllis had
said that of course she would be delighted to sit beside Mr. Holland.
Mr. Holland was one of her best friends.
"Is his case so hopeless as that?" said Lady Earlscourt, in a low
voice, and Phyllis smiled in response--the smile of the guest when the
hostess had made a point.
When Lady Earlscourt had indiscreetly, but confidentially, explained
to some of her guests the previous week that she meant her little
dinner party to be the means of reuniting Mr. Holland and Miss Ayrton,
one of them--he was a man--smiled and said, when she had gone away,
that she was a singularly unobservant woman, or she would have known
that the best way of bringing two people together is to keep them as
much apart as possible. There was wisdom in the paradox, he declared;
for everyone should know that it was only when a man and a woman were
far apart that they came to appreciate each other.
It seemed, indeed, that there was some truth in what that man said,
for Phyllis, before the ice pudding appeared, had come to the
conclusion that George Holland was a very uninteresting sort of man.
To be sure, he had not talked about himself,--he was not such a fool
as to do that: he had talked about her to the exclusion of almost
every other topic--he had been wise enough to do that,--but in spite
of all, he had not succeeded in arousing her interest. He had not
succeeded in making her think of the present when her thoughts had
been dwelling on the past--not the distant past, not the past of two
months ago, when they had been lovers, but the past of two hours ago,
when she had watched the effect of her words upon Herbert Courtland.
She chatted away to George Holland very pleasantly--as pleasantly as
usual--so pleasantly as to cause some of her fellow-guests to smile
and whisper significantly to one another, suggesting the impossibility
of two persons who got on so well together as Mr. Holland and Miss
Ayrton being separated by a barrier so paltry as an engagement broken
off by the young woman for conscience' sake.
But when the significant smiles of these persons were forced upon the
notice of their hostess, she did not smile; she was a lady with a
really remarkable lack of knowledge; but she knew better than to
accept the pleasant chat of George Holland and Phyllis Ayrton as an
indication that the /status quo ante bellum/--to make use of the
expressive phrase of diplomacy--had been re-established between them.
Only when George Holland ventured to express his admiration of Mr.
Ayrton's adroitness in dealing with the foolish question of the
gentleman from Wales did he succeed in interesting Miss Ayrton.
"What a very foolish letter those missionaries sent home regarding the
explorations of Mr. Courtland!" said he. "Did they hope to jeopardize
the popularity of Mr. Courtland by suggesting that he had massacred a
number of cannibals?"
"I suppose that was their object," said Phyllis.
"They must be singularly foolish persons, even for missionaries," said
the Rev. George Holland.
"Even for missionaries?" Phyllis repeated. "Oh, I forgot that you are
no believer in the advantages of missions to the people whom we call
heathen. But I have not been able to bring myself to agree with you
there. They have souls to be saved."
"That is quite likely," said he. "But the methods of the missionaries,
generally speaking, have not tended in that direction. Hence the
missionary as a comestible is more highly esteemed by the natives than
the missionary as a reformer. They rarely understand the natives
themselves, and they nearly always fail to make themselves
intelligible to the natives. It would appear that the two foolish
persons who wrote that letter about Mr. Courtland made but a poor
attempt at understanding even their own countrymen, if they fancied
that any rumor of a massacre of cannibals--nay, any proof of such a
massacre--would have an appreciable effect upon the popularity of the
man who brought home the meteor-bird."
"You don't think that the public generally would believe the story?"
said Phyllis.
"I think it extremely unlikely that they would believe it," he
replied. "But even if they believed every word of it they would not
cease to believe in Mr. Courtland's bravery. What is a hecatomb of
cannibals compared to the discovery of the meteor-bird,--that is, in
the eyes of the general public, or for that matter, the Nonconformist
public who turn up their eyes at the suggestion of a massacre of
natives of an island that is almost as unknown to them as Ireland
itself? The people of this country of ours respect bravery more than
any other virtue, and I'm not altogether sure that they are generally
astray in this matter. The Christian faith is founded upon bravery,
and the same faith has inspired countless acts of brave men and women.
Oh, no! Mr. Courtland will not suffer from the attacks of these
foolish persons."
"I saw him this--a short time ago," said Phyllis, "and he told me that
his publishers were delighted at the result of the agitation which
that newspaper tried to get up against him: they said it was selling
his book."
"I saw you talking with Mr. Courtland after the first production of
'Cagliostro.' I envied you--and him," said Mr. Holland. "I wonder if
he was really placed in the unfortunate position of having to massacre
a horde of cannibals."
Phyllis laughed, and forthwith told him the truth as it had been
communicated to her regarding the dynamite outrage upon the
unsuspecting natives, and George Holland was greatly amused at the
story--much more highly amused, it would have occurred to some
persons, than a clergyman should be at such a recital. But then George
Holland was not as other clergymen. He was quite devoid of the
affectations of his cloth. He did not consider it necessary to put the
tips of his fingers together and show more of the white portion of the
pupil of his eye than a straight-forward gaze entailed, when people
talked of the overflowing of a river in China and the consequent
drowning of a quarter of a million of men--that is to say, Chinamen.
He was no more affected by such tidings than the Emperor of China. He
was infinitely more affected when he read of the cold-blooded massacre
by David, sometime King of Israel, in order to purchase for himself a
woman for whom he had conceived a liking. He knew that the majority of
clergymen considered it to be their duty to preach funeral service
over the drowned Chinamen, and to impress upon their hearers that
David was a man after God's own heart. He also knew that the majority
of clergymen preached annual sermons in aid of the missionaries who
did some yachting in the South Seas, and had brought into existence
the sin of nakedness among the natives, in order that they might be
the more easily swindled by those Christians who sold them shoddy for
calico, to purge them of their sin. George Holland could not see his
way to follow the example of his brethren in this respect. He did not
think that the Day of Judgment would witness the inauguration of any
great scheme of eternal punishment for the heathen in his blindness
who had been naked all his life without knowing it. He knew that the
heathen in his blindness had curiosity enough at his command to
inquire of the missionaries if the white beachcomber and his bottle of
square-face represented the product of centuries of Christianity, and
if they did not, why the missionaries did not evangelize the
beachcomber and his bottle off the face of the earth.
Phyllis, being well aware of George Holland's views, was not shocked
at the sound of his laughter at the true story of Mr. Courtland's
dynamite outrage at New Guinea; but all the same, she was glad that
she was not going to marry him.
He had not, however, been altogether uninteresting in her eyes while
sitting beside her, and that was something to record in his favor.
She drove home early, and running upstairs found herself face to face
with Ella Linton.
CHAPTER XX.
I HAVE HEARD THE PASSIONATE GALLOP OF THOSE FIERY-FOOTED STEEDS.
Ella was standing waiting for her outside the open door of a drawing
room. She was wearing a lovely evening dress with a corsage of white
lace covered with diamonds and sapphires. Her hair--it was of the
darkest brown and was very plentiful--was also glittering with gems
under the light that flowed through the open door. The same light
showed Phyllis how deathly white Ella's face and neck were--how
tumultuously her bosom was heaving. She had one hand pressed to her
side, and the other on the handle of the door when Phyllis met her;
and in that attitude, even though the expanse of white flesh, with its
gracious curves that forced out her bodice, had no roseate tint upon
it, she looked lovely--intoxicating to the eyes of men.
Phyllis was certainly surprised. The hour was scarcely eleven, but
Ella had given no notice of her intention to pay a visit to her friend
that night. When the girl raised her hands with a laugh of admiration,
of pleasure, Ella grasped her hands with both of her own and drew her
into the drawing room without a word. Then with a cry,--a laugh and a
cry mingled,--she literally flung herself into the girl's arms and
kissed her convulsively a dozen times, on the throat, on the neck, on
the shoulder whereon her head lay.
"My darling, my darling!" she cried,--and now and again her voice was
broken with a sob,--"my darling Phyllis! I have come to you--I want to
be with you--to be near you--to keep my arms about you, so tightly
that no one can pluck us asunder. Oh, you don't know what men are--
they would pluck us asunder if they could; but they can't now. With
you I am safe--that is why I have come to you, my Phyllis. I want to
be safe--indeed I do!"
She had now raised her head from Phyllis' shoulder, but was still
holding her tightly--a hand on each of her arms, and her face within
an inch of the girl's face.
Phyllis kissed her softly on each cheek.
"My poor dear!" she said, "what can have happened to you?"
"Nothing--nothing! I tell you that nothing has happened to me," cried
Ella, with a vehemence that almost amounted to fierceness in her
voice. "Would I be here with you now if anything had happened to me?
tell me that. I came to you--ah! women have no guardian angels, but
they have sisters who are equally good and pure, and you are my sister
--my sister--better than all the angels that ever sang a dirge over a
lost soul that they put forth no hand to save. You will not let me go,
darling Phyllis, you will not let me go even if I tell you that I want
to go. Don't believe me, Phyllis; I don't want to go--I don't want to
be lost, and if I leave you I am lost. You will keep me, dear, will
you not?"
"Until the end of the world," said Phyllis. "Come, dearest Ella, tell
me what is the matter--why you have come to me in that lovely costume.
You look as if you were dressed for a bridal."
"A bridal--a bridal? What do you mean by that?" said Ella, with
curious eagerness--a suggestion of suspicion was in her tone. She had
loosed her hold upon the girl's arms.
Phyllis laughed. She put a hand round Ella's waist and led her to a
sofa, saying:
"Let us sit down and talk it all over. That is the lace you told me
you picked up at Munich. What a design--lilies!"
"The Virgin's flower--the Virgin's flower! I never thought of that,"
laughed Ella. "It is for you--not me, this lace. I shall tear it off
and--"
"You shall do nothing of the kind," cried Phyllis. "I have heaps of
lace--more than I shall ever wear. What a lovely idea that is of
yours,--I'm sure it is yours,--sewing the diamonds around the cup of
the lilies, like dewdrops. I always did like diamonds on lace. Some
people would have us believe that diamonds should only be worn with
blue velvet. How commonplace! Where have you been to-night?"
"Where have I been? I have been at home. Where should a good woman be
in the absence of her husband, but at home--his home and her home?"
Ella laughed loud and long with her head thrown back on the cushion of
the sofa, and the diamonds in her hair giving back flash for flash to
the electric candles above her head. "Yes; I was at home--I dined at
home, and, God knows why, I conceived a sudden desire to go to the
opera,--Melba is the /Juliet/,--and forgetting that you were engaged
to the Earlscourts--you told me last week that you were going, but I
stupidly forgot, I drove across here to ask you to be my companion.
Oh, yes, I have been here since--since nine, mind that! nine--nine--
ask the servants. When I heard that you were dining out I thought that
I was lost--one cannot drive about the streets all night, can one? Ah!
I thought that God was against me now, as he ever has been; and as for
my guardian angel--ah! our guardian angels are worse than the servants
of nowadays who have no sense of responsibility. Thompson, your
butler, is worth a whole heavenful of angels, for it was he who asked
me if I would come in and wait for your return--ask him, if you doubt
my word."
"Good Heavens, Ella, what do you say? Doubt your word--I doubt your
word? You wound me deeply."
"Forgive me, my Phyllis. I don't quite know what I said. Ah, let me
nestle here--here." She had put her head down to Phyllis' bare neck
and was looking up to her face as a child might have done. "There is
no danger here. Now pet me, and say that you forgive me for having
said whatever I did say."
Phyllis laughed and put her lips down among the myriad diamonds that
glowed amid the other's hair, like stars seen among the thick foliage
of a copper beech.
"I forgive you for whatever you said," she cried. "I, too, have
forgotten what it was; but you must never say so again. But had you
really no engagement for to-night that you took that fancy for going
to 'Romeo'?"
"No engagement? Had I no engagement, do you ask me?" cried Ella. "Oh,
yes, yes! I had an engagement, but I broke it--I broke it--I broke it,
and that is why I am here. Whatever may come of it, I am here, and
here I mean to stay. I am safe here. At home I am in danger."
Phyllis wondered greatly what had come to her friend to make her talk
in this wild strain.
"Where were you engaged?" she inquired casually. She had come to the
conclusion that there was safety in the commonplace: she would not
travel out of the region of commonplaces with Ella in her present
state.
"Where was I engaged? Surely I told you. Didn't I say something about
the opera--'Romeo and Juliet'?--that was to be the place, but I came
to you instead. Ah, what have we missed! Was there ever such a poem
written as 'Romeo and Juliet'? Was there ever such music as Gounod's?
I thought the first time that I went to the opera that it would spoil
Shakspere--how could it do otherwise? I asked. Could supreme
perfection be improved upon? Before the balcony scene had come to an
end I found that I had never before understood the glory of the poem.
Ah, if you could understand what love means, my Phyllis, you would
appreciate the poem and the music; the note of doom runs through it;
that--that is wherein its greatness lies--passion and doom--passion
and doom--that is my own life--the life of us women. We live in a
whirlwind of passion, and fancy that we can step out of the whirlwind
into a calm at any moment. We marry our husbands and we fancy that all
the tragedy of human passion is over so far as we are concerned. 'The
haven entered and the tempest passed.' Philip Marston's terrible poem,
--you have read it,--'A Christmas Vigil'? 'The haven entered,'--the
whirlwind of passion has been left far away, we fancy. Oh, we are
fools! It sweeps down upon us and then--doom--doom!"
"My poor dear, you are talking wildly."
"If you only understood--perhaps you will some day understand, and
then you will know what seems wild in my speech is but the incoherence
of a poor creature who has been beaten to the ground by the whirlwind,
and only saved from destruction by a miracle."
She had sprung from her place on the sofa and was pacing the room, her
diamonds quivering, luminous as a shower of meteors--that was the
fancy that flashed from her to Phyllis. Meteors--meteors--what a
splendid picture she made flashing from place to place! Meteors--ah,
surely there was the meteor-bird flashing across the drawing room!
"Come and sit down, my dear Ella," said Phyllis. "You are, as you
know, quite unintelligible to me."
"Unintelligible to you? I am unintelligible to myself," cried Ella.
"Why should I be tramping up and down your room when I might be at
this very moment----" She clutched Phyllis' arm. "I want to stay with
you all night," she whispered. "I want to sleep in your bed with you,
Phyllis. I want to feel your arms around me as I used to feel my
mother's long ago. Whatever I may say, you will not let me go,
Phyllis?"
"I will load you with chains," said Phyllis, patting her lovely hair--
it was no longer smooth. "Why should you want to go away from me?
Cannot we be happy together once again as we used to be long ago?"
"How long ago that was! And we read 'Romeo and Juliet' together, and
fancied that we had gone down to the very depths of its meaning. We
fancied that we had sounded the very depths of its passion and pathos.
We were only girls. Ah, Phyllis, I tell you--I, who know--I, who have
found it out,--I tell you that the tragedy is the tragedy of all
lovers who have ever lived in the world. I tell you that it is the
tragedy of love itself. 'Gallop apace, ye fiery-footed steeds!' That
is the poem that the heart of the lover sings all day--all day! I have
heard it--my heart has sung it. I have heard the passionate gallop of
those fiery-footed steeds. I have listened to them while my heart beat
in unison with their frantic career--all day counting the moments with
fiery face, and then--then--something that was not passion forced me
to fly from it for the salvation of my soul. I was a fool! Why am I
here, when I should be where he---- What is the hour? Why, it is
scarcely twelve o'clock! Did I say nine in my letter? What does it
matter? I wonder if on that wonderful night--Gounod translated its
glory into music--Juliet kept her lover waiting for three hours."
"What are you doing?" cried Phyllis, rising.
Ella had picked up her theatre wrap--it was a summer cloud brocaded
with golden threads of quivering sunlight, and had flung it around
her.
She held out a hand to Phyllis. Phyllis grasped her round the waist.
"Where are you going?" she said.
"To hell!"
She had whispered the words, and at their utterance Phyllis gave a cry
of horror and covered her face with her hands.
Had she seen a suggestion of the satyr in the expression of that
lovely face before her?
In the pause that followed the sound of footsteps upon the stairs
outside was heard; the sound of footsteps and of men's friendly
laughter. Some persons were in the act of ascending.
"My God!" whispered Ella. "He has followed me here!"
"Hush!" said Phyllis. "Papa is bringing someone to us."
"Whom--whom?"
They were both standing together in the middle of the room, both
having their eyes fixed on the door, when the door opened and Mr.
Ayrton appeared, having by his side a man with iron-gray hair and a
curiously pallid face.
At the sight of that man Ella's hands, that had been holding her wrap
close to her throat, feeling for its silver clasp, fell limp, and the
splendid mass of white brocade slipped to the floor and lay in folds
about her feet, revealing her lovely figure sparkling from the hem of
her dress to the top of her shapely head.
CHAPTER XXI.
THAT TOILET SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN WASTED.
For several seconds the tableau remained unchanged: the two women
standing side by side, the two men motionless at the half-open door.
Ella was staring at the man who had entered with Mr. Ayrton. There was
some apprehension in her eyes.
The man had his eyes fixed upon her. But his face was wholly devoid of
expression.
Phyllis was the first to break the silence that made a frame, so to
speak, for the picture.
"How do you do, Mr. Linton?" she said, taking a step toward the door.
"I am very well, thank you, Miss Ayrton," the man replied, shaking
hands with her. "Rather a singular hour for a visit, is it not?"
"Oh, no! only Ella didn't tell me that you----"
She turned to Ella, and noticed that the expression of apprehension on
her face had increased. She was still gazing at her husband as one
shut up in a room with a snake might gaze at it, waiting for it to
strike.
"Ella didn't tell you that I was coming?" said he. "She had the best
of reasons for her reticence."
"Ah!"
The sound came from Ella. There was a little scornful smile on her
face.
"The best of reasons?" said Phyllis interrogatively.
"The very best; she had no idea that I was coming. I wonder if she is
glad to see me. She has not spoken a word to me yet."
"You have startled her by your sudden appearance," said Phyllis. "She
is not certain whether you are flesh and blood or a ghost."
Then Ella gave a laugh.
"Oh, yes!" she said. "He is my husband. Go on with what you have to
say, Stephen. I will not run away."
"Run away? What nonsense is this, my dear? Run away? Who said anything
about your running away?"
Her husband had advanced to her as he spoke. He put a hand caressingly
on one of her bare arms and the other at the back of her head. She
suffered him to press her head forward until he put his lips upon her
forehead.
When he had released her, and had taken a step back from her,--he
seemed abut to address Phyllis,--a little cry forced itself from her.
She called his name twice,--the second time louder,--and threw herself
into his arms, burying her face on his shoulder, as she had buried it
on Phyllis' shoulder.
In a few moments, however, she looked up. Her husband was patting her
on the arm. She had acquired two new gems since she had bent her head.
They were shining in her eyes.
"Don't go away, Phyllis dear," she said. Phyllis and her father were
standing at the /portiere/ between the drawing rooms. Mr. Ayrton had a
hand at the embroidered edge in the act of raising it. "Don't go away.
I am all right now. I was quite dazed at Stephen's sudden appearance.
I thought that perhaps he had--had---- Ah, I scarcely know what I
thought. How did you come here--why did you come here?"
She had turned to her husband. In spite of her manifestation of
affection,--the result of a certain relief which she experienced at
that moment,--there was a note of something akin to indignation in her
voice.
"It is very simple, my dear," replied her husband. His curiously
sallow face had resumed its usual expressionless appearance. "Nothing
could be more simple. I got a telegram at Paris regarding the mine,
and I had to start at a moment's notice. I wrote out a telegram to
send to you, and that idiotic courier put it into the pocket of my
overcoat instead of sending it. I found it in my pocket when we had
come as far as Canterbury. I am not one of those foolish husbands who
keep these pleasant surprises for their wives--it is usually the
husband who receives the surprise in such cases."
"And the coachman told you that he had driven me here?" said Ella.
"Quite so," replied the husband. "But, you see, I had some little
hesitation in coming here at half-past ten o'clock to make inquiries
about my wife--you might have gone to some place else, you know, in
which case I should have looked a trifle foolish; so I though that, on
the whole, my best plan would be to drop in upon Mr. Ayrton at the
House of Commons and drive here with him when he was coming home for
the night. I took it for granted that even so earnest a legislator as
Mr. Ayrton allows himself his nights--after twelve, of course--at
home. I'm very sorry I startled you, Ella. It shall not occur again."
"What time did you reach home?" inquired Ella casually--so casually
that her husband, who had a very discriminating ear, gave a little
glance in her direction. She was disengaging a corner of her lace
trimming that had become entangled with a large sapphire in a pendant.
"I reached home at nine," he replied.
"At nine?" She spoke the words after him in a little gasp. Then she
said, walking across the room to a sofa, "I could not have left many
minutes before you arrived. I intended going to the opera."
"That toilet should not have been wasted," said he. "It is exquisite--
/ravissante/!"
"It was an inspiration, your putting it on," said Phyllis. "I wonder
if she really had no subtle suggestion from her own heart that you
were on your way to her, Mr. Linton," she added, turning to the
husband.
"I dare say it was some inward prompting of that mysterious nature,
Miss Ayrton," he replied. "A woman's heart is barometric in its
nature, it is not? Its sensitiveness is so great that it moves
responsive to a suggestion of what is to come. Is a woman's heart
prophetic, I wonder?"
"It would be a rank heresy to doubt it, after the example we have had
to-night," said Mr. Ayrton. "Yes, a woman's heart is a barometer
suggesting what is coming to her, and her toilet is a thermometer
indicating the degree of expectancy."
"A charming phrase," said Mr. Linton; "a charming principle, only one
that demands some years of close study to be rendered practical. For
instance, look at my wife's toilet: it is bridal, and yet we have been
married three years."
"Quite so; and that toilet means that you are the luckiest fellow in
the world," said Mr. Ayrton.
"I admit the interpretation," said her husband. "I told the hansom to
wait for me. He is at the door now. You have had no opera to-night, my
dear?"
"You would not expect me to go alone? Phyllis was dining at the
Earlscourts'," said the wife.
"You are the soul of discretion, my beloved," said the husband. "Is
your stock of phrases equal to a suggestion as to what instrument is
the soul of a woman, Ayrton?" he added. "Her heart is a barometer, her
toilet a thermometer, and her soul----"
"The soul of a woman is not an instrument, but a flower--a lily," said
Mr. Ayrton.
"And my wife wears her soul upon her sleeve," said Mr. Linton,
touching the design on the lace that fell from her shoulders.
"But not for daws to peck at--that is the heart," laughed Mr. Ayrton.
"Talking of woman's soul, how is Lady Earlscourt?" he added, to his
daughter.
"I was so sorry that I was at that stupid dinner," said Phyllis. "I
might have enjoyed the music of 'Romeo and Juliet.' But I had engaged
myself to Lady Earlscourt a fortnight ago."
"You did not see Lord Earlscourt, at any rate," said her father.
"No; he left us in the evening for Southampton," said Phyllis.
"And, curiously enough, I dined with him at the club," said her
father. "Yes, he came in with Herbert Courtland at half-past seven; he
had met Courtland and persuaded him to join him in his cruise to
Norway. They dined at my table, and by the time we had finished
Courtland's man had arrived with his bag. He had sent the man a
message from the club to pack. They left by the eight-forty train, and
I expect they are well under way by this time."
"That's quite too bad of Courtland," said Mr. Linton. "I wanted to
have a talk with him--a rather serious talk."
Ella had listened to Mr. Ayrton's account of that little dinner party
at the club with white cheeks--a moment before they had been red--and
with her lips tightly closed. Her hands were clenched until the tips
of the nails were biting into each of her palms, before he had come to
the end of his story--a story of one incident. But when her husband
had spoken her hands relaxed. The blaze that had come to her eyes for
a second went out without a flicker.
"A serious talk?" she murmured.
"A serious talk--about the mine," replied her husband.
"About the mine," she repeated, and a moment after burst into a laugh
that was almost startling in its insincerity. "It is so amusing, this
chapter of cross-purposes," she cried. "What a sight it has been! a
night of thrilling surprises to all of us! I miss Phyllis by half an
hour and my husband misses me by less than half an hour. He comes at
express speed from Paris to have a talk, a serious talk, with Mr.
Courtland about the mine, and while he is driving from Victoria, Mr.
Courtland is driving to the same station with Lord Earlscourt!"
"What a series of fatalities!" said Mr. Ayrton. "But what seemed to me
most amusing was the persuasiveness of Earlscourt. He has only to
speak half a dozen words to Courtland, and off he goes to Norway at a
moment's notice with probably the most uncongenial boat's load that
Courtland ever sailed with, and he must have done a good deal in that
way in New Guinea waters. Now, why should Courtland take such a turn?"
"Ah, why, indeed!" cried Mrs. Linton. "Yes, that is, as you say, the
most amusing part of the whole evening of cross-purposes. Why should
he run away just at this time--to-night--to-night?"
"What is there particular about to-night that Courtland's running away
should seem doubly erratic?" asked Mr. Linton, after a little pause.
He had his eyes fixed coldly upon his wife's face.
She turned to him and laughed quite merrily.
"What is there particular about to-night?" she repeated. "Why, have
you not arrived from Paris to-night to have that serious talk with him
about the mine? Doesn't it seem to you doubly provoking that he didn't
stay until to-morrow or that you didn't arrive yesterday? Why, why,
why did he run away to-night before nine?"
"Why before nine?" said her husband.
"Heavens! Was not that the hour when you arrived home? You said so
just now," she cried. Then she picked up her wrap. Phyllis had thrown
it over a chair when it had lain in a heap on the floor as Cleopatra's
wrap may have lain when she was carried into the presence of her
lover. "My dear Stephen, don't you think that as it is past nine, and
Mr. Courtland is probably some miles out at sea with his head reposing
on something hard,--there is nothing soft about a yacht,--we should
make a move in the direction of home? It seems pretty clear that you
will have no serious talk with him to-night. Alas! my Phyllis, our
dream of happiness is over. We are to be separated by the cruelty of
man, as usual. Good-night, my dear! Good-night, Mr. Ayrton! Pray
forgive us for keeping you out of bed so long; and receive my thanks
for restoring my long-lost husband to my arms. Didn't you say that the
hansom was waiting, Stephen?"
"I expect the man has been asleep for the last half-hour," said her
husband.
"I hope nothing has gone astray with the gold mine," said she. "Hasn't
someone made a calculation regarding the accumulation of a shilling
hansom fare at compound interest when the driver is kept waiting? It
is like the sum about the nails in the horse's shoe. We shall be
ruined if we remain here much longer."
"Ah, my dear," said Mr. Ayrton, when he had kissed her hand, and
straightened the sable collar of her wrap; "ah, my dear, a husband is
a husband."
"Even when he stays away from his wife for three months at a time?"
said Ella.
"Not in spite of that, but on account of it," said Mr. Ayrton. "Have
you been married all these years without finding that out?"
"Good-night!" said she.
CHAPTER XXII.
HE HAD EXPLAINED TO PHYLLIS ONCE THAT HE THOUGHT OF GOD
ONLY AS A PRINCIPLE.
The sound of the hansom wheels died away before the father and
daughter exchanged a word. Mr. Ayrton was the first to speak.
"It seems to have been a night of mischance," said he.
"I am very glad that Mr. Linton has returned," said she.
"What? Now, why should you be glad of that very ordinary incident?"
"Why? Oh, papa, I am so fond of her!"
"She may be fond of him, after all."
Mr. Ayrton spoke musingly.
"Of course she is," said Phyllis, with a positiveness that was
designed to convince herself that she believed her own statement.
"And he may be fond of her--yes, at times," resumed Mr. Ayrton. "That
toilet of hers seems to have been the only happy element in the game
of cross-purposes which was played to-night."
"Ah," whispered the girl.
"Yes; it was in inspiration. She could not have expected her husband
to-night. What a dress! Even a husband would be compelled to admit its
fascination. And she said she meant to wear it at the opera to-night.
It was scarcely an opera toilet, was it?"
"Ella's taste is never at fault, papa."
"I suppose not. I wonder if he is capable of appreciating the--the--
let us say, the inspiration of that toilet. Is that, I wonder, the
sort of dress that a man likes his wife to wear when she welcomes him
home after an absence of some months? No matter it was exquisite in
every detail. Curious, her coming here and waiting after she had
learned that you were out, was it not; from nine o'clock--that fateful
hour!--to-night."
"I think she must have felt--lonely," said Phyllis. "She seemed so
glad to see me--so relieved. She meant to stay with me all night, poor
thing! Oh, why should her husband stay away from her for months at a
time? It is quite disgraceful!"
"I think that we had better go to bed," said her father. "If we begin
to discuss abstract questions of temperament we may abandon all hope
of sleep tonight. We might as well try to fathom Herbert Courtland's
reasons for going to yacht with so uncongenial a party as Lord
Earlscourt's. Good-night, my dear!"
He kissed her and went upstairs. She did not follow him immediately.
She stood in the center of the room, and over her sweet face a puzzled
expression crept, as a single breath of wind passes over the smooth
surface of a lake on a day when no wind stirs a leaf.
She thought first of Herbert Courtland, which of itself was a curious
incident. How did it come that he had yielded so easily to the
invitation of Lord Earlscourt to accompany him on his cruise in the
yacht /Water Nymph/? (Lord Earlscourt's imagination in the direction
of the nomenclature of his boats as well as his horses was not
unlimited.)
But this was just the question which her father had suggested as an
example of a subject of profitless discussion. She remembered this,
and asked herself if it was likely that she, having at her command
fewer data than her father bearing upon this case, should make a
better attempt than he made at its solution. Her father had seen
Herbert Courtland since he had agreed to go on the cruise, and was
therefore in the better position to arrive at a reasonable conclusion
in regard to the source of the impulse upon which Mr. Courtland had
acted; so much she thought certain. And yet her father had suggested
the profitless nature of such an investigation, and her father was
certainly right.
Only for a single moment did it occur to her that something she had
said to Herbert Courtland when he was sitting there, there in that
chair beside her, might have had its influence upon him--only for a
single moment, however; then she shook her head.
No, no! that supposition was too, too ridiculous to be entertained for
a moment. He had, to be sure, shown that he felt deeply the words
which she had quoted as they came from Mrs. Haddon; but what could
those words have to do with his sudden acceptance of Lord Earlscourt's
invitation to go to Norway?
She made up her mind that it was nothing to her what course Herbert
Courtland had pursued, consequently the endeavors to fathom his reason
for adopting such a course would be wholly profitless. But the
question of the singular moods suggested by the conduct and the words
of her friend Ella Linton stood on a very different basis. Ella was
her dearest friend, and nothing that she had said or done should be
dismissed as profitless.
What on earth had Ella meant by appearing in that wonderful costume
that night? It was not a toilet for the opera, even on a Melba night;
even on a "Romeo and Juliet" night, unless, indeed, the wearer meant
to appear on the stage as /Juliet/, was the thought which occurred to
the girl. Her fantastic thought--she thought it was a fantastic
thought--made her smile. Unless----
And then another thought came to her which, not being fantastic,
banished her smile.
/Unless/----
She got to her feet--very slowly--and walked very slowly--across the
room. She seated herself on the sofa where Ella had sat, and she
remained motionless for some minutes. Then she made a motion with one
of her hands as if sweeping from before her eyes some flimsy
repulsiveness--the web of an unclean thing flashing in the air. In
another instant she had buried her face in the pillow that still bore
the impress of Ella's face.
"Oh, God--my God, forgive me--forgive me--forgive me!" was her silent,
passionate prayer as she lay there sobbing. "How could I ever have
such a thought, so terrible a thought. She is my friend--my sister--
and she put herself into her husband's arms and kissed him! Oh, God,
forgive me!"
That was her prayer for the greater part of the night as she lay in
her white bed.
She felt that she had sinned grievously in thought against her friend,
when she recalled the way in which her friend had thrown herself into
the arms of her husband. That was the one action which the girl felt
should entitle Ella Linton to be the subject of no such horrid thought
as had been for a shocking instant forced upon her mind, when she
reflected upon the strange passion which had tingled through Ella's
repetition of the fiery words of /Juliet/.
She recalled every strange element in the incident of Ella's
appearance in the drawing room: the way in which Ella had kissed her
and clung to her as a child might have done on finding someone to
protect it; she recalled the wild words which Ella had uttered, and,
finally, the terrible expression which had appeared on her face as she
whispered that reckless answer to Phyllis' question, when she had
picked up her wrap and flung it around her just before the sound of
footsteps had come to their ears. All that she recalled in connection
with that extraordinary visit of Ella's was quite intelligible to her;
but the mystery of all was more than neutralized by her recollection
of the way Ella had thrown herself into her husband's arms. That
action should, she felt, be regarded as the one important factor, as
it were, in the solution of the problem of Ella's mood--Ella's series
of moods. Nothing else that she had done, nothing that she had said,
was worthy of being taken account of, alongside that dominant act of
the true wife.
The little whisper which suggested to her that there was a good deal
that was mysterious in the incident of her friend's visit she refused
to regard as rendering it less obligatory on her--Phyllis--to pray
that she might be forgiven that horrid suspicion which, for an
instant, had come to her; and so she fell asleep praying to God to
forgive her for her sin (in thought) against her friend.
And while Phyllis was praying her prayer, her friend, the True Wife,
was praying with her face down upon her pillow, and her bare arms
stretched out over the white lace of the bed:
"Forgive me, O God; forgive me! and keep him away from me--forever and
ever and ever. Amen."
And while both these prayers were being prayed, Herbert Courtland was
sitting on one of the deck stools of the yacht /Water Nymph/, looking
back at the many lights that gleamed in clusters along the southern
coast of England, now far astern; for a light breeze was sending the
boat along with a creaming, quivering wake. In the bows a youth was
making the night hideous through the agency of a banjo and a sham
negro melody. Amidships, Lord Earlscourt and two other men were
playing, by the light of a lantern slung from the backstay, a game
called poker; Lord Earlscourt, at every fresh deal, trying to make the
rest understand how greatly the worry of being held responsible, as
the patron of the living of St. Chad's, for the eccentricities of his
rector, had affected his nerves--a matter upon which his friends
assured him, with varied degrees of emphasis, they were in no way
interested.
Within a few feet of these congenial shipmates Herbert Courtland sat
looking across the shining ripples to the shining lights of the coast;
wondering how he came to be on the sea instead of on the shore. Was
this indeed the night over which his imagination had gloated for
months? Was it indeed possible that this was the very night following
the day--Thursday--for which he had engaged himself in accordance with
the letter that he still carried in his pocket?
How on earth did it come that he was sitting with his arm over the
bulwarks of a yacht instead of---- Oh, the thing was a miracle--a
miracle! He could think of it in no other light than that of a
miracle.
Well, if it were a miracle, it had been the work of God, and God had
to be thanked for it. He had explained to Phyllis once that he thought
of God only as a Principle--as the Principle which worked in
opposition to the principle of nature. That was certainly the God
which had been evolved out of modern civilization. The pagan gods had
been just the opposite. They had been founded on natural principles.
The Hebrew tradition that God had made man in his own image was the
reverse of the scheme of the pagan man who had made God after his own
image; in the image of man created he God.
But holding the theory that he held--that God was the sometimes
successful opponent to the principles of nature (which he called the
Devil)--Herbert Courtland felt that this was the very God to whom his
thanks were due for the miracle that had been performed on his behalf.
"Thank God--thank God--thank God!" he murmured, looking out over the
rippling waters, steel gray in the soft shadow of the summer's night.
But then he held that "thank God" was but a figure of speech.
"Tinky-tink, tinky-tink, tinky-tinky-tinky-tinky-tinky-tinky-tink,"
went the youth with the banjo in the bows.
CHAPTER XXIII.
ITS MOUTHINGS OF THE PAST HAD BECOME ITS MUMBLINGS OF THE PRESENT.
It was very distressing--very disappointing! The bishop would neither
institute proceedings against the rector of St. Chad's nor state
plainly if it was his intention to proceed against that clergyman.
When some people suggested very delicately--the way ordinary people
would suggest anything to a bishop--that it was surely not in sympathy
with the organization of the Church for any clergyman to take
advantage of his position and his pulpit to cast sometimes ridicule,
sometimes abuse, upon certain "scriptural characters"--that was their
phrase--who had hitherto always been regarded as sacred, comparatively
sacred, the bishop had brought the tips of the fingers of one hand in
immediate, or almost immediate, contact with the tips of the fingers
of his other hand, and had shaken his head--mournfully, sadly. These
signs of acquiescence, trifling though they were, had encouraged the
deputation that once waited on his lordship--two military men (retired
on the age clause), an officer of engineers (on the active list), a
solicitor (retired), and a member of the London County Council (by
occupation an ironmonger), to express the direct opinion that the
scandal which had been created by the dissemination--the unrebuked
dissemination--of the doctrines held by the rector of St. Chad's was
affording the friends of Disestablishment an additional argument in
favor of their policy of spoliation. At this statement his lordship
had nodded his head three times with a gravity that deeply impressed
the spokesman of the deputation. He wondered if his lordship had ever
before heard that phrase about the furnishing of an additional
argument to the friends of Disestablishment. (As a matter of fact his
lordship had heard it before.)
After an expression of the deputation's opinion that immediate steps
should be taken to make the rector of St. Chad's amenable to the laws
of the Church,
His lordship replied.
(It was his facility in making conciliatory replies that had brought
about his elevation in the Church):
He referred to (1) his deep appreciation of the sincerity of the
deputation; (2) his own sense of responsibility in regard to the
feelings of the weaker brethren; (3) his appreciation of the value of
the counsel of practical men in many affairs of the Church; (4) the
existing position of the Church in regard to the laity; (5) the
friendly relations that had always existed between himself personally
and the clergy of his extensive diocese; (6) his earnest and prayerful
desire that these relations might be strengthened; (7) the insecurity
of a house divided against itself; (8) the progress of socialism; (9)
the impossibility of socialism commending itself to Englishmen; (10)
the recent anarchist outrages; (11) the purity of the Court of her
Majesty the Queen; (12) the union of all Christian Churches; (13) the
impossibility of such union ever becoming permanent; (14) the value of
Holy Scripture in daily life; (15) his firm belief in the achievement
of England's greatness by means of the open Bible; (16) the note of
pessimism in modern life; (17) the necessity for the Church's
combating modern pessimism; (18) the Church's position as a purveyor
of healthy literature for the young; (19) his reluctance to take up
any more of their valuable time, and (20) his assurance that the
remarks of their spokesman would have his earnest and prayerful
attention.
The deputation then thanked his lordship and withdrew.
But still the bishop made no move in the matter, and the friends of
the Rev. George Holland felt grievously disappointed. They had counted
on the bishop's at least writing a letter of remonstrance to the
rector of St. Chad's, and upon the publication of the letter, with the
rector's reply in the newspapers; but now quite two months had passed
since the appearance of "Revised Versions," the bishop had returned
from the Engadine, and still there were no indications of his
intention to make the Rev. George Holland responsible to the right
tribunal--whatever that was--for his doctrines. They counted on his
martyrdom within six months; and, consequently, upon his election to a
position of distinction in the eyes of his fellow-country-men--or, at
least, of his country-women. But the bishop they found to be a poor
thing after all. They felt sure that what the people said about his
being quite humble in the presence of his wife was not without some
foundation; and they thought that, after all, there was a great deal
to be said in favor of the celibacy of priests compulsory in the
Church of Rome. If the bishops of the Church of England were not very
careful, they might be the means of such a going over to Rome as had
never previously been witnessed in England.
George Holland may have been disappointed, or he may have been pleased
at the inactivity of the bishop. He made no sign one way or the other.
Of course he was no more than human: he would have regarded a letter
of remonstrance from the bishop as a personal compliment; he had
certainly expected such a letter, for he had already put together the
heads of the reply he would make--and publish--to any official
remonstrance that might be offered to him. Still he made no sign. He
preached at least one sermon every Sunday morning, and whenever it was
known that he would preach, St. Chad's was crowded and the offertory
was all that could be desired. The bishop's chaplain no longer held a
watching brief in regard in regard to those sermons. He did not think
it worth while to do so much, George Holland's friends said, shaking
their heads and pursing out their lips. Oh, yes! there could be no
doubt that the bishop was a very weak sort of man.
But then suddenly there appeared in the new number of the /Zeit Geist
Review/ an article above the signature of George Holland, entitled
"The Enemy to Christianity," and in a moment it became pretty plain
that George Holland had not in his "Revised Versions," said the last
word that he had to say regarding the attitude of the Church of
England in respect of the non-church-goers of the day. When people
read the article they asked "Who is the Enemy to Christianity referred
to by the writer?" and they were forced to conclude that the answer
which was made to such an inquiry by the article itself was, "The
Church."
He pointed out the infatuation which possessed the heads of the Church
of England in expecting to appeal with success to the educated people
of the present day, while still declining to move with the course of
thought of the people. Already the braying of a trombone out of tune,
and the barbarous jingle of a tambourine, had absorbed some hundred
thousand of possible church-goers; and though, of course, it was
impossible for sensible men and women--the people whom the Church
should endeavor to grapple to its soul with hooks of steel--to look,
except with amused sadness, at the ludicrous methods and vulgar
ineptitude of the Salvation Army, still the Church was making no
effort to provide the sensible, thinking, educated people of England
with an equivalent as suitable to their requirements as the Salvation
Army was to the requirements of the foolish, the hysterical, the
unthinking people who played the tambourines and brayed on the
tuneless trombones. Thus it is that one man says to another nowadays,
when he has got nothing better to talk about, "Are you a man of
intelligence, or do you go to church?"
Men of intelligence do not go to church nowadays, Mr. Holland
announced in that article of his in the /Zeit Geist/; many women of
intelligence refrain from going, he added, though many beautifully
dressed women were still frequent attenders. There was no blinking the
fact that the crass stupidity of the Church had made church-going
unpopular--almost impossible--with intelligent men and women. The
Church insulted the intelligence by trying to reconcile the teachings
of Judaism with the teachings of Christianity, when the two were
absolutely irreconcilable. It was the crass stupidity of the Church
that had caused it--for its self-protection, it fancied--to bitterly
oppose every truth that was revealed to man. The Church had tortured
and burned at the stake the great men to whom God had revealed the
great facts of nature's workings--the motion of the earth and the
other planets. But these facts, being Divine Truth, became accepted by
the world in spite of the thumb-screws and the fagots--the arguments
of the Church against Divine Truth. The list of the Divine Truths
which the Church had bitterly opposed was a sickening document.
Geography, Geology, Biology--the progress of all had, even within
recent years, been bitterly opposed by the Church, and yet the self-
constituted arbiters between Truth and falsehood had been compelled to
eat their own words--to devour their own denunciations when they found
that the Truth was accepted by the intelligence of the people in spite
of the anathemas of the Church.
The intelligence of the Church was equal only to the duty of burning
witches. It burned them by the thousand, simply because ancient
Judaism had a profound belief in the witch and because a blood-thirsty
Jewish murderer-monarch had organized a witch hunt.
And yet with such a record against it--a record of the murder of
innocent men and women who endeavored to promulgate the Divine Truths
of nature--the Church still arrogated to itself the right to lay down
a rule of life for intelligent people--a rule of life founded upon
that impossible amalgamation of Judaism and Christianity. The science
of the Church was not equal to the task of amalgamating two such
deadly opponents.
Was it any wonder, then, that church-going had become practically
obsolete among intelligent men and women? the writer asked.
He then went on to refer to the nature of the existing services of the
Church of England. He dealt only casually with the mockery of the
response of the congregation to the reading out of the Fourth
Commandment by the priest, when no one in the Church paid the least
respect to the Seventh Day. This was additional proof of the absurdity
of the attempted amalgamation of Judaism and Christianity. But what he
dealt most fully with was the indiscriminate selection of what were
very properly termed the "Lessons" from the Hebrew Bible. It was, he
said, far from edifying to hear some chapters read out from the
lectern without comment; though fortunately the readers were as a rule
so imperfectly trained that the most objectionable passages had their
potentiality of mischief minimized. He concluded his indictment by a
reference to a sermon preached by the average clergyman of the Church
of England. This was, usually, he said, either a theological essay
founded upon an obsolete system of theology, or a series of platitudes
of morality delivered by an unpractical man. The first was an insult
to the intelligence of an average man; the second was an insult to the
intelligence of an average schoolgirl.
His summing up of the whole case against the Church was as logical as
it was trenchant. The Church had surely become, he said, like unto the
Giant Pagan in "The Pilgrim's Progress," who, when incapable of doing
mischief, sat mumbling at the mouth of his cave on the roadside. The
Church had become toothless, decrepit either for evil or for good. Its
mouthings of the past had become its mumblings of the present. The
cave at the mouth of which this toothless giant sat was very dark; and
intelligent people went by with a good-natured and tolerant laugh.
This article was published in the /Review/ on Tuesday. Phyllis read it
on the evening of that day. On Wednesday the newspapers were full of
this further development of the theories of the writer, and on
Thursday afternoon the writer paid a visit to Phyllis.
As he entered the drawing room he found himself face to face with
Herbert Courtland, who was in the act of leaving.
CHAPTER XXIV.
SHE WAS A WIFE, AND SHE HAD A LOVER WHO DISAPPOINTED HER.
The prayer of Ella Linton had not been answered. She had prayed, not
that her heart wherewith she loved Herbert Courtland might be changed
--that she knew would be difficult; not that her love for Herbert
Courtland might cease--that she believed to be impossible; but simply
that Herbert Courtland might be kept away from her--that she knew to
be the most sensible course her scheme of imploration could take.
She was well aware of the fact that God had given her strength to run
away from Herbert Courtland, and for that she was sincerely thankful;
she did not pause to analyze her feelings, to ask herself if her
thanks were due to her reflection upon the circumstance of her
husband's return, at the very hour when she had appointed to meet
Herbert Courtland; she only felt that God had been good to her in
giving her sufficient strength to run away from that appointment. Then
it was that she had prayed that he might be kept away from her. Surely
God would find it easy to do that, she thought. Surely she might
assume that God was on her side, and that he would not leave his work
half done.
But when she began to think of the thorough manner in which God does
his work she began to wish that she had not prayed quite so earnestly.
Supposing that God should think it fit to keep him away from her by
sending a blast from heaven to capsize that yacht in the deep sea,
what would she think of the fervency of her prayer then?
The terror of her reflection upon the possibility of this occurrence
flung her from her bed and sent her pacing, with bare feet and flying
lace, the floor of her bedroom in the first pearly light of dawn, just
as she had paced the floor of Phyllis' drawing room beneath the glow
of the electric lights.
She wished that she had not prayed quite so earnestly that he might be
kept apart from her. But one cannot pray hot and cold; she felt that
she had no right now to lay down any conditions to Heaven in the
matter of keeping Herbert Courtland away from her. She had prayed her
prayer; only, if he were drowned before she saw him again, she would
never say another prayer.
This feeling that she would be even with Heaven, so to speak, had the
effect of soothing her. She threw herself upon her bed once more and
was able to fall asleep; she had a considerable amount of confidence
in the discrimination of Heaven.
But before she had come down to the breakfast room where her husband
was reading a newspaper in the morning, she had thought a good deal
upon another matter that disquieted her in some degree. She had been
exuberant (she thought) at having had sufficient strength given to her
to run away from her lover; but then she had not dwelt upon the rather
important circumstance that all the running away had not been on her
side. What were the facts as revealed by the narrative of Mr. Ayrton?
Why, simply, that while she was putting on that supreme toilet which
she had prepared for the delight of the eyes of her lover (feeling
herself to be a modern Cleopatra), that lover of hers was sitting on
the cushions of a first-class carriage, flying along to Southampton;
and while she had been lying among the cushions of her drawing room,
waiting tremulously, nervously, ecstatically, for the dreary minutes
to crawl on until the clock should chime the hour of nine, he was
probably lighting his first pipe aboard the yacht /Water Nymph/. What
did it matter that she had lifted her hot face from her cushions and
had fled in wild haste to the arms of Phyllis Ayrton? The fact
remained the same; it was he who had run away from her.
That was a terrible reflection. Hitherto she had never felt
humiliated. She had not felt that he had insulted her by his kisses;
she had given him kiss for kiss. She had but to hold up her finger and
he was ready to obey her. But now--what was she to think of him? Had
ever man so humiliated woman? She had offered him, not her heart but
her soul--had he not told her a few days before that he meant her to
give him her soul? and when she had laid heart and soul at his feet--
that was how she put it to herself--he had not considered it worth his
while to take the priceless gift that she offered to him.
"He will answer to me for that," she said, as she thought over her
humiliation, in front of her dressing-glass that morning, while her
maid was absent from the room.
Her wish was now not that her prayer had been less earnest, but that
it had not been uttered at all. It was necessary for her to meet him
again in order that he might explain to her how it came that he had
preferred the attractions incidental to a cruise with Lord Earlscourt
and his friends to all that she had written to offer him.
And yet when her husband, after having quite finished with his paper,
said:
"It's very awkward that Herbert Courtland is not in town,"
She merely raised her shoulders an inch, saying:
"I suppose that he has a right to take a holiday now and then. If you
didn't telegraph to him from Paris, you cannot complain."
"I felt certain that I should find him here," said the husband.
"Here?" said the wife, raising her eyebrows and casting an offended
glance at her husband. "Here?"
He smiled in the face of her offended glance.
"Here--in London, I mean, of course. Heavens, Ella! did you fancy for
a moment that I meant---- Ah, by the way, you have seen him recently?"
"Oh, yes; quite recently--on Tuesday, I think it was, we met at the
Ayrton's dinner party--yes, it was Tuesday. There was some fuss, or
attempted fuss, about his adventures in New Guinea, and a question was
being asked about the matter in the House of Commons. Mr. Ayrton got
rid of some of his superfluous cleverness in putting a counter
question--you know the way."
"Oh, perfectly well! And that is how you met on Tuesday--if it was
Tuesday?"
"Yes; he went to thank Mr. Ayrton, and Mr. Ayrton asked him to dinner.
It was a small party, and not very brilliant. Herbert came here with
me afterward--for five minutes."
"Ah! To get the taste of the party off his mouth, I suppose? He didn't
say anything to you then about being tired of his London season?"
"Not a word. He seemed tired of the dinner party. He yawned."
"And I'm sure that you yawned in sympathy. When a man so far forgets
himself as to yawn in the presence of a woman, she never fails to
respond with one of more ample circumference. When a woman so far
remembers herself as to yawn in the presence of a man, he tries to say
something witty."
"Yes, when the woman is not his wife. If she is his wife, he asks her
if she doesn't think it's about time she was in bed."
"I dare say you're right; you have observed men--and women, for that
matter--much more closely than I have had time to do. It's very
awkward that he isn't here. I must bring him back at once."
She felt a little movement at her heart; but she only said:
"I wouldn't do that, if I were you. Why shouldn't he be allowed to
enjoy his holiday in peace?"
"It's a matter of business; the mine, I told you."
"What's wrong with the mine that could be set right by his coming back
at once? Are you not making enough out of it?"
"We're making quite as much as is good for us out of it. But if we can
get a hundred and fifty thousand pounds for a few yards of our claim
further east, without damaging the prospects of the mine itself, I
don't think we should refuse it--at any rate, I don't think that we
should refuse to consider the offer."
"What is a hundred and fifty thousand pounds?" said she.
"I wonder why you dressed yourself as you did last night?" said he.
The suddenness of the words did not cause her to quail as the guilty
wife quails--yes, under a properly managed lime-light. She did not
even color. But then, of course, she was not a guilty wife.
She lay back on her chair and laughed.
He watched her--not eagerly, but pleasantly, admiringly.
"My dear Stephen, if you could understand why I dressed myself that
way you would be able to give me a valuable hint as to where the
connection lies between your mine and my toilet--I need such a hint,
now, I can assure you."
She was sitting up now looking at him with lovely laughing eyes.
(After all, she was no guilty wife.)
"What, you can't see the connection?" he said slowly. "You can sew
over your dress about fifty thousand pounds' worth of diamonds, and
yet you don't see the connection between the wearing of that dress and
the development of a gold mine by your husband?"
"I think I see it now--something of a connection. But I don't want any
more diamonds; I don't care if you take all that are sewed about the
dress and throw them into the river. That's how I feel this morning."
"I heard some time ago of a woman who had something of your mood upon
her one day. She had some excellent diamonds, and in one of her moods,
she flung them into the river. She was a wife and she had a lover who
disappointed her. The story reads very smoothly in verse."
She laughed.
"I have no lover," she said--was it mournfully? "I have a husband, it
is true; but he is not exactly of the type of King Arthur--nor Sir
Galahad, for that matter. I hope you found Paris as enjoyable as
ever?"
"Quite. I never saw at Paris a more enrapturing toilet than yours of
last night. You are, I know, the handsomest woman of my acquaintance,
and you looked handsomer than I had ever before seen you in that
costume. I wonder why you put it on."
"Didn't someone--was it Phyllis?--suggest that it was an act of
inspiration; that I had a secret, mysterious prompting to put it on to
achieve the object which--well, which I did achieve."
"Object? What object?"
"To make my husband fall in love with me again."
"Ah! In love there is no again. I wonder where a telegram would find
Herbert."
"Don't worry yourself about him. Let him enjoy his holiday."
"Do you fancy he is enjoying himself with Earlscourt and his boon
companions? They'll be playing poker from morning till night--
certainly from night till morning."
"Why should he go on the cruise if he was not certain to enjoy
himself?"
"Ah, that question is too much for me. Think over it yourself and let
me know if you come to a solution, my dear."
He rose and left the room before she could make any answer--before she
could make an attempt to find out in what direction his thoughts
regarding the departure of Herbert Courtland were moving.
She wondered if he had any suspicion in regard to Herbert and herself.
He was not a man given to suspicion, or at any rate, given to allowing
whatever suspicion he may have felt, to be apparent. He had allowed
her to drive and to ride with Herbert Courtland during the four months
they had been together, first at Egypt, then at Florence, Vienna,
Munich, and Paris, and he could not have but seen that Herbert and she
had a good many sympathies in common. Not a word had been breathed,
however, of a suspicion that they were more than good friends to each
other.
(As a matter of fact, they had not been more than good friends to each
other; but then some husbands are given to unworthy suspicions.)
Could it be possible, she asked herself, that some people with nasty
minds had suggested to him in Paris that she and Herbert were together
a great deal in London, and that he had been led to make this sudden
visit, this surprise visit to London, with a view of satisfying
himself as to the truth of the nasty reports--the disgraceful
calumnies which had reached his ears?
If he had done so, all that could be said was that he had been
singularly unfortunate in regard to his visit. "Unfortunate" was the
word which was in her mind, though, of course /"fortunate"/ was the
word which should have occurred to her. It was certainly a fortunate
result of his visit--that tableau in the drawing room of Mr. Ayrton:
Ella and her dearest friend standing side by side, hand in hand, as he
entered. A surprise visit, it may have been, but assuredly the
surprise was a pleasant one for the husband, if he had listened to the
voice of calumny.
And then, after pondering upon this with a smiling face, her smile
suddenly vanished. She was overwhelmed with the thought of what might
have been the result of that surprise visit--yes, if she had not had
the strength to run away to the side of Phyllis; yes, if Herbert had
not had the weakness to join that party of poker-players aboard the
yacht.
She began to wonder what her husband would have done if he had entered
the house by the aid of his latch-key, and had found her sitting in
that lovely costume by the side of Herbert Courtland? Would he have
thought her a guilty woman? Would he have thought Herbert a false
friend? Would he have killed her, or would he have killed Herbert?
Herbert would, she thought, take a good deal of killing from a man of
the caliber of her husband; but what could she have done?
Well, what she did, as the force of that thought crushed her back upon
her chair, was to bring her hands together in a passionate clasp, and
to cry in a passionate gasp:
"Thank God--thank God--thank God!"
She dined alone with her husband that night, and thought it well to
appear in another evening toilet--one that was quite as lovely, though
scarcely so striking, as that which her husband had so admired the
previous night. He clearly appreciated her efforts to maintain her
loveliness in his eyes, and their little dinner was a very pleasant
one.
He told her that he had learned that the yacht /Water Nymph/ would put
in to Leith before crossing the North Sea, and that he had written to
Herbert Courtland at that port to return without delay.
"You did wrong," said she; and she felt that she was speaking the
truth.
"I don't think so," he replied. "At any rate, you may rest perfectly
certain that Herbert will receive my letter with gratitude."
And Mr. Linton's judgment on this point was not in error. Herbert
Courtland received, on the evening of the third day after leaving
Southampton, the letter which called him back to London, and he
contrived to conceal whatever emotion he may have felt at the prospect
of parting from his shipmates. They accompanied him ashore, however--
they had worn out six packs of cards already, and were about to buy
another dozen or two, to see them safely through the imposing scenery
of the Hardanger Fjord.
The next day he was in London, and it was on the evening of that same
day that he came face to face with the Rev. George Holland outside
Miss Ayrton's drawing room.
CHAPTER XXV.
LIES! LIES! LIES!
"You should have come a little sooner," said Phyllis quite pleasantly.
"Mr. Courtland was giving me such an amusing account of his latest
voyage. Will you have tea or iced coffee?"
"Tea, if you please," said George Holland, also quite pleasantly. "Has
Mr. Courtland been on another voyage of discovery? What has he left
himself to discover in the world of waters?"
"I think that what he discovered on his latest voyage was the effect
of a banjo on the human mind," laughed Phyllis. "He was aboard Lord
Earlscourt's yacht, the /Water Nymph/. Some other men were there also.
One of them had an idea that he could play upon the banjo. He was
wrong, Mr. Courtland thinks."
"A good many people are subject to curious notions of the same type.
They usually take an optimistic view of the susceptibilities of
enjoyment of their neighbors--not that there is any connection between
enjoyment and a banjo."
"Mr. Courtland said just now that when Dr. Johnson gave it as his
opinion that music was, of all noises, the least disagreeable, the
banjo had not been invented."
"That assumes that there is some connection between music and the
banjo, and that's going just a little too far, don't you think?"
"I should like to hear Dr. Johnson's criticism of Paderewski."
"His criticism of Signor Piozzi is extant: a fine piece of eighteenth
century directness."
"I sometimes long for an hour or two of the eighteenth century. You
remember Fanny Burney's reference to the gentleman who thought it
preposterous that Reynolds should have increased his price for a
portrait to thirty guineas, though he admitted that Reynolds was a
good enough sort of man for a painter. I think I should like to have
an hour with that man."
"I long for more than that. I should like to have seen David Garrick's
reproduction, for the benefit of his schoolfellows, of Dr. Johnson's
love passages with his very mature wife. I should also like to have
heard the complete story of old Grouse in the gun room."
"Told by Squire Hardcastle, of course?"
"Of course. I question if there was anything very much better aboard
the /Water Nymph/. By the way, Lady Earlscourt invited me to join the
yachting party. She did not mention it to her husband, however. She
thought that there should be a chaplain aboard. Now, considering that
Lord Earlscourt had told me the previous day that he was compelled to
take to the sea solely on account of the way people were worrying him
about me, I think that I did the right thing when I told her that I
should be compelled to stay at home until the appearance of a certain
paper of mine in the /Zeit Geist Review/."
"I'm sure that you did the right thing when you stayed at home."
"And in writing the paper in the /Zeit Geist/? You have read it?"
"Oh, yes! I have read it."
"You don't like it?"
"How could I like it? You have known me now for sometime. How could
you fancy that I should like it--that is, if you thought of me at all
in connection with it? I don't myself see why you should think of me
at all."
He rose and stood before her. She had risen to take his empty cup from
him.
"Don't you know that I think of you always, Phyllis?" he said, in that
low tone of his which flowed around the hearts of his hearers, and
made their hearts as one with his heart. "Don't you know that I think
of you always--that all my hopes are centered in you?"
"I am so sorry if that is the case, Mr. Holland," said she. "I don't
want to give you pain, but I must tell you again what I told you long
ago: you have passed completely out of my life. If you had not done so
before, the publication of that article in the /Zeit Geist/ would
force me to tell you that you had done so now. To me my religion has
always been a living thing; my Bible has been my guide. You trampled
upon the one some months ago, you have trampled on the other now. You
shocked me, Mr. Holland."
"I have always loved you, Phyllis. I think I love you better than I
ever did, if that were possible," said he. "I am overwhelmed with
grief at the thought of the barrier which your fancy has built up
between us."
"Fancy?"
"Your fancy, dear child. I feel that the barrier which you fancy is
now between us is unworthy of you."
"What? Do you mean to say that you think that my detestation--my--my
horror of your sneers at the Bible, which I believe to be the Word of
God--of the contempt you have heaped upon the Church which I believe
to be God's agent on earth for the salvation of men's souls--do you
think that my detestation of these is a mere girlish fancy?"
"I don't think that, Phyllis. What I think is, that if you had ever
loved me you would be ready to stand by my side now--to be guided by
me in a matter which I have made the study of my life."
"In such matters as these--the value or the worthlessness of the
Bible; the value or the worthlessness of the Church--I require no
guide, Mr. Holland. I do not need to go to a priest to ask if it is
wrong to steal, to covet another's goods, to honor my father---- Oh, I
cannot discuss what is so very obvious. The Bible I regard as
precious; you think that you are in a position to edit it as if it
were an ordinary book. The Church I regard as the Temple of God upon
the earth; you think that it exists only to be sneered at? and yet you
talk of fanciful barriers between us!"
"I consider it the greatest privilege of a man on earth to be a
minister of the Church of Christ."
"Why, then, do you take every opportunity of pointing to it as the
greatest enemy to Christianity?"
"The Church of to-day represents some results of the great
Reformation. That Reformation was due to the intelligence of those men
who perceived that it had become the enemy to freedom; the enemy to
the development of thought; the enemy to the aspirations of a great
nation. The nation rejoiced in the freedom of thought of which the
great charter was the Reformation. But during the hundreds of years
that have elapsed since that Reformation, some enormous changes have
been brought about in the daily life of the people of this great
nation. The people are being educated, and the Church must sooner or
later face the fact that as education spreads church-going decreases.
Why is that, I ask you?"
"Because men are growing more wicked every day."
"But they are not. Crime is steadily decreasing as education is
spreading, and yet people will not go to church. They will go to
lectures, to bands of music, to political demonstrations, but they
will not go to church. The reason they will not go is because they
know that they will hear within the church the arguments of men whose
minds are stunted by a narrow theological course against every
discovery of science or result of investigation. You know how the best
minds in the Church ridiculed the discoveries of geology, of biology,
ending, of course, by reluctantly accepting the teachings of the men
whom they reviled."
"You said all that in your paper, Mr. Holland, and yet I tell you that
I abhor your paper--that I shuddered when I read what you wrote about
the Bible. The words that are in the Bible have given to millions of
poor souls a consolation that science could never bring to them."
"And those consoling words are what I would read to the people every
day of the week, not the words which may have a certain historical
signification, but which breathe a very different spirit from the
spirit of Christianity. Phyllis, it is to be the aim of my life to
help on the great work of making the Church once more the Church of
the people--of making it in reality the exponent of Christianity and
Judaism. That is my aim, and I want you to be my helper in this work."
"And I tell you that I shall oppose you by all the means in my power,
paltry though my power may be."
Her eyes were flashing and she made a little automatic motion with her
hands, as if sweeping something away from before her. He had become
pale and there was a light in his eyes. He felt angry at this girl who
had shown herself ready to argue with him,--in her girlish fashion, of
course,--and who, after listening to his incontrovertible arguments,
fell back resolutely upon a platitude, and considered that she had got
the better of him.
She had got the better of him, too; that was the worst of it; his
object in going to her, in arguing with her, was to induce her to
promise to marry him, and he had failed.
It was on this account he was angry. He might have had a certain
consciousness of succeeding as a theologian, but he had undoubtedly
failed as a lover. He was angry. He was as little accustomed as other
clergymen to be withstood by a girl.
"I am disappointed in you," said he. "I fancied that when I--when
I----" It was in his mind to say that he had selected her out of a
large number of candidates to be his helpmeet, but he pulled himself
up in time, and the pause that he made seemed purely emotional. "When
I loved you and got your promise to love me in return, you would share
with me all the glory, the persecution, the work incidental to this
crusade on behalf of the truth, but now---- Ah! you can never have
loved me."
"Perhaps you are right, indeed," said she meekly. She was ready to
cede him this point if he set any store by it.
"Take care," said he, with some measure of sternness. "Take care, if
you fancy you love another man, that he may be worthy of you."
"I do not love another man, Mr. Holland," said she gently; scarcely
regretfully.
"Do you not?" said he, with equal gentleness. "Then I will hope."
"You will do very wrong."
"You cannot say that without loving someone else. I would not like to
hear of your loving such a man as Herbert Courtland."
She started at that piece of impertinence, and then, without the
slightest further warning, she felt her body blaze from head to foot.
She was speechless with indignation.
"Perhaps I should have said a word of warning to you before." He had
now assumed the calm dignity of a clergyman who knows what is due to
himself. "I am not one to place credence in vulgar gossip; I thought
that your father, perhaps, might have given you a hint. Mrs. Linton is
undoubtedly a very silly woman. God forbid that I should ever hear
rumor play with your name as I have heard it deal with hers."
His assumption of the clergyman's solemn dignity did not make his
remark less impertinent, considering that Ella Linton was her dearest
friend. And yet people were in the habit of giving George Holland
praise for his tact. Such persons had never seen him angry, wounded,
and anxious to wound.
There was a pause after he had spoken his tactless words. It was
broken by a thrice-repeated cry from Phyllis.
"Lies! Lies! Lies!" she cried, facing him, the light of scorn in her
eyes. "I tell you that you have listened to lies; you, a clergyman,
have listened to lying gossip, and have repeated that lying gossip to
me. You have listened like a wicked man, and you should be ashamed of
your behavior, of your words, your wicked words. If Ella Linton were
wicked, you would be responsible for it in the sight of God. You, a
clergyman, whose duty it is to help the weak ones, to give counsel to
those who stand on the brink of danger; you speak your own
condemnation if you speak Ella Linton's. You have spent your time not
in that practical work of the Church--that work which is done silently
by those of her priests who are desirous of doing their duty; you have
spent your time, not in this work, but in theorizing, in inventing
vain sophistries to put in a book, and so cause people to talk about
you; whether they talk well or ill of you, you care not so long as
they talk; you have been doing this to gratify your own vanity,
instead of doing your duty as a clergyman on behalf of the souls which
have been intrusted to your keeping. Go away--go away! I am ashamed of
you; I am ashamed of myself that I was ever foolish enough to allow my
name to be associated with yours even for a single day. I shall never,
never again enter the church where you preach. Go away! Go away!"
He stood before her with his hands by his sides as a man suddenly
paralyzed might stand. He had never recovered from the shock produced
by her crying of the word "lies! lies! lies!" He was dazed. He was
barely conscious of the injustice which she was doing him, for he felt
that he was not actuated by vanity, but sincerity in all that he had
hitherto preached and written regarding the Church. Still he had not
the power to interrupt her in her accusation; he had not the power to
tell her that she was falsely accusing him.
When her impassioned denunciation of him had come to an end, and she
stood with flaming face, one outstretched hand pointing to the door,
he recovered himself--partially; and curiously enough, his first
thought was that he had never seen a more beautiful girl in a more
graceful attitude. She had insulted him grossly; she had behaved as
none of the daughters of Philistia would behave in regard to him--him,
a clergyman of the Church of England; but he forgot her insults, her
injustice, and his only thought was that she was surely the most
beautiful woman in the world.
"I am amazed!" he found words to say at last. "I am amazed! I felt
certain that you at least would do me justice. I thought--"
"I will not listen to you," she cried. "Every word you utter increases
my self-contempt at having heard you say so much as you have said. Go
away, please. No, I will go--I will go."
And she did go.
He found himself standing in the middle of an empty room.
Never before had he been so treated by man or woman; and the worst of
the matter was that he had an uneasy feeling that he had deserved the
scorn which she had heaped upon him. He knew perfectly well that he
had no right to speak to her as he had spoken regarding her friend,
Ella Linton. Rumor--what right had he to suggest to her, as he had
certainly done, that the evil rumors regarding her friend were
believed by him at least?
Yes, he felt that she had treated him as he deserved; and when he
tried to get up a case for himself, so to speak, by dwelling upon the
injustice which she had done him in saying that he had been actuated
by vanity, whereas he knew that he had been sincere, he completely
failed.
But his greatest humiliation was due to a consciousness of his own
want of tact. Any man may forget himself so far as to lose his temper
upon occasions; but no man need hope to get on in the world who so far
forgets himself as to allow other people to perceive that he has lost
his temper.
What was he to do?
What was left for him to do but to leave the house with as little
delay as possible?
He went down the stairs, and a footman opened the hall door for him.
He felt a good deal better in the open air. Even the large drawing
room which he had left was beginning to feel stuffy. (He was a
singularly sensitive man.)
On reaching the rectory he found two letters waiting for him. One from
the bishop requesting an early interview with him. The other was
almost identical but it was signed "Stephen Linton."
CHAPTER XXVI.
DID HE SAY SOMETHING MORE ABOUT RUTH?
Herbert Courtland had found his way to her drawing room on the
afternoon of his return to London; and it was upon this circumstance
rather than upon her own unusual behavior in the presence of George
Holland that Phyllis was dwelling so soon as she had recovered from
her tearful outburst on her bed. (She had, of course, run into her
bedroom and thrown herself upon the bed the moment that she had left
the presence of the man whom she had once promised to marry.) She had
wept in the sheer excitement of the scene in which she had played the
part of leading lady; it had been a very exciting scene, and it had
overwhelmed her; she had not accustomed herself to the use of such
vehement language as she had found necessary to employ in order to
adequately deal with Mr. Holland and that was how it came about that
she was overwhelmed.
But so soon as she had partially recovered from her excitement, and
had dried her eyes, she began to think of the visit which had been
paid to her, not by George Holland, but by Herbert Courtland. She
dwelt, moreover, less upon his amusing account of the cruise of the
/Water Nymph/ than upon the words which he had said to her in regard
to his last visit. She had expressed her surprise at seeing him. Had
he not gone on a yachting cruise to Norway? Surely five days was under
rather than over the space of time necessary to thoroughly enjoy the
fine scenery of the fjords.
He had then laughed and said that he had received a letter at Leith
making his immediate return absolutely necessary.
"How disappointed you must have felt!" she suggested, with something
like a smile upon her face.
His smile was broader as he said:
"Well, I'm not so sure that my disappointment was such as would tend
to make me take a gloomy view of life for an indefinite time. Lord
Earlscourt is a very good sort of fellow; but----"
"Yes; I quite agree with you," said she, still smiling. "Knowing what
follows that 'but' in everyone's mind, we all thought it rather
strange on your part to start on that cruise. And so suddenly you
seemed to make up your mind, too. You never hinted to me that
afternoon that you were anxious to see Norway under the personal
conductorship of Lord Earlscourt."
"It would have been impossible for me to give you such a hint," said
he. "I had no idea myself that I wanted greatly to go to Norway, until
I met Earlscourt."
"So we gathered from what papa told us when he came in about midnight,
bringing Mr. Linton with him," said Phyllis. "Ella had come across to
me before nine, to ask me to go with her to 'Romeo and Juliet' at
Covent Garden, forgetting that I was dining with Lady Earlscourt."
"But you had not returned from the dinner party at nine," he
suggested. She had certainly succeeded in arousing his interest, even
in such ordinary details as those she was describing.
"Of course not; but Ella waited for me; I suppose she did not want to
return to her lonely house. She seemed so glad when I came in that she
made up her mind to stay with me all night."
"Oh! But she didn't stay with you?"
"Of course not, when her husband appeared. It was so funny--so
startling."
"So funny--so startling! Yes, it must have been--funny."
"Ella was wearing such a lovely frock--covered with diamonds. I wish
that you had seen her."
"Ah!"
"I never saw anything so lovely. I told her that it was a bridal
toilet."
"A bridal toilet?"
"We thought it such a pity that it should be wasted. She didn't go to
the opera, of course."
"And it was wasted--wasted?"
"Oh, no! When her husband came in with papa, about midnight, we
laughed and said that her dressing herself in that way was an
inspiration; that something told her that he was returning."
"Probably a telegram from Paris had told her; that was the source of
her inspiration."
"Oh, no! what was so funny about the matter was that Mr. Linton's
servant bungled sending the telegram, so that Ella knew nothing of his
coming."
"Great Heavens!"
"You have not seen Ella since your return?"
"No; I have been with her husband on business all day, however."
"And of course he would not have occasion to refer to so casual an
incident as his wife's wearing a new toilet."
"Of course not. The word inspiration has no place in a commercial
vocabulary, Miss Ayrton."
"But it is a good word elsewhere, Mr. Courtland.
"Yes, it has its meaning. You think that it may be safely applied to
the wearing of an effective toilet. I wonder if you would think of
applying it to the words you said to me on the last evening I was
here?"
It was in a very low tone, and after a long pause, that she said:
"I hope if what I told you Mrs. Haddon said was an inspiration, it was
a good one. I felt that I must tell you, Mr. Courtland, though I fear
that I gave you some pain--great pain. I know what it is to be
reminded of an irreparable loss."
"Pain--pain?" said he. Then he raised his eyes to hers. "I wonder if
you will ever know what effect your words had upon me, Miss Ayrton?"
he added. "I don't suppose that you will ever know; but I tell you
that it would be impossible for me ever to cease to think of you as my
good angel."
She flushed slightly, very slightly, before saying:
"How odd that Ella should call me her good angel, too, on that same
night!"
"And she spoke the truth, if ever truth was spoken," he cried.
Her face was very serious as she said:
"Of course I don't understand anything of this, Mr. Courtland."
"No," he said; "it would be impossible for you to understand anything
of it. It would be impossible for you to understand how I feel toward
you--how I have felt toward you since you spoke those words in this
room; those words that came to me as the light from heaven came to
Saul of Tarsus; words of salvation. Believe me, I shall never forget
them."
"I am so glad," said she. "I am glad, though, as I say, I understand
nothing."
Then there had been a long interval of silence before she had asked
him something further regarding the yachting party.
And now she was lying on her bed trying to recall every word that he
had spoken, and with a dread over her that what he had said would bear
out that terrible suspicion which she had prayed to God to forgive her
for entertaining on that night when Ella had gone home with her
husband.
No rumor had reached her ears regarding the closeness of the intimacy
existing between Mr. Courtland and Mrs. Linton; and thus it was that
when that suspicion had come upon her, after Ella had left her, she
felt that she was guilty of something akin to a crime--a horrible
breach of friendship, only to be expiated by tears and prayers.
That terrible thought had been borne upon her as a suggestion to
account for much that she could not understand in the words and the
behavior of Ella during that remarkable evening; and, in spite of her
remorse and her prayers, she could not rid herself of it. It left its
impression upon her mind, upon her heart. Hitherto she had only heard
about the way an unlawful passion sweeps over two people, causing them
to fling to the winds all considerations of home, of husband, of
religion, of honor; and she felt it to be very terrible to be brought
face to face with such a power; it seemed to her as terrible as to be
brought face to face with that personal Satan in whom she believed.
It only required such a hint as that which had come from George
Holland to set her smoldering suspicion--suspicion of a suspicion--in
a flame. It had flamed up before him in those words which she had
spoken to him. If Ella were guilty, he, George Holland, was to be held
responsible for her guilt.
But Ella was not guilty; Herbert Courtland was not guilty.
"No, no, no!" she cried, in the solitude of her chamber. "She did not
talk as a guilty woman would talk; and he--he went straight out of the
room where I had told him what Mrs. Haddon said about his mother, his
sister--straight aboard the yacht; and she----"
All at once the truth flashed upon her; the truth--she felt that it
was the truth; and both of them were guiltless. It was for Herbert
Courtland that Ella had put on that lovely dress; but she was
guiltless, he was guiltless. (Curiously enough, she felt quite as
happy in the thought that he was guiltless.) Yes, Ella had come to her
wearing that dress instead of waiting for him, and he---- Ah, she now
knew what he had meant when he had called her his good angel. She had
saved him.
She flung herself on her knees in a passion of thanksgiving to God for
having made her the means of saving a soul from hell--yes, for the
time being.
And then she began to think what she should do in order that that soul
should be saved forever.
It was time for her to dress for dinner before she had finished
working out that great question, possibly the greatest question that
ever engrossed the attention of a young woman: how to save the soul of
a man, not temporarily, but eternally.
And all the time that she was in her room alone she had not a single
thought regarding the scene through which she had passed with the Rev.
George Holland. She had utterly forgotten him and his wickedness--his
vain sophistries. She had forgotten all that he had said to her--his
monstrous calumny leveled against her dearest friend; she even forgot
her unjust treatment of George Holland and her rudeness--her
unparalleled rudeness toward him. She was thinking over something very
much more important. What was a question of mere etiquette compared to
the question of saving a man's soul alive?
But when she dined opposite to her father it was to the visit of
George Holland she referred rather than to the visit of Herbert
Courtland.
"What had George Holland got to say that was calculated to interest
you?" her father inquired. The peaches were on the table and the
servant had, of course, left the room.
"He had nothing to say of interest to me," she replied.
"Nothing, except, of course, that his respectful aspiration to marry
you----" suggested Mr. Ayrton.
"You need not put the 'except' before that, my papa," said she.
"And yet I have for some years been under the impression that even
when a man whom she recoils from marrying talks to a young woman about
his aspirations in the direction of marriage, she is more interested
than she would be when the man whom she wishes to marry talks on some
other topic."
"At any rate, George Holland didn't interest me so long as he talked
of his aspirations. Then he talked of--well, of something else, and
I'm afraid that I was rude to him. I don't think that he will come
here again. I know that I shall never go to St. Chad's again."
"Heavens above! This is a pretty story to tell a father. How were you
rude to him? I should like to have a story of your rudeness, merely to
hold up against you for a future emergency."
"I pointed to the door in the attitude of the heroine of one of the
old plays, and when he didn't leave at once, I left the room."
"You mean to say that you left him standing in the middle of the room
while you went away?"
"I told you that I was rude."
"Rude, yes; but it's one thing to omit to leave cards upon a hostess,
and quite another to stare her in the face when she bows to you in the
street. It's one thing to omit sending a man a piece of your
bridescake, and quite another to knock off his hat in the street.
Rude, oh, my dear Phyllis!"
"If you knew what he said about--about someone whom I love--if you
knew how angry I was, you would not say that I acted so atrociously,
after all."
"Oh! Did he say something more about Ruth?"
"He said too much--far too much; I cannot tell you. If any other man
said so much I would treat him in the same way. You must not ask me
anything further, please."
"Rude and unrepentant, shocking and not ashamed. This is terrible. But
perhaps it's better that you should be rude when you're young and
beautiful; later on, when you're no longer young, it will not be
permitted in you. I'll question you no further. Only how about
Sunday?"
"I have promised Ella to go with her party to The Mooring for a week."
"That will get over the matter of the church, but only for one Sunday.
How about the next Sundays--until the prorogation? Now, don't say the
obvious 'sufficient unto the Sunday is the sermon thereof.' "
"I certainly will not. I have done forever with St. Chad's, unless the
bishop interferes and we get a new rector."
"Then that's settled. And so we can drink our coffee in the drawing
room with easy minds. Rude! Great Heavens!"
CHAPTER XXVII.
THAT'S WHY WOMEN DO NOT MAKE GOOD PHILOSOPHERS.
She had prayed to God that he might be kept away from her; but
immediately afterward, as has already been stated, when she began to
think over the situation of the hour, she came to the conclusion that
she had been a little too precipitate in her petition. She felt that
she would like to ask him how it had come about that he had played
that contemptible part. Such a contemptible part! Was it on record,
she wondered, that any man had ever played that contemptible part? To
run away! And she had designed and worn that wonderful toilet; such a
toilet as Helen might have worn (she thought); such a toilet as
Cleopatra might have worn (she fancied); such a toilet as--as Sarah
Bernhardt (she was certain) would wear when impersonating a woman who
had lost her soul for the love of a man. Oh, had ever woman been so
humiliated! She thought of the way Sarah Bernhardt would act the part
of one of those women if her lover had run away from her outstretched
arms,--and such a toilet,--only it was not on record that the lover of
any one of them had ever run away. The lovers had been only too
faithful; they had remained to be hacked to pieces with a mediaeval
knife sparkling with jewels, or to swallow some curious poison out of
a Byzantine goblet. She would have a word or two to say to Herbert
Courtland when he returned. She would create the part of the woman
whose lover has humiliated her.
This was her thought until her husband told her that he had sent that
letter to Herbert Courtland, and he would most likely dine with them
on the evening of his return.
Then it was it occurred to her that Herbert Courtland might by some
curious mischance--mischances occurred in many of Sarah Bernhardt's
plays--have come to hear that she had paid that rather singular visit
to Phyllis Ayrton, just at the hour that she had named in that letter
which she had written to him. What difference did that make in regard
to his unparalleled flight? He was actually aboard the yacht /Water
Nymph/ before she had rung for her brougham to take her to Phyllis'.
He had been the first to fly.
Then she began to think, as she had thought once before, of her
husband's sudden return,--the return of a husband at the exact hour
named in the letter to a lover was by no means an unknown incident in
a play of Sarah Bernhardt's,--and before she had continued upon this
course of thought for many minutes, she had come to the conclusion
that she would not be too hard on Herbert Courtland.
She was not too hard on him.
He had an interview with Mr. Linton at the city offices of the great
Taragonda Creek Mine. (The mine had, as has already been stated, been
discovered by Herbert Courtland during his early explorations in
Australia, and he had acquired out of his somewhat slender resources--
he had been poor in those days--about a square mile of the wretched
country where it was situated, and had then communicated his discovery
to Stephen Linton, who understood the science and arts necessary for
utilizing such a discovery, the result being that in two years
everyone connected with the Taragonda Mine was rich. The sweepings of
the crushing rooms were worth twenty thousand pounds a year: and
Herbert Courtland had spent about ten thousand pounds--a fourth of his
year's income--in the quest of the meteor-bird to make a feather fan
for Ella Linton.) And when the business for which he had been summoned
to London had been set /en train/, he had paid a visit to his
publishers. (They wondered could he give them a novel on New Guinea.
If he introduced plenty of dialect and it was sufficiently
unintelligible it might thrust the kail yard out of the market; but
the novel must be in dialect, they assured him.) After promising to
give the matter his attention, he paid his visit to Phyllis, and then
went to his rooms to dress; for when Stephen Linton had said:
"Of course you'll dine with us to-night: I told Ella you would come."
He had said, "Thanks; I shall be very pleased."
"Come early; eight sharp," Mr. Linton had added.
And thus it was that at five minutes to eight o'clock Herbert found
himself face to face alone with the woman whom he had so grossly
humiliated.
Perhaps she was hard on him after all: she addressed him as Mr.
Courtland. She felt that she, at any rate, had returned to the
straight path of duty when she had done that. (It was Herbert
Courtland who had talked to Phyllis of the modern philosopher--a
political philosopher or a philosophical politician--who, writing
against compromise, became the leading exponent of that science, and
had hoped to solve the question of a Deity by using a small g in
spelling God. On the same principle Ella had called Herbert "Mr.
Courtland.")
He felt uneasy. Was he ashamed of himself, she wondered?
"Stephen will be down in a moment, Mr. Courtland," she said.
He was glad to hear it.
"How warm it has been all day!" she added. "I thought of you toiling
away over figures in the city, when you might have been breathing the
lovely air of the sea. It was too bad of Stephen to bring you back."
"I assure you I was glad to get his letter at Leith," said he. "I was
thinking for the two days previous how I could best concoct a telegram
to myself at Leith in order that I might have some excuse for running
away."
"That is assuming that running away needs some excuse," said she.
There was a considerable pause before he said, in a low tone:
"Ella, Ella, I know everything--that night. We were saved."
At this moment Mr. Linton entered the room. He was, after all, not
late, he said: it wanted a minute still of being eight o'clock. He had
just been at the telephone to receive a reply regarding a box at
Covent Garden. In the earlier part of the day none had been vacant, he
had been told; but the people at the box office promised to telephone
to him if any became vacant in the course of the afternoon. He had
just come from the telephone, and had secured a good enough box on the
first tier. He hoped that Ella would not mind "Carmen"; there was to
be a new /Carmen/.
Ella assured him that she could not fail to be interested in any
/Carmen/, new or old. It was so good of him to take all that trouble
for her, knowing how devoted she was to opera. She hoped that Herbert
--she called him Herbert in the presence of her husband--was in a
/Carmen/ mood.
"I'm always in a mood to study anything that's unreservedly savage,"
said he.
"There's not much reservation about our little friend /Carmen/," said
Mr. Linton. "She tells you her philosophy in her first moment before
you."
He hummed the habanera.
"There you are: /Misteroso e l'amore/--that's the philosophy of your
pretty savage, Herbert."
"Yes," said Herbert; "it's that philosophy which consists in an
absence of philosophy--not the worst kind, either, it seems to me.
It's the philosophy of impulse."
"I thought that the aim of all philosophy was to check every impulse,"
said Ella.
"So it is; that's why women do not make good philosophers," said her
husband.
"Or, for that matter, good mothers of philosophers," said Herbert.
"That's rather a hard saying, isn't it?" said the other man.
"No," said his wife; "it's as transparent as air."
"London air in November?" suggested her husband.
"He means that there's no such thing."
"As air in London in November? I'm with him there."
"He means that there's no such thing as a good philosopher."
"Then I hope he has an appetite for dinner. The man without philosophy
usually has."
The butler had just announced dinner.
There was not much talk among them of philosophy so long as the
footmen were floating round them like mighty tropical birds. They
talked of the House of Commons instead. A new measure was to be
introduced the next night: something that threatened beer and
satisfied no party; not even the teetotalers--only the wives of the
teetotalers. Then they had a few words regarding George Holland's
article in the /Zeit Geist/. Mr. Linton seemed to some extent
interested in the contentions of the rector of St. Chad's; and Herbert
agreed with him when he expressed the opinion that the two greatest
problems that the Church had to face were: How to get people with
intelligence to go to church, and what to do with them when they were
there.
In an hour they were in their box at Covent Garden listening to the
sensuous music of "Carmen," and comparing the sauciness of the
charming little devil who sang the habanera, with the piquancy of the
last /Carmen/ but three, and with the refinement of the one who had
made so great a success at Munich. They agreed that the savagery of
the newest was very fascinating,--Stephen Linton called it womanly,--
but they thought they should like to hear her in the third act before
pronouncing a definite opinion regarding her capacity.
Then the husband left the box to talk to some people who were seated
opposite.
"You know everything?" she said.
"Everything," said Herbert. "Can you ever forgive me?"
"For running away? Oh, Bertie, you cannot have heard all."
"For forcing you to write me that letter--can you ever forgive me?"
"Oh, the letter? Oh, Bertie, we were both wrong--terribly wrong. But
we were saved."
"Yes, we were saved. Thank God--thank God!"
"That was my first cry, Bertie, when I felt that I was safe--that we
both had been saved: Thank God! It seemed as if a miracle had been
done to save us."
"So it was--a miracle."
"I spent the night praying that you might be kept away from me, Bertie
--away for ever and ever. I felt that I was miserably weak; I felt
that I could not trust myself; but now that you are here beside me
again I feel strong. Oh, Bertie, we know ourselves better now than we
did a week ago--is it only a week ago? It seems months--years--a
lifetime!"
"Yes, I think that we know each other better now, Ella. That night
aboard the yacht all the history of the past six months seemed to come
before me. I saw what a wretch I had been, and I was overwhelmed with
self-contempt."
"It was all my fault, dear Bertie. I was foolish--vain--a mere woman!
Do not say that I did not take pride in what I called, in my secret
moments, my conquest. Oh, Bertie! I had sunk into the depths. And then
that letter! But we were saved, and I feel that we have been saved
forevermore. I feel strong by your side now. And you, I know, feel
strong, Bertie?"
"I have awakened from my dream, Ella. You called her your good angel
too. Surely it was my good angel that sent me to her that evening!"
Ella was staring at him. He said that he knew everything. It appeared
that she was the one who was not in the fortunate position of knowing
all.
She stared.
"Phyllis Ayrton--you were with her?"
"For half an hour. She was unconscious of the effect her words had
upon me,--the words of another woman,--leading me back to the side of
those who have gone forever. I listened to her, and then it was that I
awoke. She did not know. How could she tell that the light of heaven
was breaking in upon a soul that was on the brink of hell? She saved
me."
"She told me nothing of that." There was a curious eagerness in her
voice. "She told me nothing. Oh, how could she tell me anything? She
knew nothing of it herself. She looked on you as an ordinary visitor.
She told you that I fled to her. Oh, Bertie, Bertie! those hours that
I passed--the terrible conflict. But when I felt her arms about me I
knew that I was safe. Then Stephen entered. I thought that we were
lost--you and I; that he had returned to find you waiting. I don't
know if he had a suspicion. At any rate we were saved, and by her--
dear Phyllis. Oh, will she ever know, I wonder, what it is to be a
woman? Bertie, she is my dearest friend--I told you so. I thought of
her and you--long ago. Oh, why should you not think of her now that
you have awakened and are capable of thought--the thought of a sane
man?"
He sat with an elbow resting on the front of the opera box, his head
upon his hand. He was not looking at her, but beyond her. He seemed to
be lost in thought.
Was he considering that curious doctrine which she had propounded,
that if a man really loves a woman he will marry her dearest friend?
He made no reply to her. The point required a good deal of thought,
apparently.
"You hear me, Bertie--dear Bertie?" she said.
He only nodded.
She remembered that, upon a previous occasion, when she had made the
same suggestion to him, he had put it aside as unworthy of comment--
unworthy of a moment's thought. How could it be possible for him,
loving her as he did, to admit the possibility of another's
attractiveness in his eyes? The idea had seemed ludicrous to him.
But now he made no such protest. He seemed to consider her suggestion
and to think it--well, worthy of consideration; and this should have
been very pleasing to her; for did it not mean that she had gained her
point?
"You will think over it, Bertie?" she said. Her voice was now scarcely
so full of eagerness as it had been before. Was that because she did
not want to weary him by her persistence? Even the suggestion to a man
that he should love a certain woman should, she knew, be made with
tact.
"I have been thinking over it," he said at last; but only after a long
pause.
"Oh, I am so glad!"
And she actually believed that she was glad.
"I thought about her aboard the yacht."
"Did you? I fancied that you would think of---- But I am so glad!"
"I thought of her as my good angel. Those words which she said to
me--"
"She has been your good angel, and I--"
"Ella, Ella, she has been our good angel--you said so."
"And don't you think that I meant it? Some women--she is one of them--
are born to lead men upward; others---- Ah, there, it is on the stage:
/Carmen/, the enchantress, /Michaela/, the good angel. But I am so
glad! She is coming to stay with us up the river; you must be with us
too. You cannot possibly know her yet. But a week by her side--you
will, I know, come to perceive what she is--the sweetest--the most
perfect!"
Still he made no reply. He was looking earnestly at the conductor, who
was pulling his musicians together for the second act.
"You will come to us, Bertie?" she whispered.
He shook his head.
"I dare not promise," said he. "I feel just now like a man who is
still dazed, on being suddenly awakened. I have not yet begun to see
things as they are. I am not sure of myself. I will let you know later
on."
Then the conductor tapped his desk, and those of the audience who had
left their places returned. Stephen Linton slipped into his chair; his
wife took up her lorgnette as the first jingle of the tambourines was
heard, and the curtain rose upon the picturesque tawdriness of the
company assembled at the /Senor Lois Pastia's/ place of entertainment.
Ella gave all her attention to the opera--to that tragedy of the
weakness of the flesh, albeit the spirit may be willing to listen to
good. Alas! that the flesh should be so full of color and charm and
seduction, while the spirit is pale, colorless, and set to music in a
minor key!
/Carmen/ flashed about the stage under the brilliant lights, looking
like a lovely purple butterfly--a lovely purple oriole endowed with
the double glory of plumage and song, and men whose hearts beat in
unison with the heart-beats of that sensuous music through which she
expressed herself, loved her; watched her with ravished eyes; heard
her with ravished ears--yes, as men love such women; until the senses
recover from the intoxication of her eyes and her limbs and her voice.
And in the third act the sweet /Michaela/ came on with her song of the
delight of purity, and peace, and home. She sang it charmingly,
everyone allowed, and hoped that /Carmen/ would sing as well in the
last act as she had sung in the others.
Ella Linton kept her eyes fixed upon the stage to the very end of all.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE CHURCH IS NOT NEUROTIC.
When George Holland received his two letters and read them he laid
them side by side and asked himself what each of them meant.
Well, he could make a pretty good guess as to what the bishop's meant.
The bishop meant business. But what did Mr. Linton want with him? Mr.
Linton was a business man, perhaps he meant business too. Business men
occasionally mean business; they more frequently only pretend to do
so, in order to put off their guard the men they are trying to get the
better of.
He would have an interview with the bishop; so much was certain; and
that interview was bound to be a difficult one--for the bishop. It was
with some degree of pride that he anticipated the conflict. He would
withdraw nothing that he had written. Let all the forces of the earth
be leagued against him, he would abate not a jot--not a jot. (By the
forces of the earth he meant the Bench of Bishops, which was scarcely
doing justice to the bishops--or to the forces of the earth.)
Yes, they might deprive him of his living, but that would make no
difference to him. Not a jot--not a jot! They might persecute him to
the death. He would be faithful unto death to the truths he had
endeavored to spread abroad. He felt that they were truths.
But that other letter, which also asked for an interview at his
earliest convenience the next day, was rather more puzzling to George
Holland. He had never had any but the most casual acquaintance with
Mr. Linton--such an acquaintance as one has with one's host at a house
where one has occasionally dined. He had dined at Mr. Linton's house
more than once; but then he had been seated in such proximity to Mrs.
Linton as necessitated his remoteness from Mr. Linton. Therefore he
had never had a chance of becoming intimate with that gentleman. Why,
then, should that gentleman desire an early interview with him?
It was certainly curious that within a few minutes of his having
referred to Mrs. Linton, in the presence of Phyllis Ayrton, in a way
that had had a very unhappy result so far as he was concerned, he
should receive a letter from Mrs. Linton's husband asking for an early
interview.
He seated himself in his study chair and began to think what the
writer of that letter might have to say to him.
He had not to ask himself if it was possible that Mr. Linton might
have a word or two to say to him, respecting the word or two which he,
George Holland, had just said about Mrs. Linton; for George knew very
well that, though during the previous week or two he had heard some
persons speaking lightly of Mrs. Linton, coupling her name with the
name of Herbert Courtland, yet he had never had occasion to couple
their names together except during the previous half hour, so that it
could not be Mr. Linton's intention to take him to task, so to speak,
for his indiscretion--his slander, Phyllis might be disposed to term
it.
Upon that point he was entirely satisfied. But he was not certain that
Mr. Linton did not want to consult him on some matter having more or
less direct bearing upon the coupling together of the names of Mrs.
Linton and Mr. Courtland. People even in town are fond of consulting
clergymen upon curious personal matters--matters upon which a lawyer
or a doctor should rather be consulted. He himself had never
encouraged such confidences. What did he keep curates for? His curates
had saved him many a long hour of talk with inconsequent men and
illogical women who had come to him with their stories. What were to
him the stories of men whose wives were giving them trouble? What were
to him the stories of wives who had difficulties with their housemaids
or who could not keep their boys from reading pirate literature? His
curates managed the domestic department of his church for him. They
could give any earnest inquirer at a moment's notice the addresses of
several civil-spoken women (elderly) who went out as mother's helps by
the day. They were very useful young men and professed to like this
work. He would not do them the injustice to believe that they spoke
the truth in that particular way.
He could not fancy for what purpose Mr. Linton wished to see him. But
he made up his mind that, if Mr. Linton was anxious that his wife
should be remonstrated with, he, George Holland, would decline to
accept the duty of remonstrating with her. He was wise enough to know
that he did not know very much about womankind; but he knew too much
to suppose that there is any more thankless employment than
remonstrating with an extremely pretty woman on any subject, but
particularly on the subject of a very distinguished man to whom she
considers herself bound by ties of the truest friendship.
But then there came upon him with the force of a great shock the
recollection of what Phyllis had said to him on this very point:
"/If Ella Linton were wicked, you should be held responsible for it in
the sight of God/."
Those were her words, and those words cut asunder the last strand of
whatever tie there had been between him and Phyllis.
His duty as a clergyman intrusted with the care of the souls of the
people, he had neglected that, she declared with startling vehemence.
He had been actuated by vanity in publishing his book--his article in
the /Zeit Geist Review/--she had said so; but there she had been
wrong. He felt that she had done him a great injustice in that
particular statement, and he tried to make his sense of this injustice
take the place of the uneasy feeling of which he was conscious, when
he thought over her other words. He knew that he was not actuated by
vanity in adopting the bold course that was represented by his
writings. He honestly believed that his efforts were calculated to
work a great reform in the Church. If not in the Church, outside it.
But his duty in regard to the souls of the people---- Oh! it was the
merest sophistry to assume that such responsibility on the part of a
clergyman is susceptible of being particularized. It should, he felt,
be touched upon, if at all, in a very general way. Did that young
woman expect that he should preach a sermon to suit the special case
of every individual soul intrusted (according to her absurd theory) to
his keeping?
The idea was preposterous; it could not be seriously considered for a
moment. She had allowed herself to be carried away by her affection
for her friend to make accusations against him, in which even she
herself would not persist in her quieter moments.
He found it quite easy to prove that Phyllis had been in the wrong and
that he was in the right; but this fact did not prevent an
intermittent recurrence during the evening of that feeling of
uneasiness, as those words of the girl, "/If Ella Linton were wicked,
you would be held responsible for it in the sight of God/," buzzed in
his ears.
"Would she have me become an ordinary clergyman of the Church of
England?" he cried indignantly, as he switched on the light in his
bedroom shortly before midnight--for the rushlight in the cell of the
modern man of God is supplied at a strength of so many volts. "Would
she have me become the model country parson, preaching to the squire
and other yokels on Sunday, and chatting about their souls to wheezy
Granfer this, and Gammer that?" He had read the works of Mr. Thomas
Hardy. "Does she suppose that I was made for such a life as that? Poor
Phyllis! When will she awake from this dream of hers?"
Did he fancy that he loved her still? or was the pain that he felt,
when he reflected that he had lost her, the result of his wounded
vanity--the result of his feeling that people would say he had not had
sufficient skill, with all his cleverness, to retain the love of the
girl who had promised to be his wife?
Before going to bed he had written replies to the two letters. The
bishop had suggested an early hour for their interview--he had named
eleven o'clock as convenient to himself, if it would also suit Mr.
Holland. Two o'clock was the hour suggested by Mr. Linton, if that
hour would not interfere with the other engagements of Mr. Holland; so
he had written agreements to the suggestions of both his
correspondents.
At eleven o'clock exactly he drove through the gates of the Palace of
the bishop, and with no faltering hand pulled the bell. (So, he
reflected for an instant,--only an instant,--Luther had gone,
somewhere or other, he forgot at the moment what was the exact
locality; but the occasion had been a momentous one in the history of
the Church.)
He was cordially greeted by the bishop, who said:
"How do you do, Holland? I took it for granted that you were an early
riser--that's why I ventured to name eleven."
"No hour could suit me better to-day," said George, accepting the seat
--he perceived at once that it was a genuine Chippendale chair
upholstered in old red morocco--to which his lordship made a motion
with his hand. He did not, however, seat himself until the bishop had
occupied, which he did very comfortably, the corresponding chair at
the side of the study desk.
"I was anxious to have a chat with you about that book, and that
article of yours in the /Zeit Geist/, Holland," said the bishop. "I
wish you had written neither."
"/Litera scripta manet/," said George, with a smile.
One may quote Latin in conversation with a bishop without being
thought a prig. In a letter to the /Times/ and in conversation with a
bishop are the only two occasions in these unclassical days when one
may safely quote Latin or Greek.
"That's the worst of it," said the prelate, with a shake of his head
that was Early Norman. "Yes, you see a book isn't like a sermon.
People don't remember a man's sermons against him nowadays; they do
his books, however."
"I am quite ready to accept the conditions of modern life, my lord,"
said George.
"I was anxious to give you my opinion as early as possible," resumed
the bishop, "and that is, that what you have just published--the book
and the /Zeit Geist/ article--reflect--yes, in no inconsiderable
measure--what I have long thought."
"I am flattered, indeed, my lord."
"You need not be, Holland. I believe that there are a large number of
thinking men in the Church who are trying to solve the problem with
which you have so daringly grappled--the problem of how to induce
intellectual men and women to attend the services of the church. I'm
afraid that there is a great deal of truth in what you say about the
Church herself bearing responsibility for the existence of this
problem."
"There is no setting aside that fact, my lord."
"Alas! that short-sighted policy has been the Church's greatest enemy
from the earliest period. You remember what St. Augustine says? Ah,
never mind just now. About your book--that's the matter before us just
now. I must say that I don't consider the present time the most
suitable for the issue of that book, or that article in the /Zeit
Geist/. You meant them to be startling. Well, they are startling.
There are some complaints--nervous complaints--that require to be
startled out of the system; that's a phrase of Sir Richard's. He made
use of it in regard to my neuralgia. 'We must surprise it out of the
system,' said he, 'with a large dose of quinine.' The phrase seemed to
me to be a very striking one. But the Church is not neurotic. You
cannot apply the surprise method to her system with any chance of
success. That is wherein the publication of your article seems to me
to be--shall we call it premature? It is calculated to startle; but
you cannot startle people into going to church, my dear Holland, and
that is, of course, the only object you hope to achieve. Your book and
your article were written with the sole object of bringing intelligent
people to church. But it occurs to me, and I think it will occur to
you also, that if the article be taken seriously,--and it is meant to
be taken seriously,--it may be the means of keeping people away from
the Church rather than bringing them to church. It may even be the
means of alienating from that fond, if somewhat foolish old mother of
ours, many of her children who are already attached to her. I trust I
don't speak harshly."
"Your lordship speaks most kindly; but the truth--"
"Should be spoken as gently as possible when it is calculated to
wound, Holland; that is why I trust I am speaking gently now. Ah,
Holland! there are the little children to be considered as well as the
Scribes and Pharisees. There are weaker brethren. You have heard of
the necessity for considering the weaker brethren."
"I seem to have heard of nothing else since I entered the Church; all
the brethren are the weaker brethren."
"They are; I am one of the weaker brethren myself. It is all a
question of comparison. I don't say that your article is likely to
have the effect of causing me to join the band of non-church-goers. I
don't at this moment believe that it will drive me to golf instead of
Gospel; but I honestly do believe that it is calculated to do that to
hundreds of persons who just now require but the smallest grain of
argument to turn the balance of their minds in favor of golf. Your aim
was not in that direction, I'm sure, Holland."
"My aim was to speak the truth, my lord."
"In order to achieve a noble object--the gathering of the stragglers
into the fold."
"That was my motive, my lord."
"You announce boldly that this old mother of ours is in a moribund
condition, in order that you may gather in as many of her scattered
children as possible to stand at her bedside? Ah, my dear Holland! the
moribund brings together the wolves and the vultures and all unclean,
hungry things to try and get a mouthful off those prostrate limbs of
hers--a mouthful while her flesh is still warm. I tell you this--I who
have from time to time during the last fifty years heard the howl of
the hyena, seen the talons of the vulture at the door of her chamber.
They fancied that the end could not be far off, that no more strength
was left in that aged body that lay prone for the moment. But I have
heard the howling wane into the distance and get lost in the outer
darkness when the old Church roused herself and went forth to face the
snarling teeth--the eager talons. There is life in this mighty old
mother of ours still. New life comes to her, not as it did to the
fabled hero of old, by contact with the earth, but by communing with
heaven. The bark of the wolf, the snarl of the hyena, may be heard in
the debate which the Government have encouraged in the House of
Commons on the Church. Philistia rejoices. Let the movers in this
obscene tumult look to themselves. Have they the confidence of the
people even as the Church has that confidence? Let them put it to the
test. I tell you, George Holland, the desert and the ditch, whose
vomit those men are who now move against us in Parliament, shall
receive them once more before many months have passed. The Church on
whom they hoped to prey shall witness their dispersal, never again to
return. I know the signs. I know what the present silence throughout
the country means. The champion of God and the Church has drawn his
breath for the conflict. His teeth are set--his weapon is in his hand
--you will see the result within a year. We shall have a government in
power, a government whose power will not be dependent on the faddists
and the self-seekers--the ignorant, the blatant bellowers of pitiful
platitudes, the platform loafers who call themselves labor-leaders,
but whom the real laborers repudiate. Mark my words, their doom is
sealed; back to the desert and the ditch! My dear Holland, pardon this
digression. I feel that I need say nothing more to you than I have
already said. The surprise system of therapeutics is not suited to the
existing ailments of the Church. Caution is what is needed if you
would not defeat your own worthy object, which, I know, is to give
fresh vitality to the Church."
"That is certainly my object, my lord; only let me say that--"
"My dear Holland, I will not let you say anything. I asked you to come
here this morning in order that you might hear me. That is all that is
necessary for the present. Perhaps, upon some future occasion, I may
have the privilege of hearing you in a discourse of some greater
length than that which I have just inflicted upon you. I have given
you my candid opinion of your writings, and you know that is the
opinion of a man who has but one object in life--you know that it is
the opinion of an old man who has seen the beginning and the end of
many movements in society and in the Church, and who has learned that
the Church, for all her decrepitude, is yet the most stable thing that
the world has seen. I have to thank you for coming to me, Holland."
"Your lordship has spoken to me with the greatest kindness," said
George Holland, as his spiritual father offered him his hand.
In a few minutes he was in his hansom once more.
CHAPTER XXIX.
I KNOW THAT IT DOESN'T MATTER MUCH TO GOD WHAT A MAN THINKS ABOUT
HIMSELF OR HIS SOUL.
For the next hour and a half the Rev. George Holland had an
opportunity of considering his position as a clergyman of the Church
of England, and as one whose chief desire was to advance the interests
of the Church. His bishop had assumed that he had been single-minded
in his aims--that his sole object in writing that book and that paper
had been to cure the complaint from which the old Church was
suffering. His lordship had done him justice where Phyllis had done
him a gross injustice. What would Phyllis have said he wondered, if
she had heard that concession, made not under pressure, but
voluntarily by probably the highest authority in the world, to his,
George Holland's, singleness of aim?
But it was so like a girl to jump at conclusions--to assume that he
had been actuated by vanity in all that he had just done; that he was
desirous only of getting people to talk about him--being regardless
whether they spoke well of him or ill. He only wished that she could
have heard the bishop. He felt as a man feels whose character has just
been cleared in a court of law from an aspersion that has rested on it
for some time. He wondered if that truly noble man whom he was
privileged to call his Father in God, would have any objection to give
him a testimonial to the effect that in his opinion,--the opinion of
his Father in God,--there was no foundation for the accusation against
him and his singleness of aim.
But the bishop knew that it was not vanity which had urged him to
write what he had written. The bishop understood men.
He was right; the bishop understood men so well as to be able to
produce in a few words upon the man who had just visited the palace,
the impression that he believed that that man had been impelled by a
strong sense of duty without a touch of vanity. He understood man so
well as to cause that same visitor of his to make a resolution never
again to publish anything in the same strain as the /Zeit Geist/
article, without first consulting with the bishop. George Holland had
pulled the bell at the palace gates with the hand of a Luther; but he
had left the presence of the bishop with the step of a Francis of
Assisi. He felt that anyone who would voluntarily give pain to so
gentle a man as the bishop could only be a brute. He even felt that
the bishop had shown himself to be his, George Holland's superior in
judgment and in the methods which he employed. The bishop was not an
overrated man.
For a full hour in the silence and solitude of the reading room of his
club he reflected upon the excellence of the bishop, and it was with a
sign of regret that he rose to keep his other appointment. He would
have liked to continue for another hour or two doing justice to that
good man out of whose presence he had come.
Mr. Linton's office was not quite in the City. Twenty minutes drive
brought George Holland into the private room of Ella Linton's husband.
"It is very good of you to come to me, Mr. Holland," said Stephen.
"There seems to be a general idea that a clergyman should be at the
beck and call of everyone who has a whim to--what do they call it in
Ireland--to make his soul? That has never been my opinion; I have
never given any trouble to a clergyman since I was at school."
"It is the privilege of a minister to be a servant," said the Rev.
George Holland.
"We were taught that at school--in connection with the Latin verb
/ministro/," said Mr. Linton. "Well, Mr. Holland, I am glad that you
take such a view of your calling, for I am anxious that you should do
me a great service."
He paused.
George Holland bent his head. He wondered if Mr. Linton wished to
intrust him with the duty of observing his wife.
"The fact is, Mr. Holland," resumed Stephen Linton, "I have read your
book and your paper in that review. The way you deal with a difficult
question has filled me with admiration. You will, I need scarcely say,
be outside the Church before long."
"I cannot allow you to assume that, Mr. Linton," said George gravely.
"I should be sorry to leave the Church. I cannot see that my leaving
it is the logical sequence of anything that I have yet written. My aim
is, as doubtless you have perceived, to bring about such reasonable
and, after all, not radical changes in the Church system as shall make
her in the future a more potent agency for good than she has ever yet
been, splendid though her services to humanity have been."
"Still you will find yourself outside the walls of your Church, Mr.
Holland. And you will probably adopt the course which other sons of
the Church have thought necessary to pursue when the stubborn old
thing refused to be reformed."
"If you suggest that I shall become a Dissenter, Mr. Linton--"
"I suggest nothing of the sort, though you dissent already from a good
many of the fundamental practices of the Church, if I may be permitted
the expression. Now, I should like to make a provision for your
future, Mr. Holland."
"My dear sir, such a proposition seems to me to be a most
extraordinary one. I hope you will not think me rude in saying so
much. I have not suggested, Mr. Linton, as other clergymen might, that
you mean an affront to me, but I don't think that anything would be
gained by prolonging--"
"Permit me to continue, and perhaps you may get a glimmer of gain. Mr.
Holland, I am what people usually term a doomed man. So far as I can
gather I have only about six months longer to live."
"Merciful Heaven!"
"Perhaps it is merciful on the part of Heaven to destroy a man when he
has reached the age of forty. We'll not go into that question just
now. I was warned by a doctor two years ago that I had not long to
live. It appears that my heart was never really a heart--that is to
say, it may have had its affections, its emotions, its passions, but
pneumatically it is a failure; it was never a blood-pump. Six months
ago I was examined by the greatest authority in Europe, and he
pronounced my doom. Three days ago I went to the leading specialist in
London, and he told me I might with care live six months longer."
"My dear Mr. Linton, with what words can I express to you my deep
feeling for you?"
George Holland spoke after a prolonged pause, during which he stared
at the white-faced man before him. A smile was upon that white face.
George was deeply affected. He seemed to have stepped out of a world
of visions--a world that had a visionary Church, visionary preachers,
visionary doctrines--all unsubstantial as words, which are but breath
--into a world of realities--such realities as life and death and----
Ah, there were no other realities in existence but the two: life and
death.
And Mr. Linton continued smiling.
"You may gather that I wrote to you in order that you may help me to
make my soul. What a capital phrase! I didn't do that, Mr. Holland. I
have never been sanguine about man and his soul. I know that it
doesn't matter much to God what a man thinks about himself or his
soul. It really doesn't matter much whether he believes or not that he
has a soul: God is the Principle of Right--the Fountain of Justice,
and I'm willing to trust myself to God."
"That is true religion, Mr. Linton," said the clergyman.
"But I agree with those people who think that the world cannot get on
without a Church. Now, I am sanguine enough to believe that a Church
founded on your ideas of what is orthodox would be the means of doing
a great deal of good. It would do a great deal of good to my wife, to
start with. She does not know that she is so soon to be a widow. Were
she to know, the last months of my life would be miserable to both of
us. I have noticed with some pain, or should I say amusement? perhaps
that word would be the better--I have noticed, I say, that her life is
one of complete aimlessness, and that, therefore, she is tempted to
think too much about herself. She is also tempted to have longings for
--well, for temptation. Ah, she is a woman and temptation is in the
way of women. /Qui parle d'amour, fait l'amour/: temptation comes to
the woman who thinks about being tempted. Now, I want to give her
something to think about that shall lead her out of the thoughts of
temptation which I suppose come naturally to a daughter of Eve--the
first woman who thought about temptation and was therefore tempted. My
wife is a perfectly good woman, and you will be surprised to find out
when I am dead how fond of me she was--she will be the most surprised
of all. But she is a woman. If she were not so much of a woman I don't
suppose I should ever have cared so much for her as I do. I cared so
much for her, Mr. Holland, that I remained away from her in Paris for
three months so that I might school myself to my fate, making no sign
that would lead her to suspect the truth. Why should she have six
months' additional misery? I have strayed. The Church. I want to give
my wife an aim in life; to make her feel that she is doing something
worthy--to keep her from thinking of less worthy things. Now, I think
you will agree with me that there is nothing women are really so fond
of as a Church of some sort. To be devout is as much a part of a
woman's disposition as to love--the passion of devoutness sometimes
takes the place of the passion of love in her nature. Now, I want to
give her this idea of a Church to work out when I am dead. I want you
to carry out as joint trustee with her your theories in regard to the
ritual, the art, the sermon; and for this purpose I should of course
provide an ample endowment--say three or four thousand a year;
anything you may suggest: I shall leave a great deal of money behind
me."
"Your project startles me, Mr. Linton," said George Holland. "It
startles me as greatly as the first revelation you made to me did.
They may be mistaken--the doctors; I have known cases where the
highest authorities were ludicrously in error. Let us hope that."
"Well, we may hope; I may live long enough to lay the foundation stone
of the Church myself. But I am most anxious that you should give the
whole matter your earnest attention."
"I am quite dazed. Do you suggest that I should leave the Church of
England?"
"By no means. That is a question which I leave entirely to your own
decision. My own idea is that you would like a free hand. You will
have to leave the Church sooner or later. A man with your advanced
ideas cannot regulate your pace to that of an old woman. In twenty
years the Church will think precisely as you think to-day. That is the
way with the Church. It opposes everything in the way of an
innovation. You stated the case very fairly in your paper. The Church
opposes every discovery and every new thing as long as possible. It
then only accepts grudgingly what all civilization has accepted
cordially. Oh, yes, you'll find it impossible to remain in the Church,
Mr. Holland. 'Crabbed age and youth,' you know."
"I should part from the Church with the greatest reluctance, Mr.
Linton."
"Then don't part from it, only don't place yourself in its power.
Don't be beholden to it for your income. Don't go to the heads of the
Church for orders. Be your own master and in plain words, run the
concern on your own lines. The widow of the founder will have no power
to interfere with you in the matter of such arrangements."
"I shall have to give the matter a good deal of thought. I should
naturally have to reform a good deal of the ritual."
"Naturally. The existing ritual is only a compromise. And as for the
hymns which are sung, why is it necessary for them to be doggerel
before they are devotional?"
"The hymns are for the most part doggerel. We should have a first-rate
choir and anthems--not necessarily taken from the Bible. Why should
not Shakspere be sung in churches--Shakspere's divine poetry instead
of the nonsense-rhymes that people call hymns? Shakspere and Milton;
Shelley I would not debar; Wordsworth's sonnets. But the scheme will
require a great deal of thought."
"A great deal; that is why I leave it in your hands. You are a
thinking man--you are not afraid of tradition."
"Tradition--tradition! the ruts made in the road by the vehicles that
have passed over it in years gone by!"
"The road to the Church is sadly in need of macadamizing, Mr. Holland
--or, better still, asphalting. Make a bicycle road of it, and you are
all right. Now, come with me to my club and have lunch. We'll talk no
more just now about this matter."
They went out together.
CHAPTER XXX.
THERE IS NO ONE I LIKE BETTER THAN PHYLLIS.
Phyllis Ayrton had spent a considerable time pondering over that
problem of how best to save a man and a woman from destruction--
social, perhaps; eternal, for certain. She felt that it had been laid
upon her to save them both, and she remembered the case of one Jonah,
a prophet, who, in endeavoring to escape from the disagreeable duty
with which he had been intrusted, had had an experience that was
practically unique, even among prophets. She would not try to evade
her responsibility in this matter.
A few days after Herbert Courtland had witnessed by the side of Ella
the representation of "Carmen," he had met Phyllis at an At Home. He
had seen her in the distance through a vista of crowded rooms, and had
crushed his way to her side. He could scarcely fail to see the little
light that came to her face as she put out her hand to him, nor could
her companion of the moment--he was one of the coming men in science,
consequently like most coming men, he had been forced into a prominent
place in the drawing room--fail to perceive that his farewell moment
with that pretty Miss Ayrton had come. She practically turned her back
upon him when Herbert Courtland came up.
For some moments they chatted together, and then it occurred to him
that she might like some iced coffee. His surmise proved correct, and
as there was at that moment a stream of people endeavoring to avoid
the entertainment of the high-class pianoforte player which was
threatened in a neighboring apartment, Phyllis and her companion had
no trouble in slipping aside from the panic-stricken people into the
tea room.
It was a sultry day, and the French windows of the room were open. It
was Phyllis who discovered that there was a narrow veranda, with iron-
work covered with creepers, running halfway round the house from
window to window; and when he suggested to her that they might drink
their coffee on this veranda, she hailed the suggestion as a very
happy one. How did it come that none of the rest of the people had
thought of that? she wondered.
In another instant they were standing together at the space between
the windows outside, the long-leaved creepers mingling with the
decorations of her hat, and making a very effective background for his
well-shaped head.
For the next half-hour people were intermittently coming to one of the
windows, putting their heads out and then turning away, the girls with
gentle little pursings of the mouth and other forms that the sneer
feminine assumes; the men with winks and an occasional chuckle,
suggestive of an exchange of confidence too deep for words.
One woman had poked her head out--it was gray at the roots and golden
at the tips--and asked her companion in a voice that had a large
circumference where was Mrs. Linton.
Now, Herbert Courtland had not lived so long far from the busy haunts
of men (white) as to be utterly ignorant of the fact that no young
woman but one who is disposed to be quite friendly with a man, would
adopt such a suggestion as he had made to her, and spend half an hour
drinking half a cup of iced coffee by his side in that particular
place. The particular place might have accommodated six persons; but
he knew, and he knew that she knew also, that it was one of the
unwritten laws of good society that such particular places are
overcrowded if occupied by three persons. It was on this account the
old men and maidens and the young men and matrons--that is how they
pair themselves nowadays--had avoided the veranda so carefully,
refusing to contribute to its congestion as a place of resort.
Herbert Courtland could not but feel that Phyllis intended to be
friendly with him--even at the risk of being within audible distance
of the strong man who was fighting a duel /a outrance/ with a grand
piano; and as he desired to be on friendly terms with a girl in whom
he was greatly interested, he was very much pleased to find her
showing no disposition to return to the tea room, or any other room,
until quite half an hour had gone by very pleasantly. And then she did
so with a start: the start of a girl who suddenly remembers a duty--
and regrets it.
That had pleased him greatly; he felt it to be rather a triumph for
him that by his side she had not only forgotten her duty but was glad
she had forgotten it.
"Oh, yes!" she said, in answer to his question, "I have two other
places to go to. I'm so sorry."
"Sorry that you remembered them?" he had suggested.
She shook her head smiling.
"What would happen if--I had continued forgetting them?" she asked.
"That is the most interesting question I have heard in some time. Why
not try to continue forgetting them?"
"I'm too great a coward," she replied, putting out her hand to him,
for now her victoria had drawn up and the footman was standing ready
to open the door.
"Good-by," said he.
"Oh, no! only /au revoir/," she murmured.
"With all my heart--/au revoir/ at The Mooring," said he.
That /au revoir/ had reference to the circumstance that they were to
be fellow-guests at Mrs. Linton's house at Hurley-on-Thames, known as
The Mooring. Phyllis had told him that she was about to pay that
visit, and when he said:
"Why, I am going as well," she had raised her eyes to his face, an
unmistakable look of pleasure on her own, as she cried:
"I am so glad! When do you go?"
"On Thursday."
"I go on Tuesday--two days sooner."
The tone in which she spoke made him feel that she had said:
"What on earth shall I do during those dreary two days?" or else he
had become singularly conceited.
But even if she had actually said those words they would not have made
him feel unduly vain. He reflected upon the fact which he had more
than once previously noticed--namely, that the girl, though wise as
became a daughter of a Member of Parliament to be (considering that
she had to prevent, or do her best to prevent, her father from making
a fool of himself), was in many respects as innocent and as natural as
a girl should be. She had only spoken naturally when she had said that
she was glad he was to be of the riverside party--when she had implied
by her tone that she was sorry that two whole days were bound to pass
before he should arrive.
What was there in all that she had said, to make such a man as he vain
--in all that she had implied? If she had been six years old instead
of twenty-three, she would probably have told him that she loved him.
The innocence of the child would have made her outspoken; but would
his vanity have been fostered by the confession? It was the charming
naturalness of the girl that had caused her to speak out what it was
but natural she should feel. She and he had liked each other from the
first, and it was quite natural that she should be glad to see him at
Hurley.
That was what he thought as he strolled to his rooms preparatory to
dressing for some function of the night. He flattered himself that he
was able to look at any situation straight in the face, so to speak.
He flattered himself that he was not a man to be led away by vanity.
He was, as a rule, on very good terms with himself, but he was rather
inclined to undervalue than overestimate the distinction which he
enjoyed among his fellow-men. And the result of his due consideration
of his last meeting with Phyllis was to make him feel that he had
never met a girl who was quite so nice; but he also felt that, if he
were to assume from the gladness which she had manifested not merely
at being with him that day, but at the prospect of meeting him up the
river, that he had made an impression upon her heart, he would be
assuming too much.
But all the same, he could not help wishing that Ella had asked him to
go to The Mooring on Tuesday rather than Thursday; and he felt when
Tuesday arrived that the hot and dusty town with its ceaseless roll of
gloomy festivities contained nothing for him that he would not
willingly part withal in exchange for an hour or two beside the still
waters of the Thames in the neighborhood of Hurley.
Stephen Linton had bought The Mooring when his wife had taken a fancy
to it the previous year, when she had had an attack of that river
fever which sooner or later takes hold upon Londoners, making them
ready to sell all their possessions and encamp on the banks of the
Thames. It had been a great delight to her to furnish that lovely old
house according to her taste, making each room a picture of
consistency in decoration and furniture, and it had been a great
delight to her to watch the garden being laid out after the most
perfect eighteenth-century pattern, with its green terraces and
clipped hedges. She had gone so far as to live in the house for close
upon a whole fortnight the previous autumn. Since that time the
caretaker had found it a trifle too cold in the winter and too hot in
the summer, he had complained to Mrs. Linton. But she knew that there
is no pleasing caretakers; she had not been put out of favor with the
place; she hoped to spend at least a week under its roof before the
end of the season, and perhaps another week before starting for
Scotland in the autumn.
She suddenly came to the conclusion one day that her husband was not
looking well--a conclusion which was certainly well founded. She
declared that a few days up the river was precisely what would restore
him to robust health. (But here it is to be feared her judgment was in
error.) He had been thinking too much about the new development of the
mine and the property surrounding it at Taragonda Creek. What did his
receiving a couple of hundred thousand pounds matter if his health
were jeopardized, she inquired of him one day, wearing the anxious
face of the Good Wife.
He had smiled that curious smile of his,--it was becoming more curious
every day,--and had said:
"What, indeed!"
"Up the river we shall go, and I'll get Phyllis to come with us to
amuse you--you know that you like Phyllis," his wife cried.
"There is no one I like better than Phyllis," he had said.
And so the matter had been settled.
But during the day or two that followed this settlement, Ella came
upon several of her friends who she found were looking a trifle fagged
through the pressure of the season, and she promptly invited them to
The Mooring, so that she had a party of close upon a dozen persons
coming to her house--some for a day, some for as long as three days,
commencing with the Tuesday when she and Phyllis went off together.
Mr. Linton had promised to join the party toward the end of the week.
And that was how it came about that Herbert Courtland found himself
daily admiring the cleverness of Phyllis Ayrton when she had the punt
pole in her hands. He also admired the gradual tinting of her fair
face, through the becoming exertion of taking the punt up the lovely
backwater or on to the placid reaches beyond. Sometimes the punt
contained three or four of the party in addition to Herbert, but twice
he was alone with her, and shared his admiration of her with no one.
CHAPTER XXXI.
YOU MAY TRUST MR. COURTLAND.
Mrs. Linton was greatly amused--she certainly was surprised. The
surprises were natural, but the amusement was not quite logical. It
was, however, quite natural that her guests--two of them excepted--
should be amused when they observed her surprise.
Could anything be funnier, one of these guests asked another in a
whisper, than Mrs. Linton's chagrin on finding that her own particular
Sir Lancelot had discovered an Elaine for himself?
Of course the guest who was so questioned agreed that nothing could
possibly be funnier; and they both laughed in unison. If people cannot
derive innocent fun from watching the disappointment of their hostess,
in what direction may the elements of mirth be found?
It was agreed that Mrs. Linton had invited Herbert Courtland up the
river for her own special entertainment--that she had expected him to
punt her up the river highways and the backwater by-ways, while
Phyllis Ayrton and the rest of her guests looked after themselves, or
looked after Mrs. Linton's husband; but it appeared that Herbert
Courtland had not been consulted on this subject, the result being
that Mrs. Linton's arrangements had been thrown into confusion.
The consensus of opinion among the guests was to the effect that Mrs.
Linton's arrangements had been thrown very much awry indeed. But then
the guests were amused, and as it is getting more and more difficult
every year to amuse one's guests, especially those forming a house-
party at a season when nothing lends itself to laughter, Mrs. Linton
would have had every reason to congratulate herself upon the success
of her party, had she been made aware of the innocent mirth which
prevailed for some days among her guests.
She would possibly have been greatly diverted also at the
overshrewdness of her guests, who were, of course, quite ignorant of
the conversation regarding Phyllis Ayrton which had immediately
preceded her invitation to Herbert to spend a few days on the river.
But though Ella had undoubtedly given Herbert to understand that she
was anxious to have him at The Mooring while Phyllis was there, in
order that he might have an opportunity of seeing more of her, and to
obtain his agreement that her theory that the man who truly loves a
woman should be ready to marry that woman's dearest friend, still it
must be confessed that she was surprised to observe the course adopted
by both Phyllis and Herbert. She had expected that all her tact and
diplomacy would be required in order to bring the young people--with
all the arrogance of the wife of twenty-six years of age she alluded
to a girl of twenty-three and a man of thirty-two as the young people
--together.
She had had visions of sitting in the stern of an out-rigger built for
two, remonstrating with Herbert--he would of course be at the oars--
for choosing to paddle her up the river while he allowed some of the
other men to carry off Phyllis in, say, the Canadian canoe. A picture
had come before her of the aggrieved expression upon the face of
Herbert when she would insist on his going out by the side of Phyllis
to feed the peacocks on the terraces in the twilight; and she had more
than once seemed to hear his sigh of resignation as she, with a
firmness which she would take pains to develop, pleaded a headache so
that he and Phyllis might play a game of billiards together.
She soon found out that her imagination had not been prophetic.
Immediately after drinking tea--it was a few minutes past six--on the
evening of the arrival of Herbert, she went out of doors to find him
and give him a lecture on the need there was for him to refrain from
waiting about the garden far from the other guests until she, Ella,
could go on the river with him for a quiet drift before dinner; the
other guests would certainly think him worse than rude, she was ready
to explain. The explanation was not needed; she learned that Mr.
Courtland had just taken Miss Ayrton out in one of the punts.
Of course she was pleased--after an hour by the side of her husband to
perceive that Herbert had lost no time in making an effort to prove to
her how amply he recognized her object in asking him to The Mooring.
But at the same time, if pleased, she was also surprised. At any rate,
she would take good care that he did not lapse in his attentions to
Phyllis; as she knew lovers are but too apt to lapse, especially when
they begin well. She would, for instance, send him from her side in
the garden after dinner, to walk with Phyllis up to the woods where a
nightingale was said to be in the habit of singing when the lovely
summer twilight had waned into the lovely summer night. With the
nightingale's song in their ears, two ordinary young persons with no
preconceived theories on the subject of love, have been known, she was
well aware, to become lovers of the most aggressive type. Yes, she had
great hopes of the nightingale.
So, apparently, had Herbert Courtland.
After dinner there was smoking in the garden, some feeding of the
peacocks on the terraces, while the blackbirds uttered protests
against such an absorption by foreign immigrants of the bread that was
baked for native consumption. Then there was some talk of the
nightingale. One man suggested that it was a nightingale attached to a
music box which the enterprise of a local inn had hired for the summer
months, sending a man to wind it up every night for the attraction of
visitors. Then it was that Mr. Courtland said he knew a spot where a
nightingale had been in the habit of singing long ago, when his
explorations of the Thames River had preceded those of the Fly River.
He found three persons who expressed their willingness to accept his
guidance on the spot, if it were not too far away. One of these was
Phyllis, the other two were notorious lovers. Off they started without
hats or caps.
This Ella heard when she returned to the garden, whence she had been
called away for ten minutes to interview a man who had an electric
launch for sale.
The news, communicated to her by her husband in answer to her inquiry,
had surprised her. That was why she had given a little laugh with a
tone of derision in it when she had said:
"A nightingale! How lovely! I hope they may find it. It shouldn't
prove so arduous as the quest of the meteor-bird. I do hope that those
children will not catch cold. It is a trifle imprudent."
"Imprudent?"
"Going off that way with nothing on their heads."
"Or in them. Happy children!" cried a moralizing novelist, who was
smoking an extremely good cigar--it had not come from his own
tobacconist.
"We can't all be novel-writers," said one of the women.
"Thank the Lord!" said one of the men, with genuine piety.
In three-quarters of an hour the members of the quest party returned.
They had been fully rewarded for their trouble; they had been
listening to the nightingale for nearly twenty minutes, they said; it
had been very lovely, they agreed, without a single dissentient voice.
It probably was; at any rate they were very silent for the rest of the
night.
"You have begun well," said Ella to Herbert, when they found
themselves together in the drawing room, later on, shortly before
midnight. Someone was playing on the piano, so that the general
conversation and yawning were not interfered with. "You have begun
well. You will soon get to know her if your others days here are like
to-day. That nightingale! Oh, yes, you will soon get to know her."
He shook his head.
"I doubt it," said he, in a low tone. His eyes were turned in the
direction of Phyllis. She was on a seat at an open window, the
twilight of moonlight and lamplight glimmering about her hair. "I
doubt it. It takes a man such as I am a long time to know such a girl
as Phyllis Ayrton."
That was a saying which had a certain amount of irritation for Ella.
He had never said anything in the past about her, Ella, being beyond
the knowledge of ordinary men.
"That's a very good beginning," said she, with a little laugh that
meant much. "But don't despair. After all, girls are pretty much
alike. I was a girl once--it seems a long time ago. I thought then
that I knew a great deal about men. Alas! all that I have learned
since is simply that they know a great deal about me. Am I different
from other women, I wonder? Am I more shallow--more transparent? Was I
ever an enigma to you, Bertie?"
"You were always a woman," he said. "That is why----"
"That is why----"
"That is why I am here to-night. If you were not a true woman I should
be far away."
"You are far away--from me, Bertie."
"No, no! I am only beginning to appreciate you--to understand you."
"I am to be understood through the medium of Phyllis Ayrton? Isn't
that like looking at happiness through another's eyes?"
He did not appear to catch her meaning at once. He looked at her and
then his eyes went across the room to Phyllis. At the same instant the
performance on the piano ceased. Everyone said "Thanks, awfully good,"
and there were some audible yawns.
There was a brandy and soda yearning in the men's eyes.
"We'll get off to bed; someone may begin to play something else,"
whispered the hostess to one of her lady guests.
The men looked as if they had heard the suggestion and heartily
approved of it.
The next evening Ella was fortunate enough to get beside Herbert once
again--she had scarcely had an opportunity of exchanging a word with
him all day. He had been with Phyllis alone in the Canadian canoe. It
only held two comfortably, otherwise---- But no one had volunteered to
put its capacity to the test. Ella had gone in one of the punts with
four or five of her guests; but the punt never overtook the canoe. It
was those of the guests who had been in the punt that afterward said
it was very funny to observe the chagrin of Queen Guinevere when she
found that her Sir Lancelot had discovered an Elaine.
"You have had a delightful day, I'm sure," said Ella. She had found
him at the bottom of the garden just before dinner. It was not for her
he was loitering there.
"Delightful? Perhaps. I shall know more about it ten years hence," he
replied.
"You are almost gruff as well as unintelligible," said she.
"I beg your pardon," he cried. "Pray forgive me, Ella."
"I'll forgive your gruffness if you make yourself intelligible," said
she. "You frighten me. Ten years hence? What has happened to-day?"
"Oh, nothing whatever has happened! and as for ten years hence--well,
in ten years hence I shall be looking back to this day either as one
of the happiest of my life, or as Francesca looked back upon her
/tempo felice/."
"Oh, now that you get into a foreign language you are quite
intelligible. You have not spoken?"
"Spoken? I? To her--to her? I have not spoken. I don't believe that I
shall ever have the courage to speak to her in the sense you mean."
Ella smiled as she settled a rose on the bodice of her evening dress--
its red petals were reposing in that little interspace that dimpled
the soft shell-pink of her bosom. The man before her had once kissed
her.
She smiled, as she knew that he was watching her. She wondered if he
had forgotten that kiss.
"Why should you lose courage at this juncture?" she asked. "She
hasn't, up to the present, shown any very marked antipathy to you, so
far as I can see. She is certainly not wanting in courage, if you
are."
"Ella," he cried, but in a low voice, "Ella, when I look at her, when
I think of her, I feel inclined to throw my bag into a trap and get
back to town--get back to New Guinea with as little delay as
possible."
"You would run away?" said she, still smiling. She had begun to work
with the rose in her bosom once more. "You would run away? Well, you
ran away once before, you know."
She could not altogether keep the sneer out of her voice; she could
not quite deprive her words of their sting. They sounded to her own
ears like the hiss of a lash in the air. She was amazed at the amount
of bitterness in her voice--amazed and ashamed.
He stood before her, silently looking at her. There was no reproach in
his eyes.
"Oh, Bertie, Bertie, forgive me!" she said, laying her hand on his
arm. "Forgive me; I don't know what I am saying."
There was some piteousness in her voice and eyes. She was appealing to
him for pity, but he did not know it. Every man thinks that the world
was made for himself alone, and he goes tramping about it, quite
careless as to where he plants his heavy feet. When occasionally he
gets a thorn in one of his feet, he feels quite aggrieved. He never
stops to think of all the things his foot crushes quite casually.
Herbert Courtland had no capacity for knowing how the woman before him
was suffering. He should have known, from the words he had just heard
her speak. He should have known that they had been wrung from her. He
did not know, however; he was not thinking of her.
"Bertie," she said again, "Bertie, you are not angry? I did not know
what I was saying."
"You are a woman," he said gently, and it was just by reason of this
gentleness that there seemed to be a reproach in his voice. He
reproached her for being a woman.
"I am a woman--just as other women, just as other women." Her voice
sounded like a moan. "I thought myself different, stronger--perhaps
worse than other women. I was wrong. Oh, Bertie! cannot you see that
she loves you as I loved you long ago--oh, so long ago? And someone
has said that there is no past tense in love! No, no! she does not
love you as I loved you--guiltily; no, her love is the love that
purifies, that exalts. She loves you, and she waits for you to tell
her that you love her. You love her, Bertie?"
There was a long pause before he said:
"Do I?"
"Do you not?"
"God knows."
And it was at this point that Phyllis came up. Was there no expression
of suspicion on her face as she looked at them standing together?
If there was, they failed to notice it.
"I came out to get a rose," she said. "How quickly you dressed, Ella!
Ah, you have got your rose--a beauty! Your gardener is generous; he
actually allows you to pluck your own roses."
"Mr. Courtland will choose one for you," said Ella. "You may trust Mr.
Courtland."
"To choose me a rose? Well, on that recommendation, Mr. Courtland, I
think I may safely place myself in your hands. I will accept a rose of
your choosing."
And she did.
CHAPTER XXXII.
LET THEM BOTH GO TOGETHER TO PERDITION.
There could be no doubt whatever that, after all, he had not proposed
to her.
That was what Herbert Courtland's fellow-guests said when they learned
that he had left for London by an early train on Monday morning.
And the way she had thrown herself at his head, too!
Of course she pretended not to feel his departure any more than the
rest of the party; and equally as a matter of course, Mrs. Linton
protested that Mr. Courtland had disappointed her.
And perhaps he had, too, some of the guests whispered to one another.
Mr. Linton shrugged his shoulders and remarked that business was
business.
Everyone agreed with the general accuracy of this assertion, but it
was not one that required much boldness to make, and what it had to do
with Mr. Courtland's hurried departure no one seemed quite able to
perceive.
The general idea that had prevailed at The Mooring on the subject of
Mr. Courtland was that he would remain at the house after all the
other guests--Miss Ayrton only excepted--had left.
During Monday several were to return to town, and the remainder on
Tuesday, including Miss Ayrton. She required to do so to be in time
for a grand function at which Royalty was to be present on that night.
Mrs. Linton herself meant to return on Wednesday afternoon.
It was late on Sunday night when Herbert had gone to Ella's side and
told her that he found it necessary to leave for town early in the
morning instead of waiting until Tuesday evening.
"Good Heavens!" she cried; "what is the meaning of this? What will
people say? You do not mean to tell me that she--she---- Oh, no; that
would be impossible!"
"Nothing is impossible," said he. "Nothing--not even my running away."
"You have told her----"
"I have told her nothing. I am not sure that I have anything to tell
her. I am going away to make sure."
"Oh! very well. But I must say that I think you are wrong--quite
wrong. There is that Mr. Holland; he is coming into greater prominence
than ever since that article of his appeared in the /Zeit Geist/.
Stephen says he will certainly have to leave the Church."
"What has Mr. Holland got to say to----"
"More than meets the eye. You must remember that three months ago she
was engaged to marry him. Now, though I don't mean to say that she
ever truly loved him, yet there is no smoke without fire; it is very
often that two persons who have become engaged to be married love each
other. Now, if Phyllis ever had a tender feeling for Mr. Holland, and
only threw him over because his theories are not those of Philistia,
in the midst of which she had always lived, that feeling is certain to
become tenderer if he is about to be made a martyr of. Would you like
to see her thrown away upon George Holland?"
Herbert looked at the woman who could thus plead the cause--if that
was not too strong a phrase--of the girl whom he had come to love. He
felt that he was only beginning to know something about woman and her
nature.
"I must go," he said. "I must go. I am not sure of myself."
"You had best make sure of her, and then you will become sure of
yourself," said Ella.
"That would be to do her an injustice. No. I feel that I must go," he
cried.
And go he did.
Those of the guests who remained during Monday did their best to find
out how Phyllis was disposed to regard his departure; and there was a
consensus of opinion among them that she seemed greatly mortified,
though she made a splendid fight, trying to appear utterly
indifferent.
There was, however, no ignoring the circumstance that Ella was elated
at his departure; some of her guests even went so far as to suggest
that she had accelerated his departure, giving him to understand that,
however a young woman might throw herself at his head,--and didn't
Phyllis just throw herself at his head?--he had no right to give her
all his attention; a hostess has a right to claim some of his spare
moments.
It was not until Tuesday, when Mr. Linton had left for London, and
Phyllis was alone with Ella for an hour before lunch, that the latter
endeavored to find out what she thought of Herbert Courtland.
"Has Stephen been speaking to you about George Holland?" she inquired.
She thought that the best way to lead Phyllis to talk about Herbert
would be by beginning to talk about George Holland.
"Oh, yes!" said Phyllis. "He appears to be greatly interested in Mr.
Holland. He thinks that he must leave the Church."
"That would be very sad," remarked Ella. "It would seem very like
persecution, would it not?"
"I cannot see that there would be any injustice in the matter," said
Phyllis. "If a man chooses to write such things as he has written, he
must take the consequences. I, for my part, intend keeping away from
the church as long as Mr. Holland remains in the pulpit."
She did not think it necessary to refer to the remarks made by Mr.
Holland upon the occasion of his last visit to her, though these words
might not be without interest to Ella.
"But it seems hard, doesn't it, to deprive a man of his profession
simply because he holds certain views on what is, after all, an
abstract subject--the patriarchs, or the prophets and things of that
sort?" said Ella.
"Lady Earlscourt said that he should be forgiven, because he really
didn't hold the views which he had preached," laughed Phyllis. "She
also said that he should not be regarded as an atheist, because he
believed not only in one God, but in two."
"I wonder how many Herbert Courtland believes in," said Ella. "You
told me he talked to you on that topic the first night you met. Was it
about God you and he have been talking lately?"
"I'm afraid it was not."
"Oh! you found a more interesting topic, and one of more importance to
two people in the bloom of youth?"
"Ella!"
"Oh, my dear, I don't mean anything dreadful. Only, you know as well
as I do that a healthy man and a healthy woman will never talk, when
they are alone together, about God, when they can talk about each
other. I think Herbert Courtland is about the healthiest man I know,
and I'm sure that you are the healthiest girl. You and he are most
sympathetic companions. You are not at all stupidly coy, my sweet
maiden."
"I like Mr. Courtland, and why should I be coy?"
"Why, indeed? I wonder what the people who have just left us will say
about it?"
"About it? About what!"
"You coyness--or absence of coyness. Will they say that you threw
yourself at his head?"
(As a matter of fact, as is already known, that is just what the
majority of the guests did say about her.)
Phyllis reddened and seemed--for a moment or two--almost angry. Then
she made a little gesture, expressive of indifference, as she cried:
"After all, what does it matter what they said? I don't care about
them. It is for you I care, Ella--you, only you."
"Heavens! how seriously you say that!" cried Ella. "There's no cause
for seriousness, I hope, even if you do care a great deal for me,
which I know you do. If you said so much to a man,--say, Herbert
Courtland,--it would be quite another matter. There would be
sufficient cause for seriousness then. But you didn't say so much to
him. He ran away before you could say it."
"Oh, Ella! please don't talk in that way. It is not like yourself to
talk in that way."
"How do you know what is like myself and what is not? You have only
seen one side of me, and I don't think that you have understood even
what you have seen. Great Heavens! how could I expect that you should.
Not until within a few months ago had I myself any idea that my nature
was made up of more than one element. Do you fancy now that you will
always be in the future as you have been in the past? The same placid,
sweet English girl, with serious thoughts at times about your own soul
and other people's souls? a maiden living with her feet only touching
the common clay of this earth? Wait until your hour comes--your hour
of love; your hour of fate; your hour of self-abandonment, and pray to
your God that you may come through it as well as I came through mine."
"Ella, dearest Ella!"
"You know nothing of that hour--that terrible hour! Wait until it
comes to you before you think a word of evil against any woman that
lives in the world. Wait until your hour of jealousy comes--wait until
you find that your hair is turning gray. The most tragical moment in a
woman's life is when she finds that the gray hairs will not be kept
back. That is the time when she thinks of Heaven most seriously. I
have not yet found a single gray hair in my head, but I have suffered
all else; and I have been an astonishment to myself--as I have been to
you more than once before now, and as I certainly am to you at the
present moment."
She had spoken at first with quivering lips, her fingers interlaced,
her eyes flashing. She had sprung from her seat and had begun to pace
the room just as she had paced Phyllis' drawing room on that night
when she had missed the performance of "Romeo and Juliet," but she
ended with a laugh, which was meant to make a mock of the seriousness
of her impassioned words, but which only had the effect of emphasizing
her passion in the ears of the girl.
While she was still lying back, laughing, in the chair into which she
had thrown herself once more, Phyllis went to her and knelt at her
feet, taking her hands just as Herbert had taken her hands in the
evening when he had knelt at her feet in her own house after the
little dinner at Mr. Ayrton's.
"Ella, Ella," she whispered, "I also am a woman. Oh, my dearest! I
think that I can understand something of your heart. I know a little.
Oh, Ella, Ella! I would do anything in the world to help you--anything
--anything!"
"Would you?" cried the woman. "Would you do anything? Would you give
up Herbert Courtland in order to help me?"
She had grasped Phyllis by the wrists and had bent her own head
forward until her face was within an inch of Phyllis'. Their breaths
mingled. Their faces were too close to admit of either of them seeing
the expression that was in the eyes of the other.
"Dearest Ella, you will not break my heart!" said the girl piteously.
"Will you give him up for your love of me?" the woman cried again, and
Phyllis felt her hands tighten upon her wrists.
"I will forget that you have said such words," said the girl.
The woman flung away her hands after retaining them for a few moments
in silence, and then throwing herself back in her chair, laughed loud
and long.
Phyllis rose to her feet.
"You poor dear!" cried Ella. "It was a shame--a shame to play such a
jest upon you! But I felt in a tragic mood, and the line between
comedy and tragedy is a very fine one. Forgive my little freak, dear;
and let us be human beings once more, living in a world that cannot be
taken so seriously. Don't go by the evening train, Phyllis; stay all
night with me. I have so much to say to you. I want to talk to you.
How can you leave me here all alone?"
Phyllis could have told her that how she could leave her all alone was
because Herbert Courtland had left for London on the previous day. She
did not make an explanation to her on this basis, however; she merely
said that it would interfere with her plans to remain longer at The
Moorings. She had to attend that great function with her father that
night.
Ella called her very unkind, but showed no desire to revert to the
topic upon which they had been conversing, when she had thought fit to
ask her that jocular question which Phyllis had said she would forget.
But Phyllis did not keep her word. On the contrary she thought of
nothing else but that question all the time she was in the railway
carriage going to Paddington.
It was a terrible question in Phyllis' eyes for a woman with a husband
to put to her girl-friend.
More than once during the week Phyllis had been led to ask herself if
she was quite certain that her terrible surmise regarding the
influence which dominated Ella's recent actions was true. Now and
again she felt an impulse to fall upon her knees and pray, as she had
once before prayed, that the sin of that horrible suspicion might be
forgiven her. How could it be possible, she thought, that Ella should
forget all that a true woman should ever remember!
But now--now, as she sat in the train on her way back to London, there
was no room left in her mind for doubt on this matter. The tragic
earnestness with which Ella had asked her that question, tightening
her fingers upon her wrists? "/Will you give up Herbert Courtland in
order to help me?/"--the passionate whisper, the quivering lips--all
told her with overwhelming force that what she had surmised was the
truth.
She felt that Ella had confessed to her that her infatuation--Phyllis
called it infatuation--had not passed away, though she had been strong
enough upon that night, when her husband had so suddenly returned, to
fly from its consequences. No, her infatuation had not died.
But Herbert Courtland--what of him? He had also had strength--once.
Would he have strength again? He had told her, while they were
together in one of the boats drifting down the placid river, that he
believed in the influence which a woman could exercise upon a man's
life being capable of changing his nature so completely as if a
miracle had been formed upon him. She had not had the courage to ask
him if he had any particular instance in his mind that impressed this
belief upon him.
Had he been led to cast that infatuation--if he had ever been
subjected to it--behind him, by reason of her influence over him since
she had repeated to him the pathetic words of Mrs. Haddon, and he had
gone straight aboard the yacht on that strange cruise?
She could scarcely doubt that he was ready to acknowledge how great
had been her influence upon his life. He had shown her in countless
ways that she had accomplished all that she had sought to achieve. She
had had no need to throw herself at his head--the phrase which Ella
suggested her fellow-guests would probably employ in referring to the
relative positions of Phyllis and Herbert. No, she had ever found him
by her side, and it did not need her to exercise much cleverness to
keep him there.
But then, why had he so suddenly hurried away from that pleasant life
beside the still waters?
This was the question which was on her mind as the train ran into the
station at Paddington. She got out of the carriage, and while her maid
went to look after the luggage, she glanced down the platform for the
footman. He came up to her in a moment and took her dressing-bag and
jewel-case.
"The brougham is here, I suppose?" she said, as she walked down the
platform.
It was at the entrance to the station, he told her.
She paused for a moment, and glanced back to see if there had been
much luggage in the train which she had left--if her maid would be
likely to be kept waiting for long. At that instant a porter, with a
portmanteau on his shoulder and a Gladstone bag in his hand, hurrying
up by the side of the train which was ready to depart from the next
platform, shouted to a group of Eton boys who were blocking the way:
"By your leave, gents!"
She started and took a step to one side, and that instant was
sufficient to make her aware of the fact that the portmanteau carried
by the porter to the train which was about to leave for Maidenhead was
Herbert Courtland's. There was no mistaking it. It bore on one end his
initials and his private sign.
She took a few steps nearer the train by which she had come, and
followed the porter with her eyes.
He put the portmanteau into the luggage van, and then returned with
the Gladstone bag to the side of a compartment. She saw him place it
in the network, and touch his cap as he received his /douceur/ from
the passenger who sat at the door with an evening paper in his hand.
She saw that that passenger was Herbert Courtland.
She told the footman who stood beside her to take her bag and case to
the brougham and then return to help her maid with the rest of the
luggage. He followed her down the platform.
In a short time she was being driven home, her maid following with the
luggage in another vehicle.
She did not begin to change her traveling dress immediately on
retiring to her room. She did not even take off her hat. She stood at
the window looking out over a scene very different from that which had
been before her eyes every day during the previous week. After a
quarter of an hour's listlessness at the window, she spent another
quarter of an hour sitting motionless in a chair. Then she rose and
looked at herself in a mirror that showed her herself from head to
foot. She examined her feet with curious deliberation, and then looked
with a critical side glance at the reflection of her face. (She could
not fail to have noticed that it was unusually pale.) She removed her
hat, surveyed herself once more, then, turning away with an
exclamation of impatience, she crumpled up her hat with both her hands
and flung it, just as a wicked child would have flung it, across the
room.
"Let them both go together to perdition--to perdition--to perdition!"
she said with a bitterness that had never previously been in her
voice. "Let them go together. I have done my best for them--for her--
for her. I give them up now for evermore."
After a minute or two of statuesque passion she went across the room
and picked up her bruised hat. She looked at it, turning it round in
her hands. Then she dropped it suddenly, and flung herself upon the
sofa, crying out in a whirlwind of tears:
"Oh, Ella, Ella, I would have saved you--I meant to save you, indeed!
I would have done everything to save you--everything!"
CHAPTER XXXIII.
I WONDER IF I EVER LOVED YOU UNTIL THIS MOMENT.
It was a rather tedious evening for Ella Linton after Phyllis had
taken her departure. Why on earth, she asked herself, had she been
such a fool as to lay out her plans to have this lonely evening? Then
she remembered that two of her guests had meant to stay until
Wednesday morning, but had received a letter necessitating their
departure for town on Monday night. But this fact should not have
condemned her to a solitary evening, Ella reflected. She should have
been thoughtful enough to change her own plans to correspond with the
change in the plans of her guests. A nice, quiet, contemplative
evening beside the still waters may suit the requirements of some
temperaments, but it was not just what Ella regarded as most
satisfying to her mood of the hour. It was a long time since she had
spent a lonely evening, and although she had now rather more food for
contemplation than at any other period of her life, she did not feel
contemplative.
Then it suddenly occurred to her to ask herself why, after all, should
she be condemned to a contemplative evening? What was there to hinder
her taking a train to town after she had dined? Once in town she knew
that all prospect of contemplation would be at an end.
She rang her bell and told her maid that she had changed her mind in
regard to staying another night at The Mooring; she would leave after
dinner; wasn't there a train about nine from Maidenhead?
It was when she was about to go down to dinner that she heard the
sound of wheels upon the gravel walk. Was it possible that her newly
made plans might also be deranged? Was this a fresh visitor arriving
by a fly from Maidenhead--she saw that the vehicle was a fly.
There was no one in the room to hear the cry of delight that she gave
when she saw Herbert at the porch of the house, the driver having
deposited his portmanteau and Gladstone bag at his feet.
He had returned to her--he, whom she fancied to be far away; he who
had forsaken her, as she thought, as she feared, as she (at times)
hoped, forever. He had returned to her. There was no one now to stand
between them. He was all her own.
She flung off the dress which she was wearing,--it was her plainest
evening gown,--and had actually got on another, a lovely one that she
had never yet worn, before her maid arrived at her dressing room.
"Louise," she said, "send a message downstairs to show Mr. Courtland
to his room, and mention that he will dine with me. Come back at once.
I have got so far in my dressing without you; I can't go much further,
however."
In a quarter of an hour she was surveying herself in her mirror just
as Phyllis had been doing an hour sooner; only on her face was a very
different expression from that which Phyllis had worn. Her eyes were
brilliant as they never had been before, except once; her face was not
pale, but full of soft color, as if she were standing beneath the
shadow of a mighty rose-leaf with the sunlight above. Her neck and
arms were of the same delicate tinge. Her smile she gave as she
surveyed herself was a smile of triumph, very different from the
expression on poor Phyllis' features as she flung her hat across the
room.
"Mine, mine, mine!" she whispered, nodding with a smile at the lovely
thing so full of warm life that faced her with a smile. "He is mine--
he has come back to me, I will keep him. I shall be able to keep him,
I think."
She had scarcely entered the drawing room before he was beside her,
and he had scarcely entered before a servant announced that dinner was
served. They were seated at the dinner table before they had exchanged
half a dozen words--before she had time to ask him why he had
returned.
And at the table, with a servant at each end, what could they say?
Well, she gave in detail, with the accuracy of a railway time-table,
the hours of the departure of the various guests, down to the last
departed guest, who chanced to be Miss Ayrton. Yes, she was obliged to
go up to town to be present at that important function which was to be
given in the presence of Royalty, though, she, Mrs. Linton, was
convinced that Phyllis would much prefer remaining in the midst of
that exquisite quietude which seemed to be found only up the river.
She had wanted her dear Phyllis to stay until the morrow, but poor
Phyllis' sense of duty had been, as unfortunately it always was, too
great for her inclination.
"Unfortunately?" said Herbert.
"Did I say unfortunately?" she cried. "How funny! I meant of course,
unfortunately for her friends--for myself in this particular case.
But, after all, we had a delightful week together. It has done us all
good--even you."
"Why the 'even'?" he asked, with a laugh.
"Oh, well, because you are not expected to feel the fatigues of a
London season. And then you must remember that you had a yachting
cruise which must have done you a world of good," she added, with a
smile born of the mood which was on her--a mood of joy and laughter
and daring. She felt that she could say anything she pleased to say to
him now; she could have referred with a laugh to his running away on
that strange cruise of his.
"Yes," he said, "it did me a great deal of good."
He spoke slowly, and her quick ear detected a tone of gravity in his
voice. What could he mean? Oh, yes.
"I hope that that last phase of the mine will soon be settled," said
she. "It was that which curtailed your cruise, you will remember."
"I certainly do remember."
"I hope the business will soon be settled one way or another. I don't
think this running to Paris so frequently is good for Stephen. Haven't
you noticed how poorly he has been looking of late?"
"He didn't seem to me to be particularly robust. But I think that he
pulled himself together while he was here. Oh, yes! another week will
see us free from this business."
"And with an extra million or so in your pockets."
"Well, something in that way."
That was how they talked while the servants were present--about
business and money and matters that may be discussed in the presence
of servants.
Then they went together into the drawing room. It was not yet dark
enough for the candles to be lighted. The exquisite summer twilight
was hanging over the river and the banks opposite, wooded from the
water's edge to the summit. It was the hour of delicate blue touched
with pink about the borders. The hour of purple and silver stars had
not yet come.
She threw open one of the windows on its hinges, and in a moment the
room was flooded with the perfume of the roses of the garden. She
stood in the opening of the window and seemed to drink in the garden
scents before they floated into the room. Then from some secret
nestling place in the dark depths of the clipped hedge there came the
even-song of a blackbird. It was replied to from the distance; and the
silence that followed only seemed to be silence. It was a silence made
vocal by the bending of a thousand notes--all musical. The blackbirds,
the thrushes, the robins made up a chorus of harmony as soothing to
the soul as silence. Then came the cooings of the wood pigeons. The
occasional shriek of a peacock was the only note out of harmony with
the feeling breathed by the twilight.
She stood at the open window, her back turned to him, for some time.
He felt slightly embarrassed. Her attitude somehow suggested to him an
imprisonment; he was captured; she was standing between him and the
open air; she was barring his passage.
Suddenly she turned. With her movement there seemed to float into the
room a great breath of rose-scent. It was only that the light showed
him more clearly at that moment the glowing whiteness of her neck and
shoulders and arms.
"Why have you come back?" she cried, almost piteously.
"Surely you know why, Ella," said he.
"I know nothing: a man is one thing one day and quite the opposite the
next day. How can I know anything of what is in your mind to-day--in
your heart to-day?"
"I came back thinking to find her here still--I fancied that you said
she would stay until you were returning to-morrow."
"You came back for her?"
"I came back to see her--I find that I cannot live without seeing
her."
"You have only found that out since you left here yesterday morning?"
"Only since I left here. I told you that I was not sure of myself.
That is why I went away."
"You went away to make sure of yourself, and now you return to make
sure of her?"
"Ah, if I could but think that! If I could only be as sure of her as I
am of myself. But what am I that I should dare to hope? Oh, she is
above all womankind--a crown of girlhood! What am I that I should ask
to wear this crown of girlhood?"
"You are a king of men, Bertie. Only for the king of men is such a
crown."
She laughed as she stood looking at him as she leaned against the half
open door of the window, one hand being on the framework above her
head.
"Ella, you know her!" he cried, facing her. She began to swing gently
to the extent of an inch or two, still leaning on the edge of the
hinged window. She was looking at him through half-closed, curious
eyes. "Ella, you know her--she has always been your friend; tell me if
I should speak to her or if I should go back to the work that I have
begun in New Guinea."
"Would you be guided by me, Bertie?" she asked, suddenly ceasing her
movement with the window and going very close to him indeed--so close
that he could feel the gracious warmth of her face and bare neck and
shoulders. "Would you be guided by me, I wonder?"
"Have I not been guided by you up to the present, Ella?" said he.
"Should I be here to-night if it were not for your goodness? I laughed
some time ago--how long ago it seems!--when you told me--you said it
was your dearest wish--I did not then believe it possible----"
"And do you fancy that I believed it possible?" she asked, with some
sadness in her voice.
"Great Heavens! Ella, do you mean to tell me that you---- Oh, no, it
is impossible! You knew me."
"I fancied that I knew you, Bertie. I fancied that I knew myself."
"Ella, Ella, for God's sake don't let us drift again. Have you no
recollection of that terrible time through which we both passed--that
ordeal by fire. Ella, we were plucked from the fire--she plucked us
from the very fire of hell itself--oh, don't let us drift in that
direction again!"
He had walked away from her. He was beginning to recall too vividly
the old days, under the influence of her gracious presence so close to
him--not so close as it had been, but still close enough to bring back
old memories.
"Come here and stand beside me, Bertie," said she.
After a moment's hesitation he went to her, slowly, not with the
rapture of a lover--not with the old passion trembling in his hands,
on his lips.
He went to her.
She put her hands behind her and looked at him in the face for a long
time. The even-songs of the birds mixed with the scent of the roses;
the blue shadow of the twilight was darkening over the trees at the
foot of her garden.
"Do you remember the oleanders?" she said. "I never breathe in such a
twilight as this without seeing before me the oleanders outlined
against its blue. It was very sweet at that old place on the Arno."
"Ella, Ella--for God's sake----"
"You told me that terrible secret of your life--that you loved me. I
wonder if I knew what it meant, Bertie? I told you that I loved you:
that was more terrible still. I wonder if you knew what that meant,
Bertie?"
He did not speak.
The bird's songs outside were becoming softer and more intermittent.
She gave a sudden cry as if stung with pain, and started away from the
window. She threw herself down on the couch, burying her face in the
pillows--he could see through the dim room the whiteness of her arms.
She was breathing convulsively; but she was not sobbing.
He remained beside the open window. He, too, was not breathing so
regularly as he had breathed a short time before.
He heard the sigh that came from her as she raised her head from the
pillow.
Then she said:
"I wonder if you ever really loved me, Bertie."
"Oh, my God!"
"I wonder if you ever loved me; and I wonder if I ever loved you until
this moment."
There was a silence. Outside there was a little whisper of moving
wings, but no voice of bird.
There was a silence, and out of it a low voice cried softly, softly:
"Bertie, Bertie, my love, come to me."
He took a step toward her, a second step--and then he stood, rigid,
breathless, for he heard another soft voice that said:
"/His honor is the honor of his mother and his sister, upon which no
stain must come./"
He heard that voice, and with a cry he covered his face with his
hands, and turning, fled through the open window into the garden.
She lay there on her couch, that lovely white creature who had been
saved so as by fire. There are two fires: the one is the fire that
consumes the heart until all that is left of it is the dust of ashes;
the other is the fire that purifies the soul even unto its salvation;
and yet both fires burn alike, so that men and women know not which is
burning within them.
Did she know that she was saved so as by fire?
She laughed as though he could still hear her; but after her laugh
there came a few moments of overwhelming bitterness that sent her on
her knees by the side of the couch in self-abasement.
"Kill me--kill me, O God!" she wailed. "Kill me, for I am not fit to
live!"
But she was spared.
After a time she found strength to rise. She seemed surprised to find
that the room was in darkness. She struck a light, and in a few
minutes a dozen candles were flaring round the walls; and then she
went mechanically to close the window. One side she had just fastened
when it seemed to her that she heard the sound of voices approaching.
She listened, her head bent forward through the side of the window
that remained unclosed.
Yes, their voices were sounding clearly through the still night--his
voice and--what trick was being played upon her by her hearing?
Phyllis' voice? How could it be Phyllis' voice? Phyllis had returned
to London. Oh, it was some trick! Her nerves were playing some trick
upon her--they were out of order, they were beyond her control.
Phyllis' voice---- Great Heavens! it was Phyllis herself who was
walking through the garden by his side!
Ella stood at the open side of the window staring out at them. They
stood at the foot of the half dozen steps that lead up to the window.
Phyllis laughed,--was there a trace of mockery in her laugh?--but he
was silent.
"I don't wonder at your fancying that I am a ghost, Ella," cried the
girl. "I feel that I deserve to be treated as discourteously as most
poor ghosts are treated when they visit their friends. You never yet
heard of a ghost being asked to stay to dinner, did you, Mr.
Courtland? But a ghost may fairly claim to be asked to enter the house
of her dearest friend, especially after a double railway journey."
Ella had not moved from her place at the open space of the window
while Phyllis was speaking, but the moment that the girl's laugh
sounded, she too laughed. She ran down the steps and put her arms
about Phyllis, kissing her on the face.
"This is more than the most exacting of ghosts could reasonable look
for," cried Phyllis. "Oh, Ella! I'm so glad that I followed my own
impulse and came back to you. I thought you were here all alone--how
could I know that Mr. Courtland would return in the meantime to
complete his visit?--and when I looked out on the dust and the smoke
of the town and thought of this--this--this exquisite stillness,--you
can just hear the water of the weir,--this garden, this scent of
roses, but chiefly when I thought of you sitting in your
loneliness---- Well, is it any wonder that I am here now?--you
implored of me to stay, you know, Ella."
"It is no wonder indeed, being what you are--a good angel, my good
angel, Phyllis," cried the woman. "Oh, dearest, you are welcome! Why
did you leave me Phyllis? Why did you leave me? Oh, the good angels
can never be trusted. You should not have left me to myself, dear. I
am only a woman. Ah, you don't yet know what a woman is. That is the
worst of angels and men; they don't know what a woman is. Come into
the house, Phyllis. Come in, Herbert. How did you manage to meet?"
"You know I went out to the garden----" said the man.
"Yes; I knew that--you left me alone," said the woman, and she gave a
laugh.
"I strolled from the garden to the road--I had to ask the people at
the Old Bell to keep a room for me, of course."
"Of course."
"And just outside the inn I came face to face with Miss Ayrton's fly.
Miss Ayrton was good enough to get out and walk with me, sending the
fly on with her maid. I told the man to wait in order to take my
portmanteau to the inn. It must be at the hall door now. We entered by
the garden gate."
"Nothing could be simpler," said Ella. They had by this time walked up
the steps into the drawing room. "Nothing could be simpler." Then she
turned to Phyllis. "But how did you contrive to evade the great
function to-night?"
"Papa did not feel very well," said Phyllis, "and I know that he was
only too glad of an excuse to stay at home."
"And you forsook your sick father to come to me? Oh, my dear Phyllis,
what have you done?"
"If you ask me in confidence I should say that papa is not quite so
ill as to stand in need of a nurse," she whispered. "Oh, no! Make your
mind easy. I have neglected no duty in coming to you."
"Except your duty to yourself; you could not have had time to take any
dinner at home. I shall have you a servants' hall supper in ten
minutes."
"Please get nothing for me. I had a capital sort of dinner at home.
But I should dearly like a cup of tea."
"It will be ready for you the moment you return from taking off your
hat. I'll go up with you to your room; Mr. Courtland knows that even I
make myself at home in this house. He will pardon us."
"I mustn't keep the fly waiting for my portmanteau," said Mr.
Courtland. "If you will allow me, I shall look to it now, and say
good-night."
"What! Oh, you mustn't think of running off in this way," said Ella.
"What reason had you for returning at all if you run off at this
hour?"
"It is getting quite late. I mustn't keep the good people of the Old
Bell up on my account," said he. "Besides, a man represents a certain
inharmonious element upon such an occasion as this. Miss Ayrton
returned expecting to be with you alone. I know the disabilities of a
man quite well. Yes, I must say good-night."
"Nonsense! Pray talk to him, Phyllis," cried Ella. "You may make him
amenable to reason."
But Phyllis stood mute with her hand on the handle of the door; she
only smiled, and there is neither reason nor argument in a smile.
"Good-night!" said he.
"Oh, well, if you really have nothing to say to either of us,--to
either Phyllis or me,--you had better go, I suppose," said Ella,
giving him her hand, but she did not look at him in the face while his
hand was touching hers.
Curiously enough, neither did Phyllis look at him as was her wont.
And so he left them that night.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
GIVE HIM BACK TO ME--GIVE HIM BACK TO ME!
They seemed to have been parted for months instead of hours, so much
had they to say to each other, and so rapidly did they say it.
Rapidly?--feverishly rather. Phyllis had only to remove her hat and
smooth her hair at places, disordering it at others, in order to be
all right; but half an hour had gone by before they went downstairs,
arm in arm, after the manner of girls who have been talking feverishly
and kissing every now and again.
It was madness for Phyllis to think of tea at that hour of the night,
Ella declared; but she knew Phyllis' fancies in the past--she knew
that what would set other girls' nerves in motion, would only have the
effect of soothing hers. So Phyllis drank her tea and ate her cake in
the drawing room, and Ella lay back on the sofa and watched her with a
curious interest in her eyes.
"I am so glad that we are spending together in this way the last night
of our delightful week," said Phyllis. "What a lovely week it has
been! and the charm of it is, of course, to be found in the fact that
it has been stolen from the best part of the season. In another month
it would not be nearly so delightful--everyone will be hurrying off to
the river or elsewhere."
"Such a week is one of the incidents that a person plans but that
rarely comes off according to one's views," said Ella. "I told you
when I set my heart upon Hurley what my idea was."
"And you have certainly realized it during this week. What a pity it
is that this is our last night together!"
"Do you know, Phyllis, the way you said that suggested to me that you
meant 'What a pity it is that Herbert Courtland is not one of our
party to-night'!"
Ella was still lying on the broad pillows of the couch, her hands
clasped at the back of her head. She was still watching Phyllis
through her half-closed eyes.
"I was not thinking about Mr. Courtland in the least when I spoke. How
can you fancy that I should be so insincere? I say it is delightful
for us, you and me only, mind, to be together to-night, because we can
say just whatever occurs to us--I thought we could, you know; but
since you made that horrid suggestion I think I must take back all
that I said. It is, after all, not nearly so nice to be alone with you
as one would imagine."
"That was, I'm afraid, the conclusion that Herbert Courtland came to
some time ago," said Ella. "He was alone with me here--yes, for some
minutes; but he left me--he left me and found you."
"It was so funny!" cried Phyllis. "Who would have thought of seeing
such a figure--bareheaded and in evening dress--on the road? I knew
him at once, however. And he was walking so quickly too--walking as if
--as if----"
"As if the devil were behind him--that's how men put it," said Ella.
"It would never do for us to say that, of course, but in this
particular case we might venture on it for the sake of strict
accuracy; the devil was behind him. He escaped from it by the aid of
his good angel. Didn't he call you his good angel once, my Phyllis?"
"Yes, he called me so once," said Phyllis. "But why should we talk
about Mr. Courtland? Why should we talk about anybody to-night?
Dearest Ella, let us talk about ourselves. You are of more interest to
me than anyone in the world, and I know that I am of more interest to
you than to anyone else. Let us talk about ourselves."
"Certainly we shall talk about ourselves," said Ella. "To begin, I
should like very much to know if you were aware that Herbert had
returned to this house after his day or two in town."
Phyllis undoubtedly colored before she said, with a laugh:
"Didn't you promise to talk solely about ourselves? I decline to talk
on any other topic."
She arose from where she had been sitting before a cup of tea at a
little table that also held cake, and threw herself back in a fanciful
seat shaped like a shell.
"That being so, I should like very much to know how you learned that
he meant to return," pursued Ella.
"You are becoming quite horrid, and I expected you to be so nice,"
said Phyllis, pouting very prettily.
"And I expected you to confide in me," said Ella reproachfully. "I
have been watching you for some time--not merely during the past week,
but long before; and I have seen--what I have seen. He could not have
told you that he meant to return--you must have crossed each other in
the trains. How did you know, my dear girl? Let me coax it out of
you."
Phyllis made no answer for some time; she was examining, with a newly
acquired, but very intense interest, the texture of the sheen of the
blouse which she was wearing. At last she raised her eyes, and saw how
Ella was looking at her. Then she said slowly:
"I saw him in the train that was leaving when our train arrived."
"Heavens! that is a confession!" cried Ella quite merrily.
"You forced it from me," said Phyllis. "But why should there be any
mystery between us? I'm sure I may tell you all the secrets of my
life. Such as they are, you know them already."
"They are safe in my keeping. My dear Phyllis, don't you know that it
has always been my dearest hope to see you and Herbert Courtland--
well, interested in each other? I saw that he was interested in you
long ago; but I wasn't sure of you. That is just why I was so anxious
for you to come down here for the week we have just passed. I wanted
to bring you both together. I wanted to see you in love with each
other; I wanted to see you both married."
"Ella--Ella!"
"I wanted it, I tell you, not because I loved you, though you know
that I love you better than anyone in the world."
"Dearest Ella!"
"Not because I knew that you and he would be happy, but because I
wished to snatch my own soul from perdition. I think it is safe now--
but oh, my God! it is like the souls of many other mortals--saved in
spite of myself! Phyllis, you have been my salvation. You are a girl;
you cannot understand how near a woman may go to the bottomless pit
through the love of a man. You fancy that love lifts one to the heaven
of heavens; that it means purity--self-sacrifice. Well, there is a
love that means purity; and there is a love that means self-sacrifice.
Self-sacrifice: that is, that a woman is ready to sacrifice herself--
her life--her soul--for the man whom she loves. I tell you--I, who
know the truth--I, who have been at the brink. It is not that the pit
is dear to us; it is that the man is dear to us, and we must go with
him,--wherever he goes,--even down into hell itself with him."
"Oh, Ella, Ella! this is the love of the satyr. It is not the love of
the one who is made in the image of God."
"Let it be what it is; it is a power that has to be reckoned upon so
long as we remain creatures of the earth, earthy."
"It is a thing that we should beat into the earth from which it came."
The girl had sprung to her feet, and was speaking with white face and
clenched hands. "Down into the earth"--she stamped upon the floor--
"even if we have to throw our bodies into the grave into which we
trample it. Woman, I tell you that the other love,--the love which is
the truth,--is stronger than the love of the satyr."
"Is it? is it, Phyllis? Yes, sometimes. Yes; it was a word that you
spoke in his hearing that saved him--him--Herbert--and that saved me
that night when I came to you--when I waited for you--you did not know
anything of why I came. I will tell you now--"
"No, no, no! Oh, Ella! for God's sake, tell me nothing! I think I know
all that I want to know; and I know that you had strength given to you
by God to come to me that night. I had not to go to you. But I have
come to you to-night. We are together, you and I; and we are the same
as when we were girls together--oh, just the same! Who shall come
between us, Ella?"
"Who? Who? You came here to save me. I knew it. But you had saved me
before you came. Phyllis, in this very room I was alone with him. I
was mad--mad with jealousy at the thought of losing him--though I knew
that I had lost him--I was mad! The passion breathed from the roses--
the twilight full of the memories of the spring we spent together in
Italy--all took possession of my heart--my soul. I whispered to him to
come to me--to come to me. And he came."
The cry the girl gave, as she covered her face with her hands and
dropped back into her chair, was very pitiful.
"He came to me--but only one step--one little step, Phyllis; then
there came before his eyes a vision of your face--he felt your hand--
cool as a lily--upon his wrist--he heard your voice speaking into his
ear; he turned and fled--fled through that window--fled from the demon
that had taken possession of this room--I said so to you."
"Thank God--oh, Ella, thank God!"
"That is my cry--thank God--thank God; and yet--and yet--God help me!
I feel ready to throw myself at your feet and say 'Give him back to
me! Give him back to me!' "
She had stood with her hands clasped above her head at her first
utterance of that imploration--"Give him back to me!" Then she threw
herself on her knees and passionately caught both the girl's hands in
her own, crying, "Give him back to me!"
Phyllis flung her arms about her neck, and bowed her own head down to
the shoulder of the woman whom she loved and pitied.
And then----
Then through the silence of the house--the hour was almost midnight--
there sounded the loud and continuous ringing of a bell.
It was only the usual visitors' bell of the house; but its effect at
that hour was startling--shocking!
The two women were on their feet, waiting in silence, but with wildly
beating hearts, for what was coming--they felt that something terrible
was coming. The bell had an ominous jangle. They heard the footsteps
of the one servant who remained up to put out the lights, going to
answer the summons of the bell--they heard a man's voice speaking in a
low tone in the hall--they heard a man's steps approach the door of
their room. The door opened, and Mr. Ayrton appeared before them.
He closed the door slowly, and stood there staring not at his
daughter, but at Ella Linton. On his face was an expression that
Phyllis had never seen on it before. It frightened her. She could not
speak.
He stood there, with his eyes fixed upon Ella Linton--rigid--silent as
a figure that symbolizes Death.
The silence became appalling.
"For God's sake speak, if you are living!" cried Ella in a whisper
tremulous with terror.
He did not speak--he stood there, staring at her.
"What does he mean? What does he mean?" said the woman, after another
dreadful pause. "Why does he stand there, Phyllis, staring at me?
Why---- Oh, my God! I see it--I see it on his face--my husband--
Stephen--dead--he is dead--you came to bring the news to me. Look,
Phyllis, he cannot say 'No'--he would say 'No' unless I had guessed
the truth--he would say it--he would have some pity. Is it the truth?
Man--speak--say yes, or no--for God's sake! for God's sake!"
She had taken half a dozen rapid steps to him and grasped him by the
arm, gazing into his face.
He bowed his head.
She flung his arm from her, and burst into a laugh.
"Ah, Phyllis! I see it all now. He was the man I loved--I know it now
--he was the man I loved. It was for him I cried out just now--'Give
him back to me--give him back to me!' "
The wild shriek with which she cried the words the second time rang
through the house. She fell upon her knees, clutching at Phyllis' hand
as before, and then, making a motion as if about to rise, she fell
back and lay with her white face turned to the ceiling, her white arms
stretched limply out on each side of her like the arms of a crucified
woman.
Servants came with restoratives.
CHAPTER XXXV.
IF GOD WOULD ONLY GIVE ME ANOTHER CHANCE!
"Poor creature! Poor creature!" said Mr. Ayrton. He had just returned
from the room to which they had carried Ella. Phyllis was lying on the
sofa with her face down to the pillow. "Poor creature! No one could
have had any idea that she was so attached to him! She will be one of
the richest women in England. He fell down in the club between nine
and ten. His heart. Sir Joseph was not surprised. He said he had told
him a short time ago that he had not six months to live. He cannot
have let his wife know. Well, well, perhaps it was for the best. His
man came to me in a terrible state. How was it to be broken to her? I
just managed to catch the last train. He must have been worth over a
million. She will be one of the richest women in England. Even in
America a woman with three-quarters of a million is reckoned
moderately well off. Poor creature! Ah! the shorn lamb!--the wind is
tempered. 'In the midst of life--' Dear Phyllis! you must not allow
yourself to break down. Your sympathetic nature is hard to control, I
know, but still--oh, my child!"
But Phyllis refused to be comforted. She lay sobbing on the pillow,
and when her father put his arm about her and raised her, she put her
head on his shoulder, crying:
"He is gone from me forever--he is gone from me forever! Oh, I am the
cruelest woman on earth! It is not for her terrible blow that I am
crying, it is because I have lost him--I see it--I have lost him!"
Her father became frightened. What in the world could she mean by
talking about the man being gone from her? He had never heard of a
woman's sympathy extending to such limits as caused her to feel a
personal deprivation when death had taken another woman's husband.
"Oh, I am selfish--cruel--heartless!" sobbed Phyllis. "I thought of
myself, not of her. He is hers; he will be given back to her as she
prayed--she prayed so to me before you appeared at the door, papa.
'Give him back to me! Give him back to me!' that was her prayer."
"My dearest child, you must not talk that way," said the father.
"Come, Phyllis, your strength has been overtaxed. You must go to bed
and try to sleep."
She still moaned about her cruelty--her selfishness, until the doctor
who had been sent for and had been with Ella in her room, appeared in
order to let them know that Mrs. Linton had regained consciousness.
The blow had, of course, been a terrible one: but she was young, and
Nature would soon reassert herself, he declared, whatever he meant by
that. He thought it strange, he said, that Mrs. Linton had not been
aware of her husband's weakness. To him, the physician, the condition
of the unfortunate gentleman had been apparent from the first moment
he had seen him. He had expected to hear of his death any day. He
concluded by advising Phyllis to go to bed and have as long a sleep as
possible. He would return in the morning and see if Mrs. Linton might
travel to London.
Phyllis went to her room, and her father went to the one which had
been prepared for him. For a minute or two he remained thoughtful.
What could his daughter have meant by those self-accusations? After a
short time, however, he smiled. The poor thing had been upset by the
shocking news of the death of the husband of her dearest friend. She
was sympathetic to quite a phenomenal degree. That sympathy which felt
her friend's loss as though it were wholly her own was certainly not
to be met with every day.
In the morning Phyllis showed traces of having spent a bad night. But
she spoke rationally and not in the wild way in which she had spoken
before retiring, and her father felt that there was no need for him to
be uneasy in regard to her condition. He allowed her to go to the side
of her friend, Ella, and as he was leaving them together in each
other's arms, he heard Ella say:
"Ah, Phyllis, I know it now. He was the man who had all my love--all--
all! Ah, if God would only give me another chance--one more chance!"
Mr. Ayrton had heard that passionate appeal for another chance upon
more than one previous occasion. He had heard the husband who had
tortured his wife to death make a passionate appeal to God to give him
another chance. He knew that God had never given him another chance
with the same wife; but God had given him another wife in the course
of time--a wife who was not made on the spiritual lines of those who
die by torture; a wife who was able to formulate a list of her own
rights, and the rights of her sisters, and who possessed a Will.
The man who wanted another chance had no chance with such a woman.
He had heard the wife, who had deserted her husband in favor of the
teetotal platform, cry out for another chance, when her husband had
died away from her. But God had compassion upon the husband. She did
not get him back.
He pitied with all his heart the poor woman who would be one of the
richest women in England in the course of a day or two, and he said so
to Mr. Courtland when he called early in the morning. Mr. Courtland
did not remain for long in the house. It might have been assumed that
so intimate a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Linton's would be an acceptable
visitor to the widow; but Mr. Courtland knew better. He hurried away
to town without even asking to see her. He only begged of Mr. Ayrton
to let him know if he could be of any use in town--there were details
--ghastly; but he would take care that there was no inquest.
Phyllis went up to town with poor Ella, and remained by her side in
that darkened house through all the terrible days that followed. Mr.
Linton's death had an appreciable influence upon the quarter's revenue
of the country. The probate duty paid by the executors was a large
fortune in itself, and Ella was, as Mr. Ayrton had predicted she would
be, one of the richest women in England. The hundred thousand pounds
bequeathed to some unostentatious charities--charities that existed
for the cause of charity, not for the benefit of the official staff--
made no difference worth speaking of in the position of Mrs. Linton as
one of the richest women in England.
But the codicil to the will which surprised most people was that which
placed in the hands of Mrs. Linton and the Rev. George Holland as
joint trustees the sum of sixty thousand pounds, for the building and
endowment of a church, the character and aims of which would be in
sympathy with the principles recently formulated by the Rev. George
Holland in his book entitled "Revised Versions," and in his magazine
article entitled "The Enemy to Christianity," the details to be
decided by the Rev. George Holland and Mrs. Linton as joint trustees.
The codicil was, of course, a very recent one; but it was executed in
proper form; it required two pages of engrossing to make the
testator's desires plain to every intelligence that had received a
thorough training in legal technicalities. It was susceptible of a
good deal of interpretation to an ordinary intelligence.
When it was explained to Mrs. Linton, she also was at first a good
deal surprised. It read very like a jest of some subtlety: for she had
no idea that her husband had the slightest feeling one way or another
on the subject of the development of one Church or another; and as for
the establishment of an entirely new Church--yes, it struck her at
first that her solicitor was making a bold and certainly quite an
unusual attempt to cheer her up in her bereavement by bringing under
her notice a jest of the order /pachydermato/.
But soon it dawned upon her that her husband meant a good deal by this
codicil of his.
"I am getting to understand him better every day," she said to
Phyllis. "He knew that I loved him and him only. He has given me this
work to do, and with God's help I will do it thoroughly. You did not
believe in the value of George Holland's doctrines. Neither did I: I
never thought about them. I will accept my husband's judgment
regarding them, and perhaps I may think about them later on. Our
Church will be the most potent influence for good that the century has
yet seen. Yes, I will throw myself heart and soul into the work. After
all, it must be admitted that the Church has never done its duty as a
Church."
Phyllis said nothing.
But the Rev. George Holland had a good deal to say on the subject of
the codicil, when he was alone with Mrs. Linton, a few days later. He
had by no means made up his mind to sever his connection with the dear
old mother Church, he said. He could not see that there was any need
for his taking so serious a step--an irrevocable step. It was his
feeling at that moment, he declared, that he might be able to effect
the object of his life--which was, of course, the reform of the Church
--better by remaining within its walls than by severing himself from
it. He must take time to consider his position.
He left Mrs. Linton greatly disappointed. It had been her belief that
Mr. Holland would jump at the chance--that was the phrase which she
employed in expressing her disappointment to Phyllis--of becoming the
founder of a brand-new religion.
She was greatly disappointed in Mr. Holland. If Buddha or Edward
Irving, or some of the other founders of new religions had had such a
chance offered to them in early life, would they not have embraced it
eagerly? she asked.
And it was to be such a striking Church! She had made up her mind to
that. It was to be a lasting memorial to the largeness of soul of her
husband--to his appreciation of the requirements of the thinking men
and women of the age. She had made up her mind already as to the
character of the painted windows. The church would itself, of course,
be the purest Gothic. As for the services, she rather thought that the
simplicity of the Early Church might be effectively combined with some
of the most striking elements of Modern Ritualism. However, that would
have to be decided later on.
But when the bishop heard of the codicil he had another interview with
George Holland, and imparted to that young cleric his opinion that he
should avail himself of the opportunity offered to him of trying what
would undoubtedly be a most interesting experiment, and one to the
carrying out of which all true churchmen would look forward most
hopefully. Who could say, he inquired, if the larger freedom which
would be enjoyed by an earnest, sincere, and highly intellectual
clergyman, not in immediate contact with the Establishment, might not
avail him to perfect such a scheme of reform as would eventually be
adopted by the Church?
That interview was very helpful to George Holland in making up his
mind on the subject of the new Church. He resigned his pastorate,
greatly to the regret of the churchwardens; though no expression of
such regret was ever heard from the bishop.
But then a bishop is supposed to have his feeling thoroughly under
control.
This happened three weeks after the death of Stephen Linton, and
during these weeks Herbert Courtland had never once asked to see Ella
Linton.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
MARRIAGE IS THE PICTURESQUE GATEWAY LEADING
TO A COMMONPLACE ESTATE.
So soon as Phyllis Ayrton had returned home, she got a letter from
Herbert Courtland, asking her if she would be good enough to grant him
an interview. She replied at once that it would please her very much
to see him on the following afternoon--she was going to Scotland with
her father in a week, if Parliament had risen by that time.
He came to her. She was alone in the drawing room where she had always
received him previously.
The servant had scarcely left the room before he had told her he had
come to tell her that he loved her--to ask her if he might hope to
have some of her love in return.
He had not seated himself, nor had she. They remained standing
together in the middle of the room. He had not even retained her hand.
"Why have you come to me--to /me/?" she asked him. Her face was pale
and her lips, when he had been speaking to her, were firmly set.
"I have come to you, not because I am worthy of the priceless gift of
your love," said he, "but because you have taught me not merely to
love you--you have taught me what love itself is. You have saved my
soul."
"No, no! do not say that; it pains me," she cried.
"I cannot but say it; it is the truth. You have saved me from a
degradation such as you could not understand. Great God! how should I
feel to-day if you had not come forward to save me?"
He walked away from her. He stood with his back turned to her, looking
out of the window.
She remained where he had left her. She did not speak. Why should she
speak?
He suddenly faced her once again. The expression upon his face
astonished her. She had never before seen a man so completely in the
power of a strong emotion. She saw him making the attempt to speak,
but not succeeding for some time. Her heart was full of pity for him.
"You--you cannot understand," he managed to say. "You cannot
understand, and I cannot, I dare not, try to explain anything of the
peril from which you snatched me. You know nothing of the baseness,
the cruelty, of a man who allows himself to be swayed by his own
passions. But you saved me--you saved me!"
"I thank God for that," she said slowly. "But you must not come to me
to ask me for my love. It is not to me you should come. It is for her
who was ready to sacrifice everything for you. You must go to her when
the time comes, not now--she has not recovered from her shock."
"You know--she has told you?"
"I knew all that terrible story--that pitiful story--before I heard it
from her lips."
"And yet--yet--you could speak to me--you could be with me day after
day?"
"Oh, I know what you would say! You would say that I led you on--that
I gave you to believe that I loved you. That is what you would say,
and it would be the truth. I made up my mind to lead you on; I gave
you to understand that I cared for you. But I confess to you now that
I did so because I hoped to save her. You see it was a plot on my part
--the plot of one woman anxious to save her sister from destruction. I
succeeded. Thank God for that--thank God for that!"
"You succeeded--you succeeded indeed." He spoke slowly and in a low
tone, his eyes fixed upon her burning face. "Yes, you led me on--you
led me from earth to heaven. You saved her--you saved me. That is why
I am here to-day."
"Oh, it is not here you should be, Mr. Courtland." She had turned
quickly away from him with a gesture of impatience and had walked to
the other end of the room. There was more than a suspicion of
indignation in her voice. "You should be with the woman whom you
loved; the woman who showed you how she loved you; the woman who was
ready to give up everything--honor--husband--God--for you. Go to her--
to her--when the numbness has passed away from her, and there is no
barrier between you and her. That is all I have to say to you, Mr.
Courtland."
"Is it indeed all, Phyllis?" he said. "But you will let me speak to
you. You will let me ask if Ella alone was ready to sacrifice herself?
You say that you led me to love you in order to save her. How did you
lead me on? By giving me to understand that you were not indifferent
to me--that you had some love for me. Let me ask you if you were
acting a lie at that time?"
"I wanted to save her."
"And you succeeded. Were you acting a lie?"
She was silent.
"You were willing to save her?" he continued. "How did you mean to
save her? Were you prepared to go to the length of marrying me when I
had been led on to that point by you? Answer me, Phyllis."
"I will not answer you, Mr. Courtland--you have no right to ask me to
answer you. One terrible moment had changed all the conditions under
which we were living. If she had been free,--as she is now,--do you
fancy for a moment that I should have come between you--that I should
have tried to lead you away from her? Well, then, surely you must see
as clearly as I do at the present moment that now our relative
positions are the same as they would have been some months ago, if
Ella had been free--if she could have loved you without being guilty
of a crime? Oh, Mr. Courtland do not ask me to humiliate myself
further. Please go away. Ah, cannot you see that it would be
impossible for me to act now as I might have acted before? Cannot you
see that I am not a woman who would be ready to steal happiness for
myself from my dearest friend?"
"I think I am beginning to see what sort of woman you are--what sort
of a being a woman may be. You love me, Phyllis, and yet you will send
me away from you lest you should do Ella a wrong?"
"I implore of you to go away from me, because if Ella had been free a
month ago as she is to-day, she would have married you."
"But she fancied that she loved me a month ago. She knows that she
does not love me now. You love me--you, Phyllis, my love, my beloved;
you dare not say that when you led me to love you, you were not led
unthinkingly to love me yourself. Will you deny that, my darling?"
He had strode passionately up to her, and before she could resist he
had put his arms about her and was kissing her on the face. For a
moment only she resisted, then she submitted to his kisses.
"You are mine--mine--mine!" he whispered, and she knew that she was.
She now knew how to account for the brilliant successes of the man in
places where every other civilized man had perished. He was a master
of men. "You love me, darling, and I love you. What shall separate
us?"
With a little cry she freed herself.
"You have said the truth!" she cried; "the bitter truth. I love you! I
love you! I love you! You are my love, my darling, my king forever.
But I tell you to go from me. I tell you that I shall never steal from
any sister what is hers by right. I would have sacrificed myself--I
did not love you then--to keep you from her; I am now ready to
sacrifice myself--now that I love you--to give you to her. Ah, my
love, my own dear love, you know me, and you know that I should hate
myself--that I should hate you, too, if I were to marry you, now that
she is free. Go, my beloved--go!"
He looked at her face made beautiful with tears. "Let me plead with
you, Phyllis. Let me say--"
"Oh, go! go! go!"
He put out his hand to her.
"I am going!" he said. "I am leaving England, but from day to day I
shall let you know where I am, so that you can send to me when you
want me to return to you. Write on a paper, 'Come to me,' and I will
come, though years should pass before I read those words. I deserve to
suffer, as I know I shall suffer."
He held out his hand. She took it. Her tears fell upon it. She did not
speak as he went to the door. Then she gave a cry like the cry of a
wounded animal. She held out her hands to him.
"Not yet! Not yet!" she said.
She flung herself into his arms, kissing him and kissing him, holding
him to her with her arms about his neck.
"Good-by! Good-by, my darling, my best beloved. Oh, go! Go, Herbert,
before I die in your arms. Go!"
She was lying along the floor with her head on the sofa.
He was gone.
She looked wildly around the room, wiping the tears from her eyes. She
sprang to her feet, crying:
"Come back! Come back to me, my beloved! Oh, I was a fool! Such a fool
as women are when they think of such things as heaven and truth and
right! A fool! A fool!"
An hour afterward Ella called to say good-by to her. She was going to
Switzerland first, she said, to a quiet spot that she knew, where she
might think out some of the details of the Church. Mr. Holland would
meet her in Italy in the winter to consider some of the architectural
details.
When the hour of her departure was at hand she referred to another
matter--a matter on which she spoke much more seriously than she had
yet spoken on the subject of the Church.
"I could not go, my dear Phyllis," said she, "without telling you that
I know Herbert Courtland will come to you."
"No!" said Phyllis. "He will not come to me. He has been with me. He
is now gone."
"Gone? That would be impossible!" cried Ella. "You would not send him
away. He told you that he loved you."
"Yes, he told me that."
"And yet you sent him away? Oh, Phyllis, you would not break my heart.
I know that you love him."
"Do I?"
"You do love him. Oh, my Phyllis, I told him months ago that it was
the dearest wish of my heart to see you married to him. At that time
he laughed. Oh, it is horrible to me to recall now how he laughed.
Shall I ever forget that terrible dream? But now he loves you. I know
it. What! you think him unworthy of you because of--of that dream
which was upon us? Phyllis, don't forget that he fought with the sin
and overcame it. How? Ah! you know how. He overcame the passion that
is of earth by the love that is of heaven. It was his pure love for
you that gave him the victory. Why should you send him away?"
"He knows. He understands. He is gone."
"But I do not understand."
She held Phyllis' hand and looked into her face. She gave a sudden
start--a little start.
"Oh, surely, my Phyllis, you don't think that I--I---- Oh, no! you
cannot think that of me. Oh, my darling, if you should be so foolish
as to think that I--that I still---- Ah, I cannot speak about it.
Listen to me, Phyllis: I tell you that as he conquered himself by the
love which is of heaven, so have I conquered by the same Divine Power.
The love which is in heaven--the love which is mine--has given me the
victory also. Dear Phyllis, that man is nothing to me to-day. I tell
you he is nothing--nothing! Ah, I don't even hate him. If I should
ever speak to him again it would be to send him back to you."
Phyllis said nothing, and just then her father came into the room, and
after a few minutes' conventional chat Ella went away.
Mr. Ayrton remarked to Phyllis that her dearest friend was looking
better than she had looked for many months, and then he laughed.
Phyllis did not like his laugh. She looked at him--gravely--
reproachfully.
"Pardon me, my dear," said he; "but I was only thinking that--well--
that she---- Ah, after all, what is marriage?"
Phyllis did not reply. She saw by his eyes that he had found another
phrase. What were phrases to her?
"Marriage is the most honorable preliminary to an effective
widowhood," said he.
She went out of the room.
During the next eight months Phyllis received many letters from Ella--
some from Switzerland, some from Italy, and one from Calcutta. Ella
had gone to India to make further inquiries on the subject of
Buddhism. At any rate, no one whose heart was set upon building up a
New Church could afford, she said, to ignore Buddhism as a power.
Mr. Holland agreed with her, she said. He had gone through India with
her.
She returned to England in April, and of course went to see Phyllis
without delay. Some men had wanted to marry Phyllis during the winter,
as everybody knew, but she had been pleasantly irresponsive. Some of
her closest friends (female) laughed and said that she had found out
how silly she had been in throwing over Mr. Holland.
It was not, however, of these suitors that Ella talked to her. It was
of Herbert Courtland.
Had she heard from him? she asked.
Yes; he occasionally sent her his address, Phyllis said--that was all.
"You will write to him to come back to you, Phyllis?" said Ella
entreatingly.
Phyllis shook her head.
"Dearest child," continued Ella, "I know the goodness of your heart. I
know the high ideal of honor and faith which you have set before you.
I saw Herbert when our steamer stopped at Port Said. He had been in
Abyssinia--you know that?"
"I knew that."
"I talked with him for an hour," said Ella. "He told me a great deal
about you--about your parting from him. You will write those words to
him before I leave this room."
Phyllis shook her head.
"Oh, yes, you will, when I tell you what I did not tell him--when I
tell you that George Holland and I have agreed that our positions as
joint trustees of the New Church will be immeasurably strengthened if
we are married."
"What?"
Phyllis had risen.
"We are to be married in three months. The matter is, of course, to
remain a secret--people are so given to talk."
Phyllis fell into her arms and kissed her tearfully--but the tears
were not all her own.
"Now you will write those words," said Ella.
Phyllis ran to a little French escritoire and snatched up a sheet of
paper.
"Come to me, my beloved," she wrote upon it; then she leaned her face
upon her arm, weeping happily.
Ella came behind her. She picked up the paper and folded it up. She
pressed the bell.
"Please give that to Mr. Courtland in the study," she said to the
servant.
Phyllis sprang up with a cry.
"I forgot to tell you, my dearest, that I brought back Herbert
Courtland in that steamer with me, and that he came with me to-day. He
is coming to you--listen--three steps at a time."
And that was just how he did come to her.
"Bless my soul!" cried Mr. Ayrton, ten minutes later. "Bless my soul!
I always fancied that---- Ah, after all, what is marriage?"
"Oh!" cried Phyllis.
"The last word that can be said regarding it is that marriage is the
picturesque gateway leading to the commonplace estate."
"Oh!" cried Phyllis
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Phyllis of Philistia, by FF Moore