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 apince-nezas 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 hiscongeon 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 hisconge, 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.
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 itscoup de graceto 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—forit? 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 callsimpatica—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 thebird,” 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 ofCagliostroto-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.
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 amodus 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.