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 theWater Nymphthan 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!”
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 yachtWater Nymphbefore 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 seten 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 newCarmen.
Ella assured him that she could not fail to be interested in anyCarmen, 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 aCarmenmood.
“I’m always in a mood to study anything that’s unreservedly savage,” said he.
“There’s not much reservation about our little friendCarmen,” 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 theZeit 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 lastCarmenbut 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 theSenor Lois Pastia’splace 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!
Carmenflashed 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 sweetMichaelacame on with her song of the delight of purity, and peace, and home. She sang it charmingly, everyone allowed, and hoped thatCarmenwould 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.
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 theZeit 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 theZeit 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 theTimesand 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 theZeit Geistarticle—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 theZeit 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.