The bishop's house was situated about half a mile from the college on Birdseye Avenue, the principal residence street of Warwick. A forest aisle and city thoroughfare combined, this vista of ancient elms suggested the inspiration of those Gothic cathedrals of the Old World from whose associations and influence the Puritans had fled away. During their transit beneath this splendid nave, Cardington entertained his companion with an account of the house they were to visit, its history and architectural pretensions. In sharp distinction to the prevalent style of building, the episcopal residence suggested a Tudor palace. Its pointed windows, its dentilated battlements, its miniature turrets, would have been impressive on a larger scale, in stone, but being of wood, in a reduced proportion, they appeared an inadequate plagiarism, which not even the extensive grounds could shield from criticism. Seen at night-time, however, the counterfeit was far less glaring. The form, rather than the material, attracted the eye; the ecclesiastical windows glimmering among the trees, the antique lantern in the vestibule, which concealed behind its powdered glass a modern electric bulb, the turrets, dimly discerned by the light from the avenue, combined to make an appeal to the historical imagination.
To Leigh, seeing the house thus for the first time, it appeared a peculiarly appropriate habitat for Bishop Wycliffe; for he was one that carried the stamp of his profession in his very bearing, and in every lineament of his face. It was more difficult to imagine a young and charming woman housed in such a place, but his first glimpse of the bishop's daughter showed him that her Pagan beauty was emphasized rather than lessened by contrast with her surroundings.
She was sitting in the drawing-room to the left of the entrance hall, bending over a book. If she heard the entrance of her visitors into the hall, she made no sign, but kept her eyes bent upon her novel, the left-hand side of which, supported on her knee, had grown to the thickness of half an inch. Only a few pages remained unread, half lifted on the other side, above which her ivory paper knife hung suspended. Clothed in a yellow gown and sitting in a flood of yellow light that radiated from the shaded lamp beside her, she presented an extraordinarily vivid picture against the brown panelling of the wall. Even in repose one divined the suppressed energy of the figure, a quality indicated by the almost imperceptible movement of the small slipper that peeped beyond the border of her gown, and by the gentle heaving of the lace at her throat. Yet there was something in the graceful abandon of her attitude reminiscent of the women of the South.
So struck was Leigh by this picture, and by the fact that his hope of meeting again the goddess of the maple walk was about to be realized, that Cardington was well on his way up the stairs before he hurried in pursuit. Unawake himself to modern art tendencies, he felt, without conscious reflection or comparison, the old-fashioned appearance of the house. The severe, dark paper on the wall, the steel engravings that had hung for years untouched, were evidently as the bishop's wife, or as one belonging to a still earlier generation, had placed them. They proclaimed a reverence for old associations, or the indifference of an unmarried daughter to the artistic possibilities of a house that was not of her own choosing.
The room into which they entered appeared to be the bishop's own, or a guest chamber. At least, there was no suggestion of the feminine in the furniture, or in the ecclesiastical pictures that adorned the walls. Even the military brushes on the bureau possessed an episcopal dignity of size and weight, and the two tall candles in their massive silver candlesticks glimmered like altar lights.
"There's plenty of atmosphere in this place," Leigh remarked, as he stood before the mirror and applied the brushes to his hair, which, because of its thickness, was invariably disordered by the lifting of his hat. "I mean atmosphere in the modern fictional sense. It seems to me I saw a duplicate of that four-posted monstrosity of a bed at the Exposition this summer."
"I love to come in contact with the fresh, unprejudiced view of the West," Cardington returned. "I've no doubt you are calculating the number of microbes that ancient piece of furniture could accommodate, and thinking that a brass bedstead would be much more sanitary."
"You do me injustice," Leigh retorted good-humouredly. "Even scientists have their unprofessional moments. I was just reminded of a story I once read of a bed of that kind with a movable canopy that came down in the night and smothered the occupant."
"Excellent," said Cardington. "The thing was worked, as I remember, from the room above, and was used by the robber host to persuade his guests to part peaceably with their valuables. But I fear that you are going to show an irreverent attitude of mind toward the local divinities."
"And what may they be?"
"Two in particular, an alliterative couple, Family and Furniture."
"Why not add Folly to the number?" Leigh suggested.
"An instinct of self-preservation should prevent such an addition. That might be as injudicious as it would have been for some bright young man in ancient Egypt, five thousand years before the Christian era, to express a doubt concerning the divinity of the sacred bull. The correctness of his conjecture would not have saved him from a horrible death at the hands of the faithful." And he began to lead the way downstairs.
As they entered the drawing-room, Miss Wycliffe closed her book with satisfied emphasis and rose to meet them. The bishop was there also, standing in the background and waiting his turn. His eyes were on his daughter rather than on his guests, with a pride that was evident at even a casual glance. Again Leigh encountered that look which had so deeply attracted him. Her eyes were very dark, and almost misty in their warm light, as if she were somewhat dazed by long perusal of the printed page. She possessed also that mark of feminine beauty so prized by the ancients, a low forehead, and there was a suggestion of the classic in the arrangement of her hair. He found her smile peculiarly winning, and was conscious of the responsiveness of her fingers, so different from the limp passivity of many a feminine greeting. Though not more given to self-importance than the average young man, he was somehow aware that she too remembered their first casual encounter. Her failure to mention it now served only to invest it with the greater significance.
"Miss Felicity," Cardington began, when they had become seated, "I suspect that you were racing against time, endeavouring, in fact, to finish that book before our arrival should interrupt you."
"You would not have been welcome a moment sooner," she admitted.
"Felicity is a deep student in shallow literature," the bishop put in epigrammatically.
"As if Zola were ever shallow," she said. "I'll leave it with Mr. Leigh."
"You can search me for an opinion," he replied; and in the breezy colloquialism of the expression, no less than in a certain vividness of manner, his isolation from the others became apparent. "My French reading is mostly confined to astronomical monographs."
"Miss Felicity," Cardington interposed, with an elaborate and old-fashioned gallantry that became him, "Mr. Leigh is a student of stars, and therefore he is more concerned with the reader than with the book. If you will persist in shining upon him so dazzlingly, you cannot be surprised if he turns an unseeing eye upon any object you may present for his inspection. Now, since I have basked longer in your light, I may perhaps—allow me." He reached for the book and began to turn over the leaves. She watched his growing absorption with indulgent amusement, and the comradeship of the two omnivorous readers was evident. Cardington was frankly reading, oblivious of his hosts, a liberty which indicated his familiar standing in that house.
"I have a weakness for polymathists of the old school," the bishop remarked, harking back to his guest's confession of narrower interests, "of which class I may say that Professor Cardington is almost the only example within my range of observation. I have noticed that Latin is becoming as strange to the average graduate as Eliot's Indian Bible."
"But Latin does n't help the modern world to build railroads, or battleships, or motor cars," Leigh suggested, by way of presenting the opposite view.
"Always the argument of utility," the bishop returned, with mournful resignation. "But how have modern inventions added to the beauty or the dignity of human life? Man is mastered and slain by his own inventions, and a skyscraper reduces him to the proportions of an ant."
"I am tempted to mention cathedrals as having rather a dwarfing effect upon their builders," Leigh said.
"I should hope so! Better to be dwarfed by the magnificence of a temple of the Lord than by the hideous hugeness of a temple of trade." The bishop's dry smile indicated that he had scored.
His antagonist laughed outright, with a keen appreciation of the fact that his comparison had given the bishop the very opportunity he desired. It seemed that circumstances rather than conviction had forced him into his present championship of the useful. Miss Wycliffe's appeal had brought out the confession of a special interest, which had stamped him unduly. In addition, the section of the country from which he came was against him. The bishop was not without his prejudices, and was disposed to father all the materialistic spirit of the age upon his guest, whether or no. He had noted that lapse into slang, and his attitude had become like that of the loiterers in the hall of Caiaphas, the high priest. Had his thought become vocal, it would have run like a garbled version of their triumphant charge against St. Peter: "Thou art a Westerner, and thy speech bewrayeth thee."
His daughter had been a mere observer of the little tilt she had unwittingly precipitated, and now, as she saw the younger champion go down so gaily, she was moved by his spirit to sympathetic participation.
"It seems to me, father," she interposed, "that you and Mr. Leigh are like the two knights who came to blows over the colour of a shield that was white on one side and black on the other."
"You are quite right, my dear," he replied gracefully, "and as I see that dinner is served, I will take this opportunity to dismount from my hobby for a little refreshment."
"You must let me take this book with me when I go," Cardington begged, rising from its perusal with evident reluctance.
"It must lie on Mrs. Parr's table for a month first," she replied. "I promised to let her pretend to read it."
"I call that a wicked speech," he reproved. "Where is that charity which your father has striven to inculcate in your heart?"
She slipped the book into a large Satsuma vase, with a sidelong glance at Leigh. Cardington accepted the act with a meek acquiescence that rested comically upon him and proclaimed his chains.
Had Leigh been asked subsequently to give a description of the dishes of which he partook that evening, he would have made a sorry showing, for he was conscious only of his hostess, and intoxicated by a divination of her consciousness of him. Cardington and the bishop were the chief talkers, and as the conversation presently turned to purely local affairs, of which Leigh had as yet scant knowledge, he was rather pleased than otherwise to become a listener and observer. In this divided attitude of mind his observation was chiefly engaged. He noted particularly the string of gold beads which Miss Wycliffe wore, and their reflection against her throat reminded him of a children's game, which consisted in holding a buttercup beneath the chin of a companion.
Distracted by the furtive contemplation of such minutiae, he gradually became aware of the fact that the talk between Cardington and the bishop had lost the tone of suavity that characterized its beginning.
"No other engagement shall interfere with my voting on that day," the bishop declared, with grim emphasis. "We must dispose of this fellow's pretensions once for all. It is preposterous that a professional baseball player and street-car conductor should aspire to become mayor of Warwick. An orator? Nonsense! Just a paltry gift of the gab. Balaam's is n't the only ass whose mouth the Lord in his inscrutable wisdom has seen fit to open."
Leigh suddenly awoke to the fact that a situation had developed during his absorption, and that both men were looking at Miss Wycliffe, the bishop defiantly, Cardington with an odd expression of concern. That she was affected by her father's announcement and manner was evidenced in the gleam of cold resentment with which she met his look, but in a moment the light was gone, leaving her eyes as mysterious as a deep pool in the woods at twilight.
"Now, bishop," Cardington protested, "I was merely trying to express the fact that there is a certain facility in this young Emmet's utterances which belongs to his nation. Perhaps we ought to appreciate our opportunity to watch here in Warwick the development of a second Edmund Burke."
It was Miss Wycliffe herself who gave Leigh the clue, and so apparently spontaneous was her amusement as she turned to him that he began to doubt his first impression of a far different emotion.
"This house is divided against itself," she explained, "into two political camps. I must try to convert you to my Democratic point of view, for just at present I am outnumbered two to one."
"Not two to one," Cardington objected. "Say rather that the forces are drawn up in the proportion of one and a half to one and a half. I stand in the ambiguous position of the peacemaker, inclining now this way, now that, and receiving in turn the whacks of each contestant. I have been compelled to accept on faith the reward that Scripture promises to such as myself, for it has not yet materialized to any appreciable extent."
"There 's more truth than poetry in that," she answered, laughing. "Poor Mr. Cardington's olive branch has proved a boomerang to himself, I fear."
It pleased the bishop to be blandly diverted by these sallies, though it was evident that his mind had set so strongly in one direction as to require an effort on his part to turn it aside. However, he was not one to exhibit a family difference before a stranger, when once recalled to his senses, and the topic that had elicited these few scintillations of feeling was dropped by common consent.
Presently Miss Wycliffe drew Leigh on to talk of astronomy, of the Lick Observatory, of California, its climate, its products, and its people, subjects upon which he alone of the company possessed knowledge at first hand. He was impressed by his auditors' ignorance of all that country which lies west of the Mississippi, and a realisation of the bishop's sceptical attitude aroused him to partisan enthusiasm. Their conception of the West was as inadequate as the average Englishman's conception of America. Some few people they had known who had gone out to California for their health, and in a general way they appreciated the fact that the fruits and flowers of the coast were of peculiar size and beauty; but, after all, the place seemed to them more a colony of the United States than an integral part of the country, a place of such decidedly inferior interest to Europe that any time in the dim future would do for its inspection.
"Miss Wycliffe," he ended, "your interest has betrayed me into making a bore of myself."
"On the contrary," she returned, "I shall take the very first opportunity of going out to California. I shall be ashamed to go to Switzerland again without the Sierras as a background of comparison. And in the mean time I intend to begin the study of astronomy. I thought it would be jolly to bring up a party some evening to look through the telescope."
"By all means!" he cried.
"I have yet to see the day," said Cardington, "when Miss Felicity will do me the honour of begging the loan of a Latin grammar."
"I call that ungrateful," she returned. "Did n't I tramp all over the Roman Forum with you one boiling afternoon, while you explained that we had n't strayed into a stone quarry, as I had supposed?"
"So you did," he admitted. "That was a pleasant little archaeologicalgiro, and you showed yourself upon that occasion to be an audience of great endurance."
This was only one indication Leigh had received of mutual experiences and interests between the two, yet, bewitched though he was, the discovery aroused no uneasiness within him. It was not only that he mentally exaggerated his colleague's age. His source of comfort was deeper, and lay in Miss Wycliffe's attitude of comradeship toward her old friend. It seemed that such an attitude must preclude romance, at least on her part. No man situated as he was could have avoided the speculation that now absorbed him in regard to the possible rivalry of another. In the end he decided that Cardington's gaze, when it lingered upon his hostess, betrayed reminiscence rather than hope.
It chanced that the dinner was followed by a wedding, one of those forlorn ceremonies sometimes performed in the houses of the clergy between those who seem to have no kin or friends or home of their own. The bishop summoned his guests as witnesses, and as Leigh took the seat which Miss Wycliffe made for him beside her, he was struck by the impression which this not unusual incident appeared to make upon her mind. She sat with her chin resting upon the palm of her hand, in absorbed, almost pained, contemplation, as if the actual scene were merely the starting-point of a long journey of the imagination.
In fact, there was nothing intrinsically interesting in the couple before them. They possessed not even the picturesqueness of speech and costume which belongs to the plebeian orders of older civilizations. These were the people that seemed to justify Schopenhauer's cynical contention concerning the economy of Nature, who invests youth with just enough transient beauty to ensure the perpetuation of the race, making men and women serve her purpose under the delusion that they are free agents and ministers to their own pleasure. Here were no pomp and circumstance to interpose their false colours before the sordid vista of the future. It lay glaringly before the imagination of the onlookers; and to avoid depths of spiritual depression, they had need to remind themselves of the happy blindness of those that moved their pity.
Leigh might perhaps have indulged in far other thoughts had the wedding been of a different character, or had he perceived any suggestion of a romantic mood in the woman at his side. Quick to feel an atmosphere, he found that he had caught from her a sombre view. How deeply she thought or felt he could only guess, but hers was a personality that suggested depth, and the far sadness of her gaze shut the door between them which he had supposed about to open wider. The bishop turned unexpectedly.
"The groom has forgotten the ring," he said to his daughter. "Will you lend him yours?"
She glanced quickly at her hands, and a delicate colour crept into her face.
"I must have left it in my room," she answered. She made no motion to go for it, and, turning from her with a hint of impatience, he drew his seal ring from his finger.
The incident, slight as it was, assumed unusual significance in the minds of the spectators, and gave the ceremony a tone akin to comedy. Perhaps they enjoyed the bishop's impatience, the sight of the episcopal ring upon the girl's finger; or it may be that these things reminded them of the portentous solemnity into which they had sunk. Miss Wycliffe especially seemed to welcome the diversion, and showed an ebullient vivacity when she offered her congratulations, which Leigh had not previously observed in her.
It was the bishop, however, and not his daughter, who saved the situation for the embarrassed couple he had just made man and wife. It was he who ordered wine and cake, and drank their happiness with a genuine humanity that took no reckoning of class in life's common experiences. This was the quality that had won him love when, as a clergyman, the homelier duties of his profession had claimed more of his time. Even those not of his own communion often came to him for such services as the present, with a feeling that he gave dignity and reality to the ceremony. Observing the luminous kindliness of his smile, one might well infer that he was reminded of the marriage at Cana of Galileo, and that he desired to make this incident as bright a spot as possible in two lives which would doubtless know more of burden-bearing than of joy. Nor was he content with this attention alone. Chancing to remember the carnations that had stood on the table at dinner, he brought them with his own hands, wiping the long stems with his handkerchief before presenting them to the bride.
When they were gone, his glance fell upon an envelope which the groom had left unnoticed on the piano.
"Look at this," he said, drawing forth a two-dollar bill. "Why didn't I see him do that in time? At least, I am grateful that he did n't attempt to pay me at parting, while in the act of shaking hands." His eyes twinkled deeply. "You have no idea what a shock it is to feel a crisp bill crinkling in your palm at such a moment. But come, gentlemen. Our post-prandial smoke has been too long postponed."
"Why not leave Mr. Leigh to smoke his cigarette with me?" Miss Wycliffe suggested. "We have n't yet had a chance to become acquainted."
This proposition, which filled the young man with surprise and exhilaration, seemed nothing unusual to the other two, and they went off without remark, perhaps not unwilling to have an opportunity to chat alone.
Miss Wycliffe took the chair in which Leigh had seen her at his entering. She held no fancy work in her hands, but toyed gracefully with the ivory cimeter which had separated the leaves of her novel. He was reminded of the episode of the ring by observing that she wore no jewelry except the string of gold beads, and wondered whether she had a philosophical contempt for such adornment. If it were a matter of taste, as indeed it must be, her instinct, he felt, was singularly correct, for such adventitious aids could add nothing to her beauty. They were rather the final dependence of wrinkled dowagers. As he watched her through the smoke of his cigarette, chatting still of the wedding, he was aware that she appeared conscious of the voices whose intonations rose and fell beyond the study door. Presently the sound was varied by a hearty laugh.
"I 've no doubt they have gone back to politics," she remarked. Her words recalled the conversation at the table, which he had by this time forgotten.
"This is a good opportunity to carry out your promise to convert me to your point of view," he answered, "and I am quite prepared to be converted. Being a Mugwump, the mere name of a party holds no superstitious sway over my imagination. Still, my support, like your own, must be purely sentimental, for I have no vote in Warwick. I have heard just enough to arouse my curiosity and interest. Who is this Mr. Burke?"
"Emmet," she corrected. "Mr. Cardington would have his jest in comparing him with Burke. You noticed, perhaps, that they were more or less baiting me?"
"I suspected something like it."
"Mr. Emmet is aprotégéof mine," she explained frankly, "who is trying to break the power of the Republican ring that has ruled Warwick since the war.
"I see," he nodded. "One of those struggles against municipal corruption that are such a hopeful sign of the times. It seems strange that in the management of our cities alone our form of government has been a failure. But we have lighted upon a hobby of mine, and I must n't begin to ride it."
"Then you will be interested in the situation," she returned.
It was presently evident that her own interest was not that of a student of the science of government, though he was impressed by her knowledge of local political conditions. The situation was indeed typical: entrenched power on the one hand, and on the other a desire to "turn the rascals out." The singularity lay in the fact that Miss Wycliffe, in spite of the prejudice and influence of her father, was siding against her own class. Leigh listened with growing interest and wonder to her charges of snobbishness and corruption against the Republican clique.
"You certainly love fair play," he remarked admiringly. "Such an impersonal attitude is wont to be claimed by men as their own peculiar possession."
Her smile disclaimed exceptional credit.
"I 'm not a bit impersonal, I assure you. I can't abide Judge Swigart, or his political lieutenant, Anthony Cobbens, a turkey gobbler and a wretched little weasel, even though we are the best of friends."
"I see," he said, greatly diverted by her admission. Her eyes fell beneath his too discriminating gaze, but she raised them again with the impersonal calmness of an experienced woman.
"Besides, as I said before, Mr. Emmet is aprotégéof mine. I have even loaned him books, and am quite bent upon seeing his education result in making him mayor."
"Good work!" he cried. "I should like to lend a hand myself."
"Why don't you?" she asked.
"How can I?" he retorted. "Shall I go out and stump the town?"
"I 'll tell you," she said, bending forward and fixing him with a look of discovery. "What Mr. Emmet needs more than anything else is a friend out of his own class, some one like yourself, who could correct his perspective a little. How shall I explain it? He seems in danger of becoming a demagogue, and of resting his case on an appeal to class-hatred."
Leigh had not supposed that his semi-jocular wish would be taken so literally, but he soon discovered that she gave it its face value. She went on with growing earnestness.
"There is to be a joint debate between him and Judge Swigart in about a fortnight, and I 'm afraid that Mr. Emmet will injure his cause by overstatement, by that very bitterness I mentioned. If he could confine himself to the facts, he might win the support of many who are ready to follow a safe leader, but would be antagonized by a hint of socialism."
"Do you mean that I could accomplish all this in such a short time?" he asked. "To be perfectly frank, the prospect of the task dismays me. He 'd be sure to resent the attempt."
"Not he," she answered with conviction. "He 'd be grateful for such support as yours. He 's really an awfully nice fellow, and I think you 'd find him rather interesting."
"I don't doubt it for a minute," he assured her. "But how am I to make his acquaintance in the first place?"
She considered the question awhile. "Just tell him I thought you would like to know each other. That would make it perfectly easy and natural."
Leigh could not fail to see that this method was the best, if the thing were to be done at all. She could not bring them together socially, and a note of introduction would be too formal. Doubtless the man looked up to her as his patroness, and would accept anything from her with something of feudal loyalty.
"I might meet him casually,—on purpose,—and if we happened to like each other and began to talk about politics"— The sentence dwindled into a dubious smile.
"Do," she urged. "I really think you could influence him for good."
Leigh was less sure of it, and the other two men returned before he had committed himself to a plan that seemed, even when seen under her influence, to be little short of quixotic.
During the walk home he tried Cardington on the subject of Emmet, but found him uncommunicative, almost brusque, in his reticence. Leigh suspected that the subject might be a sore one with him, and that he thoroughly disapproved of Miss Wycliffe's odd charity. When a talker is silent, his silence has the tactile quality of Egyptian darkness, and so it now appeared in Cardington. Concerning Miss Wycliffe herself they made no comment, doubtless because they were thinking of her so intently. Leigh reviewed every moment he had passed in her company, recalling each look and word. He was impressed now, more than he had been at the time, with the intensity of her interest in the election, and it occurred to him that to do as she desired, or at least to attempt it, would establish a claim upon her regard. This was his opportunity. If he desired to win her favour, he must regard her wish as mandatory. How much he desired to win it he did not try to conceal from himself.
His frankness extended even farther. When he recalled that it was the bishop and not his daughter who had shown humanity at the wedding, he was impressed by her curious insensibility. It seemed to him peculiarly feminine to take an interest in such a scene, and most of the women he knew would have looked on with tremulous sympathy. Was this mere instinctive selfishness on her part? If he vaguely condemned her attitude in this matter, he appreciated her father's conduct the more by contrast. Somehow he guessed that the bishop did not altogether like him, but he felt that no matter what the future might bring forth in their relationship, he could never forget that charming episode. The bishop was a true aristocrat, he reflected, more inclined to be haughty to his equals than to his inferiors. Doubtless Emmet, had he been content with that station of life in which it had pleased God to place him, would have found no more affable acquaintance than Bishop Wycliffe.
The bishop presented no insoluble riddle to Leigh's mind. On the contrary, he had met his type before and knew it well; but with Miss Wycliffe the case was different. He recognized now the reason of Cardington's inability to describe her, for a categorical account of her features, or of what is commonly called her "good points," would have left the essential quality untouched. Yet this quality was the woman herself, and had fired Leigh's blood with a fever of longing that made him reckless of his judgment. In fact, he was not now absorbed in judging, but in realizing, the woman with whom he had fallen in love.
If she had appealed to him at any one moment more than at another, it was when she took him into her confidence with that sidelong look, as she slipped the novel into the large vase. Then, as at other times during the evening, but then more particularly, she had betrayed her consciousness of him as a young man, of herself as a woman and a beauty. He saw that she had no desire to talk with him on the impersonal plane of the mind, that she welcomed, rather than feared, the discovery of her femininity, even in her political interests. She might say this or that, as the fancy took her, but she knew it made no difference to an admirer what she said. Her peculiar fascination lay in a consciousness of sex which is the explanation of the power to win men that distinguishes one woman above the many, to their envy and mystification.
Leigh was too attractive a man to have been allowed to reach his present age entirely ignorant of the psychology of women, though comparative poverty and laborious studies had limited his education in this direction, and left him unspoiled. He knew enough to realize the secret of Miss Wycliffe's charm, and to reflect consciously upon it in connection with himself. Mere beauty, he knew, would have left him cold, if it had not stirred within him the resentment aroused by a promise unfulfilled; intellectual gifts alone would have wearied and antagonised; evident virtue would have seemed humdrum and uninspiring. It was this delicious appeal of the woman to the man that had won him.
He was yet to learn that this quality is not seldom accompanied by the most baffling counter-current, that holds its natural movement in apparent suspension. Why had a woman so imperially endowed remained so long unmarried? It was not that she looked her age, which he felt to be little less than his own, but that she implied it by her lack of inexperience. It was not that eight or nine and twenty made a spinster from the modern point of view, but that to reach that age unmarried she must have resisted many a suit. Had he lived longer in New England, he would have known more women of this kind, women who hide the passionate heart of a Helen beneath the austere life of a Diana, hoarding their gifts of love as a miser hoards his gold, partly because of cruel necessity, partly influenced by the impulse to deny inherited from Puritan ancestors.
Suddenly he became aware that Cardington had been talking again, and that he had shown indifferent courtesy as a listener. He roused himself to attention, and detected at once the unusual flavour of his companion's remarks, from which all jest had gone, showing instead a poetical and reminiscent mood.
"The silhouettes of the trees which the electric light throws upon the walk," he was saying, "remind me of a wonderful moonlight night I once spent at Assisi. I was younger then than I am now, and it was my first journey in that land of enchantment. I travelled as lightly as one of the apostles, with staff and scrip, so to speak, and having resisted the efforts of the cabman at the station to rob me, I started to walk up to the city alone. I understand they have a trolley line now,—just imagine the profanation of a trolley line in the ancient city of St. Francis!—but at the time of which I speak, the atmosphere of the Middle Ages still hung over the place unbroken.
"The city lay above the valley, white-walled and silent. I remember touching with my stick what appeared to be a streak of moonlight that had filtered through the branches of a tree, when a beautiful little serpent uncoiled himself and slipped away into the shadows. Well, the distance was greater than I had supposed, and the hour was late, so that by the time I reached the city gate, I found it closed for the night. There was nothing to do but to sit down and wait for morning. I found a large, flat rock which seemed still to hold some of the heat of the sun, and looked out over the surrounding country. Just think of my situation! There I was, a young man fresh from America, full of the most extravagant romance, sitting alone in the moonlight before the gate of a mediaeval walled city, and a city, too, so rich with traditions that I grew dazed in trying to recall them. It may be that the moon became hypnotic in its influence, for I lay down and stared up at it like one bewitched.
"I don't know how long a time passed in this manner before I was aroused by the appearance of an old peasant around the corner of my rock, bending under a huge bundle of faggots. I addressed myself to him in the best Italian I could then command, and asked whether it were possible to enter the city—entrare la città. He rung a bell by pulling a rope that hung down over the wall, and we went in together. Now, you know, I would have remained there all night without even looking for such an obvious way of arousing the gatekeeper."
"Yes," he continued, in answer to an appreciative comment from his listener, "you would have enjoyed it,—any one with a soul would have enjoyed it. And further adventures were in store for me in that ancient town. I remember particularly a girl who waited on the table at myalbergoand accompanied me at times on my tours of inspection. From her I learned more of the history of the place, and upon her I practised most diligently my Italian. There was one mystery to which she would come back again and again. If I was an American, and poor, how did it happen that I was not an artist? She would turn her lovely eyes upon me twenty times a day and ask me this question. A charming experience, was it not? Long afterward I met an American professor on one of the boats in Holland, and when we compared notes on our travels, I discovered that he remembered that girl, too, and her eyes. Just think of the number of romantic young travellers upon whom she had turned them in that appealing way of hers!"
As his companion listened to this recital, he was impressed not so much by the story itself as by the essential happiness of the narrator. Here was a nature as untrammelled as the wind, that delighted to roam from land to land. Local interests, people, events, might hold him for a time, but presently he would be gone in search of new adventures. If he loved Felicity Wycliffe, Leigh reflected, it was only as a wanderer loves.
Cardington was laughing in his peculiar fashion. "You will say that my little story has a disappointing sequel; but, after all, perhaps it is less commonplace as it is. She will remain enshrined in my memory, and in the memory of those other travellers, as we saw her then, always young and beautiful, and always turning upon us those lovely, enquiring eyes. And, by the way, it is strange, is it not, that Miss Wycliffe should have eyes similar to those of my young guide in Assisi? As far as I know, she is of pure New England ancestry, and one does not meet very often in this climate a glance that suggests nocturnal mystery. No, no. The women here are different, as a rule. I remember her mother; she was something like, but in less perfection."
Leigh, fearing that he might perhaps say too much, said nothing at all by way of comment. Cardington's phrase, "nocturnal mystery," was a reminder of the scene through which he had passed thus far unheeding, and suggested its kinship with the woman of his thoughts. The vista seemed to stretch away interminably, disclosing unexpected glimpses of colour where the boughs displayed their changing leaves within the radius of an electric light. Between the lights the darkness gathered with the greater intensity because of the clouds which had now traversed the whole expanse of the sky and bidden the stars from view. He was conscious also of the ceaseless murmuring of the wind in the leaves, like many voices whispering in an unknown tongue.
Leigh awoke the next morning with a sense that some profound change had come into his life. His mood was similar to that of a man on the verge of a trip to foreign lands, who, with all the humdrum existence that had earned it behind him, and all the delights of adventure before, waits only the turn of wind or tide to be away. The comparison is not inept, for he had lived laborious days, postponing deliberately or missing by chance, he scarcely knew which, the experience he now felt to be impending. His time of life was peculiarly favourable for the growth of a master passion, one which, as the old saying has it, might make or mar him. The feverish struggles of early youth had landed him in a position somewhat better than that attained by the majority of his contemporaries. He had reached a breathing-place, where he could pause with a sense of deeds accomplished and of possible rewards in the future.
A realisation of the fact that his circumstances and position fairly justified him in entertaining seriously the thought of love lessened in no way the ideality of that thought. It was not because Felicity Wycliffe was the first attractive woman to come into his life at the right moment that he had fallen in love with her. He told himself that he could have met any other woman in the world at that time with impunity; and, conversely, had he met her years before, when his suit must needs have been hopeless, he would have loved her no less, reckless of worldly considerations. As it was, he did not feel that the situation was conventional, but that the fates were kind. His desire, and the right to strive for its attainment, had synchronised by happy chance.
In the history of a passion, it is doubtful if any mood is more elysian than that which accompanies the waking moments on the morning after the great discovery. Leigh wandered for some time in this imaginary paradise, where everything seemed not only possible, but actually accomplished. His rising, however, shook some of these iridescent colours from his thoughts, until they gradually began to assume the more sober hue of fact, a change like that which he now discovered had come over the outside world.
The storm, which had promised to be wild and spectacular, had somehow miscarried in the night, and instead of pelting showers and tossing branches he saw a pale grey wall of mist against his windows. All excitement had gone from the atmosphere, leaving the dreary certainty that the mist would presently clear only to condense into a slow, persistent, autumn rain. It is conceivable that he would not have exchanged his waking dreams so quickly for more definite thoughts and speculations had his eyes rested upon the blue hills of the western skyline, for he was peculiarly susceptible to the moods of nature. There being now practically no outside world to lure his fancy on, he began to think of his actual situation, and to ask himself what he intended to do with regard to the man in whom Miss Wycliffe had taken such an interest. If her plan appeared quixotic to him now, he feared that on second thoughts it might seem no less so to her, and he resolved to do the thing she desired, and to gain thereby a common interest with her, before she might discourage the attempt. This resolve taken, he went to breakfast at the college commons, and thence to chapel.
Attendance at chapel, he had discovered, was obligatory upon the students and upon those clerical members of the faculty who conducted the services. Personally he was drawn thither by the peculiar flavour which the exercises gave his daily life. It was pleasant to sit alone in his pew against the wall above the tiers of students, to watch the morning sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows, and to listen to the antiphonal singing of a fine old Rouen meditation. Occasionally the services began with a Sapphic ode by Gregory the Great, whose opening line,Ecce iam noctis tenuatur umbra, set to music from the Salisbury Hymnal, resounded through the arches of the chapel like a call to the duties of the day. In the institution from which he had recently come, the jealousy of rival sects had resulted in the complete elimination of all outward forms of worship; and he found the change grateful. There was novelty and charm in a service attended wholly by men, and in the music, as mediaeval in character as the architecture of the Hall itself. Like most of his contemporaries, Leigh could by no means have formulated his religious beliefs, but in all the chaos of modern thought he still retained a certain piety, in the old Roman sense of the word, a loyalty to the traditions of his fathers which he would never have dignified by the name of faith.
He was happily unconscious of the fact that the eyes of many of the students were fixed upon him with keen observation. The self-contained young professor was as much an unknown quantity as any he asked them to find in the recitation-room. They were baffled by the impersonal attitude he had brought from the university, where the individual counted for little, and were inclined to attribute it to a disposition to be severe in his marking.
It chanced that this morning he was free from recitations, but though his time was his own, he had no definite plan with which to fill it. After lingering in his room for some minutes, he descended once more to the walk, finding relief in simulating a purpose by definiteness of action. Instead of following the line of the building northward, he struck out directly across the plateau, past the flagstaff and the great bronze statue of the bishop, and descended the slope along a path that marked the future grand approach.
As he recalled the bishop's elaborate description, he turned and gazed at the towers which loomed ghost-like beyond the ridge. He was now in the midst of the wide field from which he had heard the tinkle of cow-bells on the morning of his arrival. The place was deserted, save for his own presence. The grass was heavy with clinging globules of moisture, and every head of goldenrod seemed encrusted with glimmering pearls. Everywhere there was a curious and oppressive silence, as if the world were deprived not only of light, but also of life. The great towers appeared unsubstantial, carved from blocks of mist only a degree thicker than that which spread about him. He indulged the odd fancy that a rising wind might sweep the whole away, leaving only a bare hilltop beneath the clearing sky.
The clang of a gong from the car barn beyond came like a reminder of his purpose, a summons to make a tentative effort, at least, to achieve it. So he turned resolutely away, leaving academic dreams in the mist behind him.
The street-car barn was perhaps the dreariest spot in Warwick. Its proximity to the college grounds had caused the bishop to view it with disfavour, and already a fine ivy, planted at his suggestion, covered part of the bare brick walls. The bishop would fain have recalled the days that antedated electric roads, before the company had driven this peg at the corner of his academe and stretched therefrom another gleaming thread of its intricate web of trolley lines. Those were the golden days when one drove up to the Hall in a comfortable carriage, when the richer students went horseback riding along the country roads, when thechug, chugof the motor-car and its attendant smell of gasoline were unknown.
Though Leigh was far from sharing the bishop's whimsical indignation at this change, even he felt the chill unloveliness of the long reaches of the barn filled with lifeless cars, where an occasional electric bulb burned like anignis fatuusin the misty gloom. How much more attractive a railroad roundhouse, with iron monsters on its converging tracks, each with his cyclopean eye of fire, each panting deeply with slow jets of steam!
The place was comparatively deserted. Far back in the barn dim figures moved, and from the workhouse in the rear came the clang of metal. One or two passengers were waiting for the next car, and Leigh spied a conductor coming to his work, finishing the last few puffs of his morning pipe. He was an elderly man, with a sweeping grey moustache and a gait that suggested the sea. Behind him two small boys came racing with a cart.
"Hello!" cried the conductor, stepping aside with agility. "What 's this? A Japanese torpedo boat?" He turned to Leigh genially. "I 'll have to spread a net before my bows. These youngsters take me for a Rooshyan battleship."
It occurred to Leigh that this man might know Emmet well, and when the car came in, he stood on the back platform for the purpose of engaging him in talk that might help him in his project. The heavy morning traffic was over, and as the conductor was comparatively unoccupied, he accepted his passenger's advances readily. In a few minutes Leigh became aware that the man knew who he was.
"That's nothing wonderful," he explained. "I've been on this line for years, and I know everybody that travels this way. I thought you were the new professor at the Hall, the minute I set eyes on you."
In spite of the trim uniform, the cap and buttons, he seemed cast in a larger mould than most men of his kind. He was garrulous without offence, and carried with him some of the atmosphere which only travel gives. He was more fit, Leigh reflected, to command a ship, or to crack the whip over six horses from the seat of a stage-coach, than to pull the bellrope on a Warwick street-car. It was easy enough to engage him in conversation about the coming election, but more difficult to arrive at the point he had in mind. He learned that Emmet had already resigned his place as a conductor to devote his whole time to the work of the campaign, and he began to appreciate the difficulty of meeting him naturally. If he went to his boarding-house, he would doubtless find him away, or not alone. On the whole, considering the shortness of the time and the different worlds in which they moved, he decided that he must make his opportunity, rather than wait for it to come.
"I believe you said that Mr. Emmet boards at your house," he ventured finally. "In that case, you might do me a little favour, if you will. The fact is, that I would like very much to make his acquaintance, but I hesitate to call upon him at random, knowing how busy he is. If he has a free hour some time, I 'd like to meet him."
"You 'd like to meet him?" the conductor asked shrewdly.
"This is n't politics," Leigh explained, aware of the other's guess, "and for that reason I want Mr. Emmet to consult his own convenience. If you 'll give him my card and tell him that we have a common friend who wishes us to know each other, he may think it worth while to drop me a postcard and make an appointment. I 'll come to see him any time he's at liberty."
The conductor stowed the card away in his clothes with a peculiar lurch of his figure that reminded Leigh once more of his first impression.
"Am I right," he asked, "in guessing that you once followed the sea?"
"Twenty years," the man answered; "and though I 've been ashore as many, they still call me captain—Captain Tucker. The salt water puts its stamp on a man for life, don't it? I was reminded of it this morning when I see in the paper that the Rooshyans had fired on the Hull fishermen off the Dogger Banks. What a shame that was, wa'n't it? Why, those fishermen are the most inoffensive fellows in the world. Many a time when I passed through that sea they 'd throw up a fish on our deck by way of a present."
Leigh found the conversation which this reminiscence suggested so full of interest, that he made the complete circuit of the line to pursue it at such intervals as his new acquaintance could spare from his duties. Then, as the steaming rain had begun to fall heavily, he returned to the college. Upon a mental review of his trip, he was inclined to doubt that he would hear from Emmet, but in so doing he forgot to reckon with one of the most powerful of human motives, curiosity. He also failed to consider that his position as a professor at St. George's Hall would give his advances peculiar importance. His only fear was that the captain might not report the message correctly, and he wished he had been able to write a note. A remembrance of the man's geniality reassured him, and he reflected that such men were the most approachable and companionable in the world, always ready for a new acquaintance, and imbued with a certain fundamental humanity which is too often winnowed out from more artificial or more cultivated natures.
He went to his work that evening without much thought of the probable outcome of his morning's effort. Like most college professors, he had a number of unfinished problems on hand, any one of which might require years for its solution. The scholar's work, like the housekeeper's, is never done, and like the housekeeper, too, he can cover up his postponements and neglect for a measurable time without censure. He can fail to set the house of his mind in order; he can sweep the dust of unfinished investigation into obscure nooks and corners; he can make fair the outside of the cup and the platter for cursory inspection. Herein lies his peculiar temptation. The public is prone to take his scientific spirit for granted, and is a long time in opening its eyes. Meanwhile he lives a life of delightful leisure, teaching as many hours a week as a business man labours in a day. Not one man in a hundred is proof against the seduction of those idle hours, during which literature and art and a cultivated society plead for some share of his attention and filch away his will. And, after all, why not? he begins to ask himself. In a commercial age and a country that thinks upon the surface, his profession receives no adequate recognition. Life is short; he had better reap the reward of his laborious and expensive preparation by enjoying those diversions which he of all men is peculiarly fitted to appreciate.
Leigh honestly meant to be the hundredth man, and to make a name for himself. He had found what might be called an easy place in contrast with the drudgery of the large classes he had previously taught. Here was the time, here the problem. The lamp was trimmed, the white sheets of paper were spread out invitingly on his desk. A few logs burned brightly in the fireplace, dispelling the penetrating chill, and the rain beat heavily against the windows, intensifying the distance of the world and his own seclusion.
But now a face hovered between his eyes and the paper on his desk; then the complete figure of the woman he loved came into view, pointing with her small ivory cimeter another and more alluring road. As one may lie and doze awhile in the morning, with a resentful realisation of the impending duties of the day, so now he allowed himself ten minutes of respite, only to discover presently that his allowance had lengthened imperceptibly to an hour.
A knock at the door aroused him, and he shouted an invitation to enter, thinking that Cardington had stepped across the hallway for a chat. His surprise therefore was great when the door swung open and showed an unknown man placing his dripping umbrella in the corner.
"I got your message, professor," the visitor began. Leigh was instantly aware, above everything else, of the extraordinarily alert glance which he flung into the room ahead of him as he entered. This summed up his total first impression.
"Mr. Emmet!" he cried. "Come in. This is really too bad. I 'm afraid Captain Tucker did n't give you the message correctly. I meant to call upon you. He must have represented that I had some urgent business—but I need n't say how I appreciate your coming, especially on such a night."
"All kinds of weather are alike to me," Emmet answered heartily. "I was up in this part of town, and thought I might better drop in and see you than send a postal."
Now that he was seated, Leigh had a better opportunity for observation, and his fuller impression was decidedly favourable. Emmet was apparently about his own age, of medium height, with the shoulders and bearing of an athlete. He possessed no strikingly fine feature, and yet the whole man was handsome. One took no notice of the shape of his nose or the line of his chin, for these points were neither excellent nor the reverse. What gave him a claim to distinction above his fellows was the splendidly abundant vitality that appeared unmistakably in the rich colour of his cheeks, in his very posture, and in the brightness of his reddish-brown eyes. It remained to be seen whether this brightness might indicate intellect as well as health. For the rest, for the quality that betrayed the man, his expression was not to be read at a glance. Its major message seemed to be goodfellowship, but the seeming failed to strengthen into certainty on closer inspection. Here was a man who could think hiddenly, speak guardedly, wait for others to show their cards, and do all this with a disarming appearance of ingenuous friendliness. The atmosphere he radiated as he sat waiting for his host to explain himself was one of tension without nervousness.
Leigh began as most men would have begun under the circumstances. He fostered the subject of the weather for a few minutes longer, and produced a box of cigars.
"I never smoke, or drink either, for that matter," Emmet remarked simply. "A politician is like a barkeeper; he can do his business better if he lets drink alone. As for cigars, try one of mine. They 're part of my stock in trade. I guess this one won't explode and set fire to the place."
Leigh smiled as he lighted the cigar, which he found to be a good one. There was something that made for freedom in the unintentional officiousness with which his guest had thrust aside his hospitality and substituted his own.
"Possibly," he ventured, "you might imagine that I have some plan in mind to hand over to you the vote of the college."
"A deal like that would please the bishop," Emmet returned, with unexpected irony.
"It would please his daughter, at any rate, as I believe you know."
"Yes," Emmet assented, with a nod. "I know what a good friend of mine Miss Wycliffe is."
"We were talking last night," Leigh continued, "about political conditions here in Warwick; and I became very much interested, for municipal reform is one of my hobbies. Wherever I 've lived, I 've always been against the machine, at least to the extent of my vote. Miss Wycliffe told me that you were trying to break up the clique that has ruled Warwick since the war; and when she saw how much she had enlisted my sympathy, she proposed that we become acquainted. That's how I happened to send a message to you by the captain. I did n't know when you were likely to be most at liberty." He paused, and flicked the ashes from his cigar. "I feel guilty to think that I have stolen some of your time, when I have nothing to give you in return but good wishes."
It was impossible to guess whether Emmet were surprised or disappointed at this disclosure of the comparative futility of his visit.
"Good wishes," he said, "are always worth having, and especially from this college, for I tell you there are mighty few men connected with this place that wish me well."
Leigh, remembering the bishop and Cardington, did not doubt the truth of this declaration. He wondered what his colleague would surmise should he come in at that moment. The situation would be complicated, and would no doubt gain in interest, but it was an interest he was content to forego. He was impressed by a hint of passion and resentment in his guest's voice, restrained as by one not entirely sure of his hearer.
In Leigh's attitude there was no affectation. He was genuinely interested in the situation, and he brought to it all a Westerner's lack of class prejudice, all his appreciation of a man for his intrinsic worth, irrespective of college degrees and family and fortune. It was some time before Emmet, feeling his way by little and little, realised the anomaly of a professor in St. George's Hall with Democratic sympathies. Miss Wycliffe's judgment of the two men, her belief that they would get on well together, was entirely justified by the result, which became undoubted before an hour had passed. Emmet was by no means lacking in shrewdness, and, having once become convinced that caution was needless, he talked more freely, until, to his listener's interested observation, he appeared quite another man. He began to show some of that eloquence of which Cardington had spoken, an eloquence that derived its effect not from the artifices of rhetoric, but from a deep conviction and a personal grievance. He spoke in adequate language, that left no doubt of his meaning, and the meaning itself was sufficiently striking to rivet attention. Leigh began to realise why it was that the bishop had thought him dangerous. He forgot to wonder at Emmet's gift of speech in the new point of view that was gradually presented to his mind. He was struck particularly by the fact that St. George's Hall, which seemed to him comparatively insignificant in the educational world, should loom so large in this man's horizon that the towers which stood to him for star-gazing and cloistered study and old tradition should appear to Emmet merely the bulwarks of class privilege and social tyranny.
The fact that Leigh was a stranger in Warwick must have given his guest a peculiar sense of freedom. One has only to recall the confidences which men that meet casually on the train will sometimes repose in each other, to realise how this can be. Under such circumstances, each tells his story to unprejudiced ears, without fear that it will one day be turned to his disadvantage. Nor was this the first time in Leigh's life when he had been surprised to find himself the recipient of another's secrets. The conversation finally became almost a monologue, or, more specifically, a statement of grievances.
"I would n't mind, if the campaign were being conducted on the square," said Emmet, now thoroughly aroused; "but it is n't. It's hard work to talk against money, and they 've got barrels of it. They 're putting it now where it will do the most good. A thousand dollars to this saloon-keeper and another thousand to that, to keep their heelers away from the polls on election day, may do the trick for them, no matter what I say or do or am. And it's college-bred men, professional men, who are doing it. The whole of the wealthy and educated element of Warwick is leagued against me, and bound to beat me by fair means or foul."
"Corruption in politics is common enough everywhere, I 'm afraid," Leigh remarked.
"It's worse here," Emmet declared bitterly; "and here it's a question of class against class as well. Warwick is said to be the wealthiest city of its size in the country, and the offices have been handed around in a certain set ever since the Declaration of Independence. The labour unions are uncommonly strong, too, and if they would only hang together, they could have things their own way. I can depend upon the support of my own crowd, but there are always mutual jealousies to be reckoned with between the various unions. Besides, the labouring man will talk boldly enough at times about equality, but he still has a sneaking admiration for the fellow that lives in a big house, and a corresponding distrust of one of his own kind. Let me give you an illustration of it. The other day, Judge Swigart's manager, Anthony Cobbens, was swaggering around the barn down here, talking with some of the men about his horses and dogs, and poking a little fun at me on the side. Such things have their effect. I heard one of the men say afterward that Cobbens was as friendly with them as if he were n't rich at all. It's a fact that he was flattered by the fellow, even when he saw through him."
There was something rather magnificent in the scorn that blazed in the speaker's eyes as he told this incident, and Leigh felt that, no matter what his faults might be, sycophancy never was and never could be one of them.
"It's all the more pitiful," he remarked, "because he gets nothing for it but the contempt he deserves. But I 've heard of this Cobbens. It seems to me that Miss Wycliffe compared him to a weasel."
Emmet laughed, but almost immediately the intensity of his mood returned. "Cobbens is one of your own graduates," he went on, almost as if he held his listener responsible for that fact. "I knew him as a boy, and played with him on the streets. Perhaps that's the reason he 's my worst enemy to-day. His mother was a dressmaker and a widow, but somehow, by hook and by crook, he managed to work his way through St. George's Hall. Then he became a lawyer and married one of the richest girls in town. What she saw in him, nobody knows, but he's a hypnotist, and no mistake. Now she's dead, and so are her parents, and Cobbens and his mother live in her great house and ride in her carriages. He 's a high roller, right in with the judge and his crew, and there is n't a more corrupt politician in this town. There 's a fine specimen of your college graduate!"
"I hope you don't regard him as a typical college graduate," Leigh protested good-naturedly.
Had he been familiar with the alumni of the Hall, he could have made his argument strong by personal examples unlike Anthony Cobbens, but he made his defence of the college graduate general, answering the well-known objections to him in the well-known way. It was evident that Emmet regarded colleges and universities as identified with entrenched privilege everywhere, and with corruption in local politics particularly. It was inevitable that he should have been influenced in this view by his own concrete experiences. The iron had entered into his soul, and its scar was not to be effaced by an evening's conversation. Not infrequently life will be interpreted to a passionate nature by one or two persons, be they friends or enemies. To Emmet, Cobbens and the bishop loomed much larger in the general scheme of things than their intrinsic importance warranted. It was interesting, having heard the bishop's opinion of Emmet, to get Emmet's view of the bishop, a view that was by no means without a certain reluctant respect and admiration. Leigh felt that his prejudice was impassioned, rather than intellectual, and would yield gradually to a change of circumstances, whereas the bishop would never revise his judgment. He was impressed also by the fact that Miss Wycliffe could never fully appreciate the conditions that had produced the man whose cause she had chosen to champion, or see that he must needs be a radical, if he thought at all, at least in the present stage of his development. Leigh's own experience in life enabled him to look into both camps with comprehension, for he belonged to the comparatively small class of the cultivated poor, and his struggles had been no less intense than those of the man before him, though for different ends. The effect of what he said was conciliatory, but his visitor was merely convinced that this particular college graduate was an exception to the rule.
"You 're not much like the bishop," he remarked. "I don't say that he is n't the real thing in the way of a gentleman, but he 's as proud as the Old Boy himself."
"I don't know how proud the Old Boy may be," Leigh answered, laughing, "or what he has to be proud of, but I 've discovered that Bishop Wycliffe, underneath his apparent frigidity, has one of the kindest hearts in the world."
"We all know that," Emmet assented. "He's one of the most charitable men in town. I 'm bound to say, too, that he does n't know anything about the inside workings of that political ring, but it's because he does n't want to know. He just naturally ranges himself with his own class on such a question."
He had progressed from an alertness that was not free from suspicion to a fervid statement of the political situation, into which the element of his personal feelings had risen more and more to the surface. So naturally did he appear to take the mention of Miss Wycliffe that Leigh had not realised how deeply flattered he must have been by her interest. Now, at last, his very posture showed a sense of being at home, and into the brightness of his steady eyes an expression entered which could best be described as confidential.
"I meant to ask you," he said, "who it was that began to talk about me at the bishop's."
Leigh considered a moment. "We were all discussing politics—I really don't remember."
"And did Miss Wycliffe take my part against the old man?"
The question arrested Leigh's attention, and traversed his consciousness with a positive shock. It was he who was now on guard. He would have repudiated the insinuation that he was jealous, and yet, when a man is in love, jealousy in some sort may extend even to those who cannot possibly be his rivals. As he divined that Emmet was inclined to put too personal an interpretation upon Miss Wycliffe's generosity of feeling, he was concerned to think that she might have misplaced it, that this man might have the presumption to misunderstand her. He became singularly forgetful of what had occurred at the bishop's house, and seemed not to hear a further intimation from Emmet, to the effect that he believed Miss Wycliffe was more than a match for her father. It was now that Emmet discovered a greater possibility of likeness between the bishop and his host than he had suspected so short a time before. His evident curiosity in regard to Miss Wycliffe's real purpose in sending the professor to him remained ungratified, and the necessity which now faced him of retreating from a position in which he had not been met caused him to take his actual departure presently with something of his earlier restraint of manner. They separated, like Glaucus and Diomedes, representatives of different camps, who entertained for each other personally the greatest good-will and respect. It may be, however, that each gave this assurance with mental reservations more or less subconscious.
When Leigh was once more alone, he walked up and down his room restlessly for some time. His first sensation was one of exasperation with Miss Wycliffe for her ill-advised championship of a man who actually seemed to have the assurance to think of her otherwise than as his patroness and good friend from afar. If she suffered embarrassment from it in the future, he reflected, that was only what she might have anticipated. It would be a delicate matter to let her know her mistake. More than that—it would be impossible. Her own instinct and good sense would come to her rescue in time. Meanwhile, there was Emmet. It was delightful to think how she had failed to see his point of view, while sure that she saw it so well. He could not wonder that the man's head was slightly turned, and now that he was gone, Leigh felt no personal resentment on that score. As he reviewed the conversation of the evening, he wondered which were really the more dangerous to the state, Emmet, full of personal grievances and undigested theories, or his opponent, Judge Swigart, the cynical and aristocratic politician. If Emmet desired at present to turn the existing order of things topsy-turvy, it was because such a revolution would place him at the top. The judge, already nearer the top, was naturally a champion of things as they were, which included his position as it was. Though Leigh mused in this sophisticated vein, he nevertheless felt considerable confidence that the younger man, when he became a finished product, would be a better citizen than his political rival.