{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_5357/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_5357","id":"gutenberg_5357","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5357","summary":null,"tags":["Attitude change -- Fiction","Bestsellers, American, 1895-1923","Category: American Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian ethics -- Fiction","Christian life -- Fiction","Conscience -- Religious aspects -- Fiction"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE INSIDE OF THE CUP\n\nBy Winston Churchill\n\n\n\n\nVolume 2.\nV.    THE RECTOR HAS MORE FOOD FOR THOUGHT.\nVI.    \"WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT\"\nVII.   THE KINGDOMS OF THE WORLD\nVIII.   THE LINE of LEAST RESISTANCE.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE RECTOR HAS MORE FOOD FOR THOUGHT\n\n\nI\n\nSunday after Sunday Hodder looked upon the same picture, the winter light\nfiltering through emblazoned windows, falling athwart stone pillars, and\nstaining with rich colours the marble of the centre aisle. The organ\nrolled out hymns and anthems, the voices of the white robed choir echoed\namong the arches. And Hodder's eye, sweeping over the decorous\ncongregation, grew to recognize certain landmarks: Eldon Parr, rigid at\none end of his empty pew; little Everett Constable, comfortably, but\nalways pompously settled at one end of his, his white-haired and\ndistinguished-looking wife at the other. The space between them had once\nbeen filled by their children. There was Mr. Ferguson, who occasionally\nstroked his black whiskers with a prodigious solemnity; Mrs. Ferguson,\nresplendent and always a little warm, and their daughter Nan, dainty and\nappealing, her eyes uplifted and questioning.\n\nThe Plimptons, with their rubicund and aggressively healthy offspring,\nwere always in evidence. And there was Mrs. Larrabbee. What between\nwealth and youth, independence and initiative, a widowhood now emerged\nfrom a mourning unexceptionable, an elegance so unobtrusive as to border\non mystery, she never failed to agitate any atmosphere she entered, even\nthat of prayer. From time to time, Hodder himself was uncomfortably\naware of her presence, and he read in her upturned face an interest\nwhich, by a little stretch of the imagination, might have been deemed\npersonal . . . .\n\nAnother was Gordon Atterbury, still known as \"young Gordon,\" though his\nfather was dead, and he was in the vestry. He was unmarried and\nforty-five, and Mrs. Larrabbee had said he reminded her of a shrivelling\nseed set aside from a once fruitful crop. He wore, invariably, checked\ntrousers and a black cutaway coat, eyeglasses that fell off when he\nsquinted, and were saved from destruction by a gold chain. No wedding or\nfuneral was complete without him. And one morning, as he joined Mr. Parr\nand the other gentlemen who responded to the appeal, \"Let your light so\nshine before men,\" a strange, ironical question entered the rector's\nmind--was Gordon Atterbury the logical product of those doctrines which\nhe, Hodder, preached with such feeling and conviction?\n\nNone, at least, was so fervent a defender of the faith, so punctilious\nin all observances, so constant at the altar rail; none so versed in\nrubrics, ritual, and canon law; none had such a knowledge of the Church\nfathers. Mr. Atterbury delighted to discuss them with the rector at the\ndinner parties where they met; none was more zealous for foreign\nmissions. He was the treasurer of St. John's.\n\nIt should undoubtedly have been a consolation to any rector to possess\nMr. Atterbury's unqualified approval, to listen to his somewhat delphic\ncompliments,--heralded by a clearing of the throat. He represented\nthe faith as delivered to the saints, and he spoke for those in the\ncongregation to whom it was precious. Why was it that, to Hodder,\nhe should gradually have assumed something of the aspect of a Cerberus?\nWhy was it that he incited a perverse desire to utter heresies?\n\nHodder invariably turned from his contemplation of Gordon Atterbury to\nthe double blaring pew, which went from aisle to aisle. In his heart, he\nwould have preferred the approval of Eleanor Goodrich and her husband,\nand of Asa Waring. Instinct spoke to him here; he seemed to read in\ntheir faces that he failed to strike in them responsive chords. He was\ndrawn to them: the conviction grew upon him that he did not reach them,\nand it troubled him, as he thought, disproportionately.\n\nHe could not expect to reach all. But they were the type to which he\nmost wished to appeal; of all of his flock, this family seemed best to\npreserve the vitality and ideals of the city and nation. Asa Waring was\na splendid, uncompromising survival; his piercing eyes sometimes met\nHodder's across the church, and they held for him a question and a\nriddle. Eleanor Goodrich bore on her features the stamp of true nobility\nof character, and her husband, Hodder knew, was a man among men. In\naddition to a respected lineage, he possessed an unusual blending of\naggressiveness and personal charm that men found irresistible.\n\nThe rector's office in the parish house was a businesslike room on the\nfirst floor, fitted up with a desk, a table, straight-backed chairs, and\na revolving bookcase. And to it, one windy morning in March, came\nEleanor Goodrich. Hodder rose to greet her with an eagerness which,\nfrom his kindly yet penetrating glance, she did not suspect.\n\n\"Am I interrupting you, Mr. Hodder?\" she asked, a little breathlessly.\n\n\"Not at all,\" he said, drawing up a chair. \"Won't you sit down?\"\n\nShe obeyed. There was an awkward pause during which the colour slowly\nrose to her face.\n\n\"I wanted to ask you one or two things,\" she began, not very steadily.\n\"As perhaps you may know, I was brought up in this church, baptized and\nconfirmed in it. I've come to fear that, when I was confirmed, I wasn't\nold enough to know what I was doing.\"\n\nShe took a deep breath, amazed at her boldness, for this wasn't in the\nleast how she had meant to begin. And she gazed at the rector anxiously.\nTo her surprise, he did not appear to be inordinately shocked.\n\n\"Do you know any better now?\" he asked.\n\n\"Perhaps not,\" she admitted. \"But the things of which I was sure at that\ntime I am not sure of now. My faith is--is not as complete.\"\n\n\"Faith may be likened to an egg, Mrs. Goodrich,\" he said. \"It must be\nkept whole. If the shell is chipped, it is spoiled.\"\n\nEleanor plucked up her courage. Eggs, she declared, had been used as\nillustrations by conservatives before now.\n\nHodder relieved her by smiling in ready appreciation.\n\n\"Columbus had reference to this world,\" he said. \"I was thinking of a\nmore perfect cue.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" she cried, \"I dare say there is a more perfect one. I should hate\nto think there wasn't--but I can't imagine it. There's nothing in the\nBible in the way of description of it to make me really wish to go there.\nThe New Jerusalem is too insipid, too material. I'm sure I'm shocking\nyou, but I must be honest, and say what I feel.\"\n\n\"If some others were as honest,\" said the rector, \"the problems of\nclergymen would be much easier. And it is precisely because people will\nnot tell us what they feel that we are left in the dark and cannot help\nthem. Of course, the language of St. John about the future is\nfigurative.\"\n\n\"Figurative,--yes,\" she consented, \"but not figurative in a way that\nhelps me, a modern American woman. The figures, to be of any use, ought\nto appeal to my imagination--oughtn't they? But they don't. I can't see\nany utility in such a heaven--it seems powerless to enter as a factor\ninto my life.\"\n\n\"It is probable that we are not meant to know anything about the future.\"\n\n\"Then I wish it hadn't been made so explicit. Its very definiteness is\nsomehow--stultifying. And, Mr. Hodder, if we were not meant to know its\ndetails, it seems to me that if the hereafter is to have any real value\nand influence over our lives here, we should know something of its\nconditions, because it must be in some sense a continuation of this.\nI'm not sure that I make myself clear.\"\n\n\"Admirably clear. But we have our Lord's example of how to live here.\"\n\n\"If we could be sure,\" said Eleanor, \"just what that example meant.\"\n\nHodder was silent a moment.\n\n\"You mean that you cannot accept what the Church teaches about his life?\"\nhe asked.\n\n\"No, I can't,\" she faltered. \"You have helped me to say it. I want to\nhave the Church's side better explained,--that's why I'm here.\" She\nglanced up at him, hesitatingly, with a puzzled wonder, such a positive,\ndynamic representative of that teaching did he appear. \"And my husband\ncan't,--so many people I know can't, Mr. Hodder. Only, some of them\ndon't mention the fact. They accept it. And you say things with such a\ncertainty--\" she paused.\n\n\"I know,\" he replied, \"I know. I have felt it since I have come here\nmore than ever before.\" He did not add that he had felt it particularly\nabout her, about her husband: nor did he give voice to his instinctive\nconviction that he respected and admired these two more than a hundred\nothers whose professed orthodoxy was without a flaw. \"What is it in\nparticular,\" he asked, troubled, \"that you cannot accept? I will do my\nbest to help you.\"\n\n\"Well--\" she hesitated again.\n\n\"Please continue to be frank,\" he begged.\n\n\"I can't believe in the doctrine of the virgin birth,\" she responded in a\nlow voice; \"it seems to me so--so material. And I feel I am stating a\ndifficulty that many have, Mr. Hodder. Why should it have been thought\nnecessary for God to have departed from what is really a sacred and\nsublime fact in nature, to resort to a material proof in order to\nconvince a doubting humanity that Jesus was his Son? Oughtn't the proof\nof Christ's essential God-ship to lie in his life, to be discerned by the\nspiritual; and wasn't he continually rebuking those who demanded material\nproof? The very acceptance of a material proof, it seems to me, is a\ndenial of faith, since faith ceases to have any worth whatever the moment\nthe demand for such proof is gratified. Knowledge puts faith out of\nthe question, for faith to me means a trusting on spiritual grounds.\nAnd surely the acceptance of scriptural statements like that of the\nmiraculous birth without investigation is not faith--it is mere\ncredulity. If Jesus had been born in a miraculous way, the disciples\nmust have known it. Joseph must have known it when he heard the answer\n'I must be about my father's business,' and their doubts are\nunexplained.\"\n\n\"I see you have been investigating,\" said the rector.\n\n\"Yes,\" replied Eleanor, with an unconscious shade of defiance, \"people\nwant to know, Mr. Dodder,--they want to know the truth. And if you\nconsider the preponderance of the evidence of the Gospels themselves--my\nbrother-in-law says--you will find that the miraculous birth has very\nlittle to stand on. Take out the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke,\nand the rest of the four Gospels practically contradict it. The\ngenealogies differ, and they both trace through Joseph.\"\n\n\"I think people suffer in these days from giving too much weight to\nthe critics of Christianity,\" said the rector, \"from not pondering more\ndeeply on its underlying truths. Do not think that I am accusing you\nof superficiality, Mrs. Goodrich; I am sure you wish to go to the bottom,\nor else you would be satisfied with what you have already read and\nheard.\"\n\n\"I do,\" she murmured.\n\n\"And the more one reflects on the life of our Lord, the more one is\nconvinced that the doctrine of the virgin birth is a vital essential;\nwithout it Christianity falls to pieces. Let us go at the matter the\nother way round. If we attribute to our Lord a natural birth, we come at\nonce to the dilemma of having to admit that he was merely an individual\nhuman person,--in an unsurpassed relationship with God, it is true, but\nstill a human person. That doctrine makes Christ historical, some one\nto go back to, instead of the ever-present, preexistent Son of God and\nmankind. I will go as far as to assert that if the virgin birth had\nnever been mentioned in the Gospels, it would nevertheless inevitably\nhave become a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith. Such a truth\nis too vast, too far-reaching to have been neglected, and it has a much\nhigher significance than the mere record of a fact. In spite of the\ncontradictions of science, it explains as nothing else can the mystery\nof the divinity as well as the humanity of the Saviour.\"\n\nEleanor was unconvinced. She felt, as she listened, the pressure of his\nsincerity and force, and had to strive to prevent her thoughts from\nbecoming confused.\n\n\"No, Mr. Hodder, I simply can't see any reason for resorting to a\nphysical miracle in order to explain a spiritual mystery. I can see why\nthe ancients demanded a sign of divinity as it were. But for us it has\nceased even to be that. It can't be proved. You ask me, in the face of\noverwhelming evidence against it, to teach my children that the\nIncarnation depends on it, but when they grow up and go to college and\nfind it discredited they run the risk of losing everything else with it.\nAnd for my part, I fail utterly to see why, if with God all things are\npossible, it isn't quite as believable, as we gather from St. Mark's\nGospel, that he incarnated himself in one naturally born. If you reach\nthe conclusion that Jesus was not a mere individual human person, you\nreach it through the contemplation of his life and death.\"\n\n\"Then it isn't the physical miracle you object to, especially?\" he asked.\n\n\"It's the uselessness of it, for this age,\" she exclaimed. \"I think\nclergymen don't understand the harm it is doing in concentrating the\nattention on such a vulnerable and non-essential point. Those of us who\nare striving to reorganize our beliefs and make them tenable, do not\nbother our heads about miracles. They may be true, or may not, or some\nof them may be. We are beginning to see that the virgin birth does not\nadd anything to Christ. We are beginning to see that perfection and\nindividuality are not incompatible,--one is divine, and the other human.\nAnd isn't it by his very individuality that we are able to recognize\nJesus to-day?\"\n\n\"You have evidently thought and read a great deal,\" Dodder said,\ngenuinely surprised. \"Why didn't you come to me earlier?\"\n\nEleanor bit her lip. He smiled a little.\n\n\"I think I can answer that for you,\" he went on; \"you believe we are\nprejudiced,--I've no doubt many of us are. You think we are bound to\nstand up for certain dogmas, or go down, and that our minds are\nconsequently closed. I am not blaming you,\" he added quickly, as she\ngave a sign of protest, \"but I assure you that most of us, so far as my\nobservation has gone, are honestly trying to proclaim the truth as we see\nit.\"\n\n\"Insincerity is the last thing I should have accused you of, Mr. Hodder,\"\nshe said flushing. \"As I told you, you seem so sure.\"\n\n\"I don't pretend to infallibility, except so far as I maintain that the\nChurch is the guardian of certain truths which human experience has\nverified. Let me ask you if you have thought out the difference your\nconception of the Incarnation;--the lack of a patently divine commission,\nas it were,--makes in the doctrine of grace?\"\n\n\"Yes, I have,\" she answered, \"a little. It gives me more hope. I cannot\nthink I am totally depraved. I do not believe that God wishes me to\nthink so. And while I am still aware of the distance between Christ's\nperfection and my own imperfection, I feel that the possibility is\ngreater of lessening that distance. It gives me more self-respect, more\nself-reliance. George Bridges says that the logical conclusion of that\nold doctrine is what philosophers call determinism--Calvinistic\npredestination. I can't believe in that. The kind of grace God gives me\nis the grace to help myself by drawing force from the element of him in\nmy soul. He gives me the satisfaction of developing.\"\n\n\"Of one thing I am assured, Mrs. Goodrich,\" Hodder replied, \"that the\nlogical result of independent thinking is anarchy. Under this modern\ntendency toward individual creeds, the Church has split and split again\nuntil, if it keeps on, we shall have no Church at all to carry on the\nwork of our Lord on earth. History proves that to take anything away from\nthe faith is to atrophy, to destroy it. The answer to your arguments is\nto be seen on every side, atheism, hypocrisy, vice, misery, insane and\ncruel grasping after wealth. There is only one remedy I can see,\" he\nadded, inflexibly, yet with a touch of sadness, \"believe.\"\n\n\"What if we can't believe?\" she asked.\n\n\"You can.\" He spoke with unshaken conviction.\n\n\"You can if you make the effort, and I am sure you will. My experience\nis that in the early stages of spiritual development we are impervious to\ncertain truths. Will you permit me to recommend to you certain books\ndealing with these questions in a modern way?\"\n\n\"I will read them gladly,\" she said, and rose.\n\n\"And then, perhaps, we may have another talk,\" he added, looking down at\nher. \"Give my regards to your husband.\"\n\nYet, as he stood in the window looking after her retreating figure, there\ngradually grew upon him a vague and uncomfortable feeling that he had not\nbeen satisfactory, and this was curiously coupled with the realization\nthat the visit had added a considerable increment to his already\npronounced liking for Eleanor Goodrich. She was, paradoxically, his\nkind of a person--such was the form the puzzle took. And so ably had\nshe presented her difficulties that, at one point of the discussion,\nit had ironically occurred to him to refer her to Gordon Atterbury.\nMr. Atterbury's faith was like an egg, and he took precious care not\nto have it broken or chipped.\n\nHodder found himself smiling. It was perhaps inevitable that he began at\nonce to contrast Mrs. Goodrich with other feminine parishioners who had\nsought him out, and who had surrendered unconditionally. They had\nevinced an equally disturbing tendency,--a willingness to be overborne.\nFor had he not, indeed, overborne them? He could not help suspecting\nthese other ladies of a craving for the luxury of the confessional. One\nthing was certain,--he had much less respect for them than for Eleanor\nGoodrich . . . .\n\nThat afternoon he sent her the list of books. But the weeks passed,\nand she did not come back. Once, when he met her at a dinner of Mrs.\nPreston's, both avoided the subject of her visit, both were conscious\nof a constraint. She did not know how often, unseen by her, his eyes had\nsought her out from the chancel. For she continued to come to church as\nfrequently as before, and often brought her husband.\n\n\n\nII\n\nOne bright and boisterous afternoon in March, Hodder alighted from an\nelectric car amid a swirl of dust and stood gazing for a moment at the\nstone gate-houses of that 'rus in urbe', Waverley Place, and at the gold\nblock-letters written thereon, \"No Thoroughfare.\" Against those gates\nand their contiguous grill the rude onward rush of the city had beaten in\nvain, and, baffled, had swept around their serene enclosure, westward.\n\nWithin, a silvery sunlight lit up the grass of the island running down\nthe middle, and in the beds the softening earth had already been broken\nby the crocus sheaves. The bare branches of the trees swayed in the\ngusts. As Hodder penetrated this hallowed precinct he recognized, on\neither hand, the residences of several of his parishioners, each in its\nample allotted space: Mrs. Larrabbee's; the Laureston Greys'; Thurston\nGore's, of which Mr. Wallis Plimpton was now the master,--Mr. Plimpton,\nbefore whose pertinacity the walls of Jericho had fallen; and finally the\nqueer, twisted Richardson mansion of the Everett Constables, whither he\nwas bound, with its recessed doorway and tiny windows peeping out from\nunder mediaeval penthouses.\n\nHe was ushered into a library where the shades were already drawn, where\na-white-clothed tea-table was set before the fire, the red rays dancing\non the silver tea-kettle. On the centre-table he was always sure to\nfind, neatly set in a rack, the books about which the world was talking,\nor rather would soon begin to talk; and beside them were ranged\nmagazines; French, English, and American, Punch, the Spectator, the\nNation, the 'Revue des deux Mondes'. Like the able general she was,\nMrs. Constable kept her communications open, and her acquaintance was by\nno means confined to the city of her nativity. And if a celebrity were\npassing through, it were pretty safe, if in doubt, to address him in her\ncare.\n\nHodder liked and admired her, but somehow she gave him the impression of\nhaving attained her ascendancy at a price, an ascendancy which had\napparently been gained by impressing upon her environment a new note\n--literary, aesthetic, cosmopolitan. She held herself, and those she\ncarried with her, abreast of the times, and he was at a loss to see how\nso congenial an effort could have left despite her sweetness--the little\nmark of hardness he discerned, of worldliness. For she was as well born\nas any woman in the city, and her husband was a Constable. He had\ninherited, so the rector had been informed, one of those modest fortunes\nthat were deemed affluence in the eighties. His keeping abreast of the\ntimes was the enigma, and Hodder had often wondered how financial genius\nhad contrived to house itself in the well-dressed, gently pompous little\nman whose lack of force seemed at times so painfully evident. And yet he\nwas rated one of the rich men of the city, and his name Hodder had read\non many boards with Mr. Parr's!\n\nA person more versed in the modern world of affairs than the late rector\nof Bremerton would not have been so long in arriving at the answer to\nthis riddle. Hodder was astute, he saw into people more than they\nsuspected, but he was not sophisticated.\n\nHe stood picturing, now, the woman in answer to whose summons he had\ncome. With her finely chiselled features, her abundant white hair, her\nslim figure and erect carriage she reminded him always of a Vigee Lebrun\nportrait. He turned at the sound of her voice behind him.\n\n\"How good of you to come, Mr. Hodder, when you were so busy,\" she said,\ntaking his hand as she seated herself behind the tea-kettle. \"I wanted\nthe chance to talk to you, and it seemed the best way. What is that you\nhave, Soter's book?\"\n\n\"I pinked it up on the table,\" he explained.\n\n\"Then you haven't read it? You ought to. As a clergyman, it would\ninterest you. Religion treated from the economic side, you know, the\neffect of lack of nutrition on character. Very unorthodox, of course.\"\n\n\"I find that I have very little time to read,\" he said. \"I sometimes\ntake a book along in the cars.\"\n\n\"Your profession is not so leisurely as it once was, I often think it\nsuch a pity. But you, too, are paying the penalty of complexity.\" She\nsmiled at him sympathetically. \"How is Mr. Parr? I haven't seen him for\nseveral weeks.\"\n\n\"He seemed well when I saw him last,\" replied Hodder.\n\n\"He's a wonderful man; the amount of work he accomplishes without\napparent effort is stupendous.\" Mrs. Constable cast what seemed a\ntentative glance at the powerful head, and handed him his tea.\n\"I wanted to talk to you about Gertrude,\" she said.\n\nHe looked unenlightened.\n\n\"About my daughter, Mrs. Warren. She lives in New York, you know\n--on Long Island.\"\n\nThen he had remembered something he had heard.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said.\n\n\"She met you, at the Fergusons', just for a moment, when she was out here\nlast autumn. What really nice and simple people the Fergusons are, with\nall their money!\"\n\n\"Very nice indeed,\" he agreed, puzzled.\n\n\"I have been sorry for them in the past,\" she went on evenly. \"They had\nrather a hard time--perhaps you may have heard. Nobody appreciated them.\nThey were entombed, so to speak, in a hideous big house over on the South\nSide, which fortunately burned down, and then they bought in Park Street,\nand took a pew in St. John's. I suppose the idea of that huge department\nstore was rather difficult to get used to. But I made up my mind it was\nnonsense to draw the line at department stores, especially since Mr.\nFerguson's was such a useful and remarkable one, so I went across and\ncalled. Mrs. Ferguson was so grateful, it was almost pathetic. And\nshe's a very good friend--she came here everyday when Genevieve had\nappendicitis.\"\n\n\"She's a good woman,\" the rector said.\n\n\"And Nan,--I adore Nan, everybody adores Nan. She reminds me of one of\nthose exquisite, blue-eyed dolls her father imports. Now if I were a\nbachelor, Mr. Hodder--!\" Mrs. Constable left the rest to his\nimagination.\n\nHe smiled.\n\n\"I'm afraid Miss Ferguson has her own ideas.\" Running through Hodder's\nmind, a troubled current, were certain memories connected with Mrs.\nWarren. Was she the divorced daughter, or was she not?\n\n\"But I was going to speak to you about Gertrude. She's had such a\nhard time, poor dear, my heart has bled for her.\" There was a barely\nperceptible tremor in Mrs. Constable's voice. \"All that publicity, and\nthe inevitable suffering connected with it! And no one can know the\nmisery she went through, she is so sensitive. But now, at last, she has\na chance for happiness--the real thing has come.\"\n\n\"The real thing!\" he echoed.\n\n\"Yes. She's going to marry a splendid man, Eldridge Sumner. I know the\nfamily well. They have always stood for public spirit, and this Mr.\nSummer, although he is little over thirty, was chairman of that Vice\nCommission which made such a stir in New York a year ago. He's a lawyer,\nwith a fine future, and they're madly in love. And Gertrude realizes\nnow, after her experience, the true values in life. She was only a child\nwhen she married Victor Warren.\"\n\n\"But Mr. Warren,\" Hodder managed to say, \"is still living.\"\n\n\"I sometimes wonder, Mr. Hodder,\" she went on hurriedly, \"whether we can\nrealize how different the world is today from what it was twenty years\nago, until something of this kind is actually brought home to us.\nI shall never forget how distressed, how overwhelmed Mr. Constable and I\nwere when Gertrude got her divorce. I know that they are regarding such\nthings differently in the East, but out here!--We never dreamed that such\na thing could happen to us, and we regarded it as a disgrace. But\ngradually--\" she hesitated, and looked at the motionless clergyman\n--\"gradually I began to see Gertrude's point of view, to understand that\nshe had made a mistake, that she had been too young to comprehend what\nshe was doing. Victor Warren had been ruined by money, he wasn't\nfaithful to her, but an extraordinary thing has happened in his case.\nHe's married again, and Gertrude tells me he's absurdly happy, and has\ntwo children.\"\n\nAs he listened, Hodder's dominating feeling was amazement that such a\ncourse as her daughter had taken should be condoned by this middle-aged\nlady, a prominent member of his congregation and the wife of a vestryman,\nwho had been nurtured and steeped in Christianity. And not only that:\nMrs. Constable was plainly defending a further step, which in his opinion\ninvolved a breach of the Seventh Commandment! To have invaded these\nprecincts, the muddy, turbulent river of individualism had risen higher\nthan he would have thought possible . . . .\n\n\"Wait!\" she implored, checking his speech,--she had been watching him\nwith what was plainly anxiety, \"don't say anything yet. I have a letter\nhere which she wrote me--at the time. I kept it. Let me read a part of\nit to you, that you may understand more fully the tragedy of it.\"\n\nMrs. Constable thrust her hand into her lap and drew forth a thickly\ncovered sheet.\n\n\"It was written just after she left him--it is an answer to my protest,\"\nshe explained, and began to read:\n\n\"I know I promised to love Victor, mother, but how can one promise to\ndo a thing over which one has no control? I loved him after he stopped\nloving me. He wasn't a bit suited to me--I see that now--he was\nattracted by the outside of me, and I never knew what he was like until I\nmarried him. His character seemed to change completely; he grew morose\nand quick-tempered and secretive, and nothing I did pleased him. We led\na cat-and-dog life. I never let you know--and yet I see now we might\nhave got along in any other relationship. We were very friendly when we\nparted, and I'm not a bit jealous because he cares for another woman who\nI can see is much better suited to him.\n\n\"'I can't honestly regret leaving him, and I'm not conscious of having\ndone anything wrong. I don't want to shock you, and I know how terribly\nyou and father must feel, but I can see now, somehow, that I had to go\nthrough this experience, terrible as it was, to find myself. If it were\nthirty years ago, before people began to be liberal in such matters,\nI shudder to think what might have become of me. I should now be one of\nthose terrible women between fifty and sixty who have tried one frivolity\nand excess after another--but I'm not coming to that! And my friends\nhave really been awfully kind, and supported me--even Victor's family.\nDon't, don't think that I'm not respectable! I know how you look at such\nthings.'\" Mrs. Constable closed the letter abruptly.\n\n\"I did look at such things in that way,\" she added, \"but I've changed.\nThat letter helped to change me, and the fact that it was Gertrude who\nhad been through this. If you only knew Gertrude, Mr. Hodder, you\ncouldn't possibly think of her as anything but sweet and pure.\"\n\nAlthough the extent of Hodder's acquaintance with Mrs. Warren had been\nbut five minutes, the letter had surprisingly retouched to something like\nbrilliancy her faded portrait, the glow in her cheeks, the iris blue in\nher eyes. He recalled the little shock he had experienced when told that\nshe was divorced, for her appeal had lain in her very freshness, her\nfrank and confiding manner. She was one of those women who seem to say,\n\"Here I am, you can't but like me:\" And he had responded--he remembered\nthat--he had liked her. And now her letter, despite his resistance, had\nmade its appeal, so genuinely human was it, so honest, although it\nexpressed a philosophy he abhorred.\n\nMrs. Constable was watching him mutely, striving to read in his grave\neyes the effect of her pleadings.\n\n\"You are telling me this, Mrs. Constable--why?\" he asked.\n\n\"Because I wished you to know the exact situation before I asked you, as\na great favour to me, to Mr. Constable, to--to marry her in St. John's.\nOf course,\" she went on, controlling her rising agitation, and\nanticipating a sign of protest, \"we shouldn't expect to have any people,\n---and Gertrude wasn't married in St. John's before; that wedding was at\nPassumset our seashore place. Oh, Mr. Hodder, before you answer, think\nof our feelings, Mr. Constable's and mine! If you could see Mr.\nConstable, you would know how he suffers--this thing has upset him more\nthan the divorce. His family have such pride. I am so worried about\nhim, and he doesn't eat anything and looks so haggard. I told him I\nwould see you and explain and that seemed to comfort him a little.\nShe is, after all, our child, and we don't want to feel, so far as our\nchurch is concerned, that she is an Ishmaelite; we don't want to have the\nspectacle of her having to go around, outside, to find a clergyman--that\nwould be too dreadful! I know how strict, how unflinching you are, and I\nadmire you for it. But this is a special case.\"\n\nShe paused, breathing deeply, and Hodder gazed at her with pity. What he\nfelt was more than pity; he was experiencing, indeed, but with a deeper\nemotion, something of that same confusion of values into which Eleanor\nGoodrich's visit had thrown him. At the same time it had not escaped his\nlogical mind that Mrs. Constable had made her final plea on the score of\nrespectability.\n\n\"It gives me great pain to have to refuse you,\" he said gently.\n\n\"Oh, don't,\" she said sharply, \"don't say that! I can't have made the\ncase clear. You are too big, too comprehending, Mr. Hodder, to have a\nhard-and-fast rule. There must be times--extenuating circumstances--and\nI believe the canons make it optional for a clergyman to marry the\ninnocent person.\"\n\n\"Yes, it is optional, but I do, not believe it should be. The question\nis left to the clergyman's' conscience. According to my view, Mrs.\nConstable, the Church, as the agent of God, effects an indissoluble bond.\nAnd much as I should like to do anything in my power for you and Mr.\nConstable, you have asked the impossible,--believing as I do, there can\nbe no special case, no extenuating circumstance. And it is my duty to\ntell you it is because people to-day are losing their beliefs that we\nhave this lenient attitude toward the sacred things. If they still held\nthe conviction that marriage is of God, they would labour to make it a\nsuccess, instead of flying apart at the first sign of what they choose to\ncall incompatibility.\"\n\n\"But surely,\" she said, \"we ought not to be punished for our mistakes!\nI cannot believe that Christ himself intended that his religion should be\nso inelastic, so hard and fast, so cruel as you imply. Surely there is\nenough unhappiness without making more. You speak of incompatibility\n--but is it in all cases such an insignificant matter? We are beginning\nto realize in these days something of the effects of character on\ncharacter,--deteriorating effects, in many instances. With certain\npersons we are lifted up, inspired to face the battle of life and\novercome its difficulties. I have known fine men and women whose lives\nhave been stultified or ruined because they were badly mated. And I\ncannot see that the character of my own daughter has deteriorated because\nshe has got a divorce from a man with whom she was profoundly out of\nsympathy--of harmony. On the contrary, she seems more of a person than\nshe was; she has clearer, saner views of life; she has made her mistake\nand profited by it. Her views changed--Victor Warren's did not. She\nbegan to realize that some other woman might have an influence over his\nlife--she had none, simply because he did not love her. And love is not\na thing we can compel.\"\n\n\"You are making it very hard for me, Mrs. Constable,\" he said.\n\"You are now advocating an individualism with which the Church can have\nno sympathy. Christianity teaches us that life is probationary, and if\nwe seek to avoid the trials sent us, instead of overcoming them, we find\nourselves farther than ever from any solution. We have to stand by our\nmistakes. If marriage is to be a mere trial of compatibility, why go\nthrough a ceremony than which there is none more binding in human and\ndivine institutions? One either believes in it, or one does not. And,\nif belief be lacking, the state provides for the legalization of\nmarriages.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"If persons wish to be married in church in these days merely because it\nis respectable, if such be their only reason, they are committing a great\nwrong. They are taking an oath before God with reservations, knowing\nthat public opinion will release them if the marriage does not fulfil\ntheir expectations.\"\n\nFor a moment she gazed at him with parted lips, and pressing her\nhandkerchief to her eyes began silently to cry. The sudden spectacle,\nin this condition, of a self-controlled woman of the world was infinitely\ndistressing to Hodder, whose sympathies were even more sensitive than\n(in her attempt to play upon them) she had suspected. . . She was\naware that he had got to his feet, and was standing beside her, speaking\nwith an oddly penetrating tenderness.\n\n\"I did not mean to be harsh,\" he said, \"and it is not that I do not\nunderstand how you feel. You have made my duty peculiarly difficult.\"\n\nShe raised up to him a face from which the mask had fallen, from which\nthe illusory look of youth had fled. He turned away. . . And\npresently she began to speak again; in disconnected sentences.\n\n\"I so want her to be happy--I cannot think, I will not think that she has\nwrecked her life--it would be too unjust, too cruel. You cannot know\nwhat it is to be a woman!\"\n\nBefore this cry he was silent.\n\n\"I don't ask anything of God except that she shall have a chance, and it\nseems to me that he is making the world better--less harsh for women.\"\n\nHe did not reply. And presently she looked up at him again, steadfastly\nnow, searchingly. The barriers of the conventions were down, she had\ncast her pride to the winds. He seemed to read in her a certain relief.\n\n\"I am going to tell you something, Mr. Hodder, which you may think\nstrange, but I have a reason for saying it. You are still a young man,\nand I feel instinctively that you have an unusual career before you. You\ninterested me the first time you stepped into the pulpit of St. John's\n--and it will do me good to talk to you, this once, frankly. You have\nreiterated to-day, in no uncertain terms, doctrines which I once\nbelieved, which I was brought up to think infallible. But I have\nlived since then, and life itself has made me doubt them.\n\n\"I recognize in you a humanity, a sympathy and breadth which you are\nyourself probably not aware of, all of which is greater than the rule\nwhich you so confidently apply to fit all cases. It seems to me that\nChrist did not intend us to have such rules. He went beyond them, into\nthe spirit.\n\n\"Under the conditions of society--of civilization to-day, most marriages\nare merely a matter of chance. Even judgment cannot foresee the\ndevelopment of character brought about by circumstances, by environment.\nAnd in many marriages I have known about intimately both the man and the\nwoman have missed the most precious thing that life can give something I\ncannot but think--God intends us to have. You see,\"--she smiled at him\nsadly--\"I am still a little of an idealist.\n\n\"I missed--the thing I am talking about, and it has been the great sorrow\nof my life--not only on my account, but on my husband's. And so far as I\nam concerned, I am telling you the truth when I say I should have been\ncontent to have lived in a log cabin if--if the gift had been mine. Not\nall the money in the world, nor the intellect, nor the philanthropy--the\nso-called interests of life, will satisfy me for its denial. I am a\ndisappointed woman, I sometimes think a bitter woman. I can't believe\nthat life is meant to be so. Those energies have gone into ambition\nwhich should have been absorbed by--by something more worth while.\n\n\"And I can see so plainly now that my husband would have been far, far\nhappier with another kind of woman. I drew him away from the only work\nhe ever enjoyed--his painting. I do not say he ever could have been a\ngreat artist, but he had a little of the divine spark, in his enthusiasm\nat least--in his assiduity. I shall never forget our first trip abroad,\nafter we were married--he was like a boy in the galleries, in the\nstudios. I could not understand it then. I had no real sympathy with\nart, but I tried to make sacrifices, what I thought were Christian\nsacrifices. The motive power was lacking, and no matter how hard I\ntried, I was only half-hearted, and he realized it instinctively--no\namount of feigning could deceive him. Something deep in me, which was a\npart of my nature, was antagonistic, stultifying to the essentials of his\nown being. Of course neither of us saw that then, but the results were\nnot long in developing. To him, art was a sacred thing, and it was\nimpossible for me to regard it with equal seriousness. He drew into\nhimself,--closed up, as it were,--no longer discussed it. I was hurt.\nAnd when we came home he kept on in business--he still had his father's\naffairs to look after--but he had a little workroom at the top of the\nhouse where he used to go in the afternoon . . . .\n\n\"It was a question which one of us should be warped,--which personality\nshould be annihilated, so to speak, and I was the stronger. And as I\nlook back, Mr. Hodder, what occurred seems to me absolutely inevitable,\ngiven the ingredients, as inevitable as a chemical process. We were both\nstriving against each other, and I won--at a tremendous cost. The\nconflict, one might say, was subconscious, instinctive rather than\ndeliberate. My attitude forced him back into business, although we had\nenough to live on very comfortably, and then the scale of life began to\nincrease, luxuries formerly unthought of seemed to become necessities.\nAnd while it was still afar off I saw a great wave rolling toward us, the\nwave of that new prosperity which threatened to submerge us, and I seized\nthe buoy fate had placed in our hands,--or rather, by suggestion, I\ninduced my husband to seize it--his name.\n\n\"I recognized the genius, the future of Eldon Parr at a time when he was\nnot yet independent and supreme, when association with a Constable meant\nmuch to him. Mr. Parr made us, as the saying goes. Needless to say;\nmoney has not brought happiness, but a host of hard, false ambitions\nwhich culminated in Gertrude's marriage with Victor Warren. I set my\nheart on the match, helped it in every, way, and until now nothing but\nsorrow has come of it. But my point--is this,--I see so clearly, now\nthat it is too late, that two excellent persons may demoralize each other\nif they are ill-mated. It may be possible that I had the germs of false\nambition in me when I was a girl, yet I was conscious only of the ideal\nwhich is in most women's hearts . . . .\n\n\"You must not think that I have laid my soul bare in the hope of changing\nyour mind in regard to Gertrude. I recognize clearly, now, that that is\nimpossible. Oh, I know you do not so misjudge me,\" she added, reading\nhis quick protest in his face.\n\n\"Indeed, I cannot analyze my reasons for telling you something of which I\nhave never spoken to any one else.\"\n\nMrs. Constable regarded him fixedly. \"You are the strongest reason.\nYou have somehow drawn it out of me . . . . And I suppose I wish some\none to profit by it. You can, Mr. Hodder,--I feel sure of that. You may\ninsist now that my argument against your present conviction of the\nindissolubility of marriage is mere individualism, but I want you to\nthink of what I have told you, not to answer me now. I know your\nargument by heart, that Christian character develops by submission,\nby suffering, that it is the woman's place to submit, to efface herself.\nBut the root of the matter goes deeper than that. I am far from\ndeploring sacrifice, yet common-sense tells us that our sacrifice should\nbe guided by judgment, that foolish sacrifices are worse than useless.\nAnd there are times when the very limitations of our individuality\n--necessary limitation's for us--prevent our sacrifices from counting.\n\n\"I was wrong, I grant you, grievously wrong in the course I took, even\nthough it were not consciously deliberate. But if my husband had been an\nartist I should always have remained separated from his real life by a\nlimitation I had no power to remove. The more I tried, the more apparent\nmy lack of insight became to him, the more irritated he grew. I studied\nhis sketches, I studied masterpieces, but it was all hopeless. The thing\nwasn't in me, and he knew it wasn't. Every remark made him quiver.\n\n\"The Church, I think, will grow more liberal, must grow more liberal, if\nit wishes to keep in touch with people in an age when they are thinking\nout these questions for themselves. The law cannot fit all cases, I am\nsure the Gospel can. And sometimes women have an instinct, a kind of\nsecond sight into persons, Mr. Hodder. I cannot explain why I feel that\nyou have in you elements of growth which will eventually bring you more\ninto sympathy with the point of view I have set forth, but I do feel it.\"\n\nHodder did not attempt to refute her--she had, indeed, made discussion\nimpossible. She knew his arguments, as she had declared, and he had the\nintelligence to realize that a repetition of them, on his part, would be\nuseless. She brought home to him, as never before, a sense of the\nanomalistic position of the Church in these modern days, of its\nappallingly lessened weight even with its own members. As a successor of\nthe Apostles, he had no power over this woman, or very little; he could\nneither rebuke her, nor sentence her to penance. She recognized his\nauthority to marry her daughter, to baptize her daughter's children,\nbut not to interfere in any way with her spiritual life. It was as a\npersonality he had moved her--a personality apparently not in harmony\nwith his doctrine. Women had hinted at this before. And while Mrs.\nConstable had not, as she perceived, shaken his conviction, the very\nvividness and unexpectedness of a confession from her--had stirred him to\nthe marrow, had opened doors, perforce, which he, himself had marked\nforbidden, and given him a glimpse beyond before he could lower his eyes.\nWas there, after all, something in him that responded in spite of\nhimself?\n\nHe sat gazing at her, his head bent, his strong hands on the arms of the\nchair.\n\n\"We never can foresee how we may change,\" he answered, a light in his\neyes that was like a smile, yet having no suggestion of levity. And his\nvoice--despite his disagreement--maintained the quality of his sympathy.\nNeither felt the oddity, then, of the absence of a jarring note. \"You\nmay be sure, at least, of my confidence, and of my gratitude for what you\nhave told me.\"\n\nHis tone belied the formality of his speech. Mrs. Constable returned his\ngaze in silence, and before words came again to either, a step sounded on\nthe threshold and Mr. Constable entered.\n\nHodder looked at him with a new vision. His face was indeed lined and\nworn, and dark circles here under his eyes. But at Mrs. Constable's\n\"Here's Mr. Hodder, dear,\" he came forward briskly to welcome the\nclergyman.\n\n\"How do you do?\" he said cordially. \"We don't see you very often.\"\n\n\"I have been telling Mr. Hodder that modern rectors of big parishes have\nfar too many duties,\" said his wife.\n\nAnd after a few minutes of desultory conversation, the rector left.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\"WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?\"\n\nIt was one of those moist nights of spring when the air is pungent with\nthe odour of the softened earth, and the gentle breaths that stirred\nthe curtains in Mr. Parr's big dining-room wafted, from the garden,\nthe perfumes of a revived creation,--delicious, hothouse smells.\nAt intervals, showers might be heard pattering on the walk outside.\nThe rector of St. John's was dining with his great parishioner.\n\nHere indeed were a subject for some modern master, a chance to picture\nfor generations to come an aspect of a mighty age, an age that may some\nday be deemed but a grotesque and anomalistic survival of a more ancient\nlogic; a gargoyle carved out of chaos, that bears on its features a\nresemblance to the past and the future.\n\nOur scene might almost be mediaeval with its encircling gloom, through\nwhich the heavy tapestries and shadowy corners of the huge apartment may\nbe dimly made out. In the center, the soft red glow of the candles, the\ngleaming silver, the shining cloth, the Church on one side--and what on\nthe other? No name given it now, no royal name, but still Power. The\ntwo are still in apposition, not yet in opposition, but the discerning\nmay perchance read a prophecy in the salient features of the priest.\n\nThe Man of Power of the beginning of the twentieth century demands\na subtler analysis, presents an enigma to which the immortal portraits\nof forgotten Medicis and Capets give no clew. Imagine, if you can,\na Lorenzo or a Grand Louis in a tightly-buttoned frock coat! There must\nbe some logical connection between the habit and the age, since crimson\nvelvet and gold brocade would have made Eldon Parr merely ridiculous.\n\nHe is by no means ridiculous, yet take him out of the setting and put him\nin the street, and you might pass him a dozen times without noticing him.\nNature, and perhaps unconscious art, have provided him with a protective\nexterior; he is the colour of his jungle. After he has crippled you\n--if you survive--you will never forget him. You will remember his eye,\nwhich can be unsheathed like a rapier; you will recall his lips as the\nexpression of a relentless negative. The significance of the slight\nbridge on the narrow nose is less easy to define. He is neither tall\nnor short; his face is clean-shaven, save for scanty, unobtrusive\nreddish tufts high on the cheeks; his hair is thin.\n\nIt must be borne in mind, however, that our rector did not see him in his\njungle, and perhaps in the traditional nobility of the lion there is a\ncertain truth. An interesting biography of some of the powerful of this\nearth might be written from the point of view of the confessor or the\nphysician, who find something to love, something to pity, and nothing to\nfear--thus reversing the sentiments of the public.\n\nYet the friendship between John Hodder and Eldon Parr defied any definite\nanalysis on the rector's part, and was perhaps the strangest--and most\ndisquieting element that had as yet come into Hodder's life. The nature\nof his intimacy with the banker, if intimacy it might be called, might\nhave surprised his other parishioners if they could have been hidden\nspectators of one of these dinners. There were long silences when the\nmedium of communication, tenuous at best, seemed to snap, and the two sat\ngazing at each other as from mountain peaks across impassable valleys.\nWith all the will in the world, their souls lost touch, though the sense\nin the clergyman of the other's vague yearning for human companionship\nwas never absent. It was this yearning that attracted Hodder, who found\nin it a deep pathos.\n\nAfter one of these intervals of silence, Eldon Parr looked up from his\nclaret.\n\n\"I congratulate you, Hodder, on the stand you took in regard to\nConstable's daughter,\" he said.\n\n\"I didn't suppose it was known,\" answered the rector, in surprise.\n\n\"Constable told me. I have reason to believe that he doesn't sympathize\nwith his wife in her attitude on this matter. It's pulled him down,\n--you've noticed that he looks badly?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the rector. He did not care to discuss the affair; he had\nhoped it would not become known; and he shunned the congratulations of\nGordon Atterbury, which in such case would be inevitable. And in spite\nof the conviction that he had done his duty, the memory of his talk with\nMrs. Constable never failed to make him, uncomfortable.\n\nExasperation crept into Mr. Pares voice.\n\n\"I can't think what's got into women in these times--at Mrs. Constable's\nage they ought to know better. Nothing restrains them. They have\nreached a point where they don't even respect the Church. And when that\nhappens, it is serious indeed. The Church is the governor on our social\nengine, and it is supposed to impose a restraint upon the lawless.\"\n\nHodder could not refrain from smiling a little at the banker's\nconception.\n\n\"Doesn't that reduce the Church somewhere to the level of the police\nforce?\" he asked.\n\n\"Not at all,\" said Eldon Parr, whose feelings seemed to be rising.\n\"I am sorry for Constable. He feels the shame of this thing keenly,\nand he ought to go away for a while to one of these quiet resorts.\nI offered him my car. Sometimes I think that women have no morals.\nAt any rate, this modern notion of giving them their liberty is sheer\nfolly. Look what they have done with it! Instead of remaining at home,\nwhere they belong, they are going out into the world and turning it\ntopsy-turvy. And if a man doesn't let them have a free hand, they get\na divorce and marry some idiot who will.\"\n\nMr. Parr pushed back his chair and rose abruptly, starting for the door.\nThe rector followed him, forcibly struck by the unusual bitterness in his\ntone.\n\n\"If I have spoken strongly, it is because I feel strongly,\" he said in a\nstrange, thickened voice. \"Hodder, how would you like to live in this\nhouse--alone?\"\n\nThe rector looked down upon him with keen, comprehending eyes, and saw\nEldon Parr as he only, of all men, had seen him. For he himself did not\nunderstand his own strange power of drawing forth the spirit from its\nshell, of compelling the inner, suffering thing to reveal itself.\n\n\"This poison,\" Eldon Parr went on unevenly, \"has eaten into my own\nfamily. My daughter, who might have been a comfort and a companion,\nsince she chose not to marry, was carried away by it, and thought it\nincumbent upon her to have a career of her own. And now I have a choice\nof thirty rooms, and not a soul to share them with. Sometimes, at night,\nI make up my mind to sell this house. But I can't do it--something holds\nme back, hope, superstition, or whatever you've a mind to call it.\nYou've never seen all of the house, have you?\" he asked.\n\nThe rector slowly shook his head, and the movement might have been one\nthat he would have used in acquiescence to the odd whim of a child. Mr.\nParr led the way up the wide staircase to the corridor above, traversing\nchamber after chamber, turning on the lights.\n\n\"These were my wife's rooms,\" he said, \"they are just as she left them.\nAnd these my daughter Alison's, when she chooses to pay me a visit.\nI didn't realize that I should have to spend the last years of my life\nalone. And I meant, when I gave my wife a house, to have it the best in\nthe city. I spared nothing on it, as you see, neither care nor money.\nI had the best architect I could find, and used the best material.\nAnd what good is it to me? Only a reminder--of what might have been.\nBut I've got a boy, Hodder,--I don't know whether I've ever spoken of him\nto you--Preston. He's gone away, too. But I've always had the hope that\nhe might come back and get decently married, and live, here. That's why\nI stay. I'll show you his picture.\"\n\nThey climbed to the third floor, and while Mr. Parr way searching for\nthe electric switch, a lightning flash broke over the forests of the\npark, prematurely revealing the room. It was a boy's room, hung with\nphotographs of school and college crews and teams and groups of\nintimates, with deep window seats, and draped pennons of Harvard\nUniversity over the fireplace. Eldon Parr turned to one of the groups on\nthe will, the earliest taken at school.\n\n\"There he is,\" he said, pointing out a sunny little face at the bottom,\na boy of twelve, bareheaded, with short, crisping yellow hair, smiling\nlips and laughing eyes. \"And here he is again,\" indicating another\ngroup. Thus he traced him through succeeding years until they came to\nthose of college.\n\n\"There he is,\" said the rector. \"I think I can pick him out now.\"\n\n\"Yes; that's Preston,\" said his father, staring hard at the picture. The\nface had developed, the body had grown almost to man's estate, but the\nhint of crispness was still in the hair, the mischievous laughter in the\neyes. The rector gazed earnestly at the face, remembering his own\nboyhood, his own youth, his mind dwelling, too, on what he had heard\nof the original of the portrait. What had happened to the boy, to bring\nto naught the fair promise of this earlier presentment?\n\nHe was aroused by the voice of Eldon Parr, who had sunk into one of the\nleather chairs.\n\n\"I can see him now,\" he was saying, \"as he used to come running down that\nlong flight of stone steps in Ransome Street to meet me when I came home.\nSuch laughter! And once, in his eagerness, he fell and cut his forehead.\nI shall never forget how I felt. And when I picked him up he tried to\nlaugh still, with the tears rolling down his face. You know the way a\nchild's breath catches, Hodder? He was always laughing. And how he used\nto cling to me, and beg me to take him out, and show such an interest in\neverything! He was a bright boy, a remarkable child, I thought, but I\nsuppose it was my foolishness. He analyzed all he saw, and when he used\nto go off in my car, Brennan, the engineer, would always beg to have\nhim in the cab. And such sympathy! He knew in an instant when I was\nworried. I had dreams of what that boy would become, but I was too sure\nof it. I went on doing other things--there were so many things, and I\nwas a slave to them. And before I knew it, he'd gone off to school.\nThat was the year I moved up here, and my wife died. And after that,\nall seemed to go wrong. Perhaps I was too severe; perhaps they didn't\nunderstand him at boarding-school; perhaps I didn't pay enough attention\nto him. At any rate, the first thing I knew his whole nature seemed to\nhave changed. He got into scrape after scrape at Harvard, and later he\ncame within an ace of marrying a woman.\n\n\"He's my weakness to-day. I can say no to everybody in the world but to\nhim, and when I try to remember him as he used to come down those steps\non Ransome Street . . . .\n\n\"He never knew how much I cared--that what I was doing was all for him,\nbuilding for him, that he might carry on my work. I had dreams of\ndeveloping this city, the great Southwest, and after I had gone Preston\nwas to bring them to fruition.\n\n\"For some reason I never was able to tell him all this--as I am telling\nyou. The words would not come. We had grown apart. And he seemed to\nthink--God knows why!--he seemed to think I disliked him. I had Langmaid\ntalk to him, and other men I trusted--tell him what an unparalleled\nopportunity he had to be of use in the world. Once I thought I had him\nstarted straight and then a woman came along--off the streets, or little\nbetter. He insisted on marrying her and wrecking his life, and when\nI got her out of the way, as any father would have done, he left me. He\nhas never forgiven me. Most of the time I haven't even the satisfaction\nof knowing were he is--London, Paris, or New York. I try not to think\nof what he does. I ought to cut him off,--I can't do it--I can't do it,\nHodder--he's my one weakness still. I'm afraid--he'd sink out of sight\nentirely, and it's the one hold I have left on him.\"\n\nEldon Parr paused, with a groan that betokened not only a poignant\nsorrow, but also something of relief--for the tortures of not being able\nto unburden himself had plainly become intolerable. He glanced up and\nmet the compassionate eyes of the rector, who stood leaning against the\nmantel.\n\n\"With Alison it was different,\" he said. \"I never understood her--even\nwhen she was a child--and I used to look at her and wonder that she could\nbe my daughter. She was moody, intense, with a yearning for affection\nI've since sometimes thought--she could not express. I did not feel the\nneed of affection in those days, so absorbed was I in building up,\n--so absorbed and driven, you might say. I suppose I must accept my\npunishment as just. But the child was always distant with me, and I\nalways remember her in rebellion; a dark little thing with a quivering\nlip, hair awry, and eyes that flashed through her tears. She would take\nany amount of punishment rather than admit she had been in the wrong.\nI recall she had once a fox terrier that never left her, that fought all\nthe dogs in the neighbourhood and destroyed the rugs and cushions in the\nhouse. I got rid of it one summer when she was at the sea, and I think\nshe never forgave me. The first question she asked when she came home\nwas for that dog--Mischief, his name was--for Mischief. I told her what\nI had done. It took more courage than I had thought. She went to her\nroom, locked herself in, and stayed there, and we couldn't get her to\ncome out for two days; she wouldn't even eat.\n\n\"Perhaps she was jealous of Preston, but she never acknowledged it. When\nshe was little she used once in a while to come shyly and sit on my lap,\nand look at me without saying anything. I hadn't the slightest notion\nwhat was in the child's mind, and her reserve increased as she grew\nolder. She seemed to have developed a sort of philosophy of her own even\nbefore she went away to school, and to have certain strongly defined\ntastes. She liked, for instance, to listen to music, and for that very\nreason would never learn to play. We couldn't make her, as a child.\n\n\"Bad music, she said, offended her. She painted, she was passionately\nfond of flowers, and her room was always filled with them. When she came\nback from school to live with me, she built a studio upstairs. After\nthe first winter, she didn't care to go out much. By so pronounced a\ncharacter, young men in general were not attracted, but there were a few\nwho fell under a sort of spell. I can think of no other words strong\nenough, and I used to watch them when they came here with a curious\ninterest. I didn't approve of all of them. Alison would dismiss them\nor ignore them or be kind to them as she happened to feel, yet it didn't\nseem to make any difference. One I suspect she was in love with\n--a fellow without a cent.\n\n\"Then there was Bedloe Hubbell. I have reason enough to be thankful\nnow that she didn't care for him. They've made him president, you know,\nof this idiotic Municipal League, as they call it. But in those days he\nhadn't developed any nonsense, he was making a good start at the bar,\nand was well off. His father was Elias Hubbell, who gave the Botanical\nGarden to the city. I wanted her to marry Gordon Atterbury. He hung on\nlonger than any of them--five or six years; but she wouldn't hear of it.\nThat was how the real difference developed between us, although the\ntrouble was deep rooted, for we never really understood each other. I\nhad set my heart on it, and perhaps I was too dictatorial and insistent.\nI don't know. I meant the best for her, God knows . . . . Gordon\nnever got over it. It dried him up.\" . . . . Irritation was creeping\nback into the banker's voice.\n\n\"Then it came into Alison's head that she wanted to 'make something of\nher life,'--as she expressed it. She said she was wasting herself, and\nbegan going to lectures with a lot of faddish women, became saturated\nwith these nonsensical ideas about her sex that are doing so much harm\nnowadays. I suppose I was wrong in my treatment from the first. I never\nknew how to handle her, but we grew like flint and steel. I'll say this\nfor her, she kept quiet enough, but she used to sit opposite me at the\ntable, and I knew all the time what she was thinking of, and then I'd\nbreak out. Of course she'd defend herself, but she had her temper under\nbetter control than I. She wanted to go away for a year or two and study\nlandscape gardening, and then come back and establish herself in an\noffice here. I wouldn't listen to it. And one morning, when she was\nlate to breakfast, I delivered an ultimatum. I gave her a lecture on a\nwoman's place and a woman's duty, and told her that if she didn't marry\nshe'd have to stay here and live quietly with me, or I'd disinherit her.\"\n\nHodder had become absorbed in this portrait of Alison Parr, drawn by her\nfather with such unconscious vividness.\n\n\"And then?\" he asked.\n\nIn spite of the tone of bitterness in which he had spoken, Eldon Parr\nsmiled. It was a reluctant tribute to his daughter.\n\n\"I got an ultimatum in return,\" he said. \"Alison should have been a\nman.\" His anger mounted quickly as he recalled the scene. \"She said she\nhad thought it all out: that our relationship had become impossible; that\nshe had no doubt it was largely her fault, but that was the way she was\nmade, and she couldn't change. She had, naturally, an affection for me\nas her father, but it was very plain we couldn't get along together: she\nwas convinced that she had a right to individual freedom,--as she spoke\nof it,--to develop herself. She knew, if she continued to live with me\non the terms I demanded, that her character would deteriorate. Certain\nkinds of sacrifice she was capable of, she thought, but what I asked\nwould be a useless one. Perhaps I didn't realize it, but it was slavery.\nSlavery!\" he repeated, \"the kind of slavery her mother had lived . . . .\"\n\nHe took a turn around the room.\n\n\"So far as money was concerned, she was indifferent to it. She had\nenough from her mother to last until she began to make more. She\nwouldn't take any from me in any case. I laughed, yet I have never been\nso angry in my life. Nor was it wholly anger, Hodder, but a queer tangle\nof feelings I can't describe. There was affection mixed up in it--I\nrealized afterward--but I longed to take her and shake her and lock her\nup until she should come to her senses: I couldn't. I didn't dare. I\nwas helpless. I told her to go. She didn't say anything more, but there\nwas a determined look in her eyes when she kissed me as I left for the\noffice. I spent a miserable day. More than once I made up my mind to go\nhome, but pride stopped me. I really didn't think she meant what she\nsaid. When I got back to the house in the afternoon she had left for New\nYork.\n\n\"Then I began to look forward to the time when her money would give out.\nShe went to Paris with another young woman, and studied there, and then\nto England. She came back to New York, hired an apartment and a studio,\nand has made a success.\"\n\nThe rector seemed to detect an unwilling note of pride at the magic word.\n\n\"It isn't the kind of success I think much of, but it's what she started\nout to do. She comes out to see me, once in a while, and she designed\nthat garden.\"\n\nHe halted in front of the clergyman.\n\n\"I suppose you think it's strange, my telling you this,\" he said. \"It\nhas come to the point,\" he declared vehemently, \"where it relieves me to\ntell somebody, and you seem to be a man of discretion and common-sense.\"\n\nHodder looked down into Mr. Parr's face, and was silent. Perhaps he\nrecognized, as never before, the futility of the traditional words of\ncomfort, of rebuke. He beheld a soul in torture, and realized with\nsudden sharpness how limited was his knowledge of the conditions of\nexistence of his own time. Everywhere individualism reared its ugly\nhead, everywhere it seemed plausible to plead justification; and once\nmore he encountered that incompatibility of which Mrs. Constable had\nspoken! He might blame the son, blame the daughter, yet he could not\ncondemn them utterly . . . . One thing he saw clearly, that Eldon\nParr had slipped into what was still, for him, a meaningless hell.\n\nThe banker's manner suddenly changed, reverted to what it had been. He\narose.\n\n\"I've tried to do my duty as I saw it, and it comes to this--that we\nwho have spent the best years of our lives in striving to develop this\ncountry have no thanks from our children or from any one else.\"\n\nWith his hand on the electric switch, he faced Hodder almost defiantly as\nhe spoke these words, and suddenly snapped off the light, as though the\nmatter admitted of no discussion. In semi-darkness they groped down the\nupper flight of stairs . . . .\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE KINGDOMS OF THE WORLD\n\n\nI\n\nWhen summer arrived, the birds of brilliant plumage of Mr. Hodder's\nflock arose and flew lightly away, thus reversing the seasons. Only the\nsoberer ones came fluttering into the cool church out of the blinding\nheat, and settled here and there throughout the nave. The ample Mr.\nBradley, perspiring in an alpaca coat, took up the meagre collection on\nthe right of the centre aisle; for Mr. Parr, properly heralded, had gone\nabroad on one of those periodical, though lonely tours that sent\nanticipatory shivers of delight down the spines of foreign\npicture-dealers. The faithful Gordon Atterbury was worshipping at the\nsea, and even Mr. Constable and Mr. Plimpton, when recalled to the city\nby financial cares, succumbed to the pagan influence of the sun, and were\nusually to be found on Sunday mornings on the wide veranda of the country\nclub, with glasses containing liquid and ice beside them, and surrounded\nby heaps of newspapers.\n\nTo judge by St. John's, the city was empty. But on occasions, before\nhe himself somewhat tardily departed,--drawn thither by a morbid though\nimpelling attraction, Hodder occasionally walked through Dalton Street\nof an evening. If not in St. John's, summer was the season in Dalton\nStreet. It flung open its doors and windows and moved out on the steps\nand the pavements, and even on the asphalt; and the music of its cafes\nand dance-halls throbbed feverishly through the hot nights. Dalton\nStreet resorted neither to country club nor church.\n\nMr. McCrae, Hodder's assistant, seemed to regard these annual phenomena\nwith a grim philosophy,--a relic, perhaps, of the Calvinistic determinism\nof his ancestors. He preached the same indefinite sermons, with the same\nimperturbability, to the dwindled congregations in summer and the\nenlarged ones in winter. But Hodder was capable of no such resignation\n--if resignation it were, for the self-contained assistant continued to be\nan enigma; and it was not without compunction that he left, about the\nmiddle of July, on his own vacation. He was tired, and yet he seemed to\nhave accomplished nothing in this first year of the city parish whereof\nhe had dreamed. And it was, no doubt, for that very reason that he was\nconscious of a depressing exhaustion as his train rolled eastward over\nthat same high bridge that spanned the hot and muddy waters of the river.\nHe felt a fugitive. In no months since he had left the theological\nseminary, had he seemingly accomplished so little; in no months had he\nhad so magnificent an opportunity.\n\nAfter he had reached the peaceful hills at Bremerton--where he had gone\non Mrs. Whitely's invitation--he began to look back upon the spring and\nwinter as a kind of mad nightmare, a period of ceaseless, distracted,\nand dissipated activity, of rushing hither and thither with no results.\nHe had been aware of invisible barriers, restricting, hemming him in on\nall sides. There had been no time for reflection; and now that he had a\nbreathing space, he was unable to see how he might reorganize his work in\norder to make it more efficient.\n\nThere were other perplexities, brought about by the glimpses he had had\ninto the lives and beliefs--or rather unbeliefs--of his new parishioners.\nAnd sometimes, in an unwonted moment of pessimism, he asked himself why\nthey thought it necessary to keep all that machinery going when it had so\nlittle apparent effect on their lives? He sat wistfully in the chancel\nof the little Bremerton church and looked into the familiar faces of\nthose he had found in it when he came to it, and of those he had brought\ninto it, wondering why he had been foolish enough to think himself\nendowed for the larger work. Here, he had been a factor, a force in the\ncommunity, had entered into its life and affections. What was he there?\n\nNor did it tend to ease his mind that he was treated as one who has\npassed on to higher things.\n\n\"I was afraid you'd work too hard,\" said Mrs. Whitely, in her motherly\nway. \"I warned you against it, Mr. Hodder. You never spared yourself,\nbut in a big city parish it's different. But you've made such a success,\nNelson tells me, and everybody likes you there. I knew they would, of\ncourse. That is our only comfort in losing you, that you have gone to\nthe greater work. But we do miss you.\"\n\n\n\nII\n\nThe air of Bremerton, and later the air of Bar Harbor had a certain\nreviving effect. And John Hodder, although he might be cast down, had\nnever once entertained the notion of surrender. He was inclined to\nattribute the depression through which he had passed, the disappointment\nhe had undergone as a just punishment for an overabundance of ego,--only\nHodder used the theological term for the same sin. Had he not, after\nall, laboured largely for his own glory, and not Gods? Had he ever\nforgotten himself? Had the idea ever been far from his thoughts that it\nwas he, John Hodder, who would build up the parish of St. John's into a\nliving organization of faith and works? The curious thing was that he\nhad the power, and save in moments of weariness he felt it in him. He\nmust try to remember always that this power was from God. But why had\nhe been unable to apply it?\n\nAnd there remained disturbingly in his memory certain phrases of Mrs.\nConstable's, such as \"elements of growth.\"\n\nHe would change, she had said; and he had appeared to her as one with\ndepths. Unsuspected depths--pockets that held the steam, which was\nincreasing in pressure. At Bremerton, it had not gathered in the\npockets, he had used it all--all had counted; but in the feverish,\nceaseless activity of the city parish he had never once felt that intense\nsatisfaction of emptying himself, nor, the sweet weariness that follows\nit. His seemed the weariness of futility. And introspection was\nrevealing a crack--after so many years--in that self that he had believed\nto be so strongly welded. Such was the strain of the pent-up force. He\nrecognized the danger-signal. The same phenomenon had driven him into\nthe Church, where the steam had found an outlet--until now. And yet,\nso far as his examination went, he had not lost his beliefs, but the\npower of communicating them to others.\n\nBremerton, and the sight of another carrying on the work in which he had\nbeen happy, weighed upon him, and Bar Harbor offered distraction. Mrs.\nLarrabbee had not hesitated to remind him of his promise to visit her.\nIf the gallery of portraits of the congregation of St. John's were to be\npainted, this lady's, at the age of thirty, would not be the least\ninteresting. It would have been out of place in no ancestral hall, and\nmany of her friends were surprised, after her husband's death, that she\ndid not choose one wherein to hang it. She might have. For she was the\nquintessence of that feminine product of our country at which Europe has\nnever ceased to wonder, and to give her history would no more account for\nher than the process of manufacture explains the most delicate of scents.\nHer poise, her quick detection of sham in others not so fortunate, her\nabsolute conviction that all things were as they ought to be; her\ncharity, her interest in its recipients; her smile, which was kindness\nitself; her delicate features, her white skin with its natural bloom;\nthe grace of her movements, and her hair, which had a different color in\nchanging lights--such an ensemble is not to be depicted save by a skilled\nhand.\n\nThe late Mr. Larrabbee's name was still printed on millions of bright\nlabels encircling cubes of tobacco, now manufactured by a Trust.\nHowever, since the kind that entered Mrs. Larrabbee's house, or houses,\nwas all imported from Egypt or Cuba, what might have been in the nature\nof an unpleasant reminder was remote from her sight, and she never drove\ninto the northern part of the city, where some hundreds of young women\nbent all day over the cutting-machines. To enter too definitely into\nMrs. Larrabbee's history, therefore, were merely to be crude, for she is\nnot a lady to caricature. Her father had been a steamboat captain--once\nan honoured calling in the city of her nativity--a devout Presbyterian\nwho believed in the most rigid simplicity. Few who remembered the\ngaucheries of Captain Corington's daughter on her first presentation\nto his family's friends could recognize her in the cosmopolitan Mrs.\nLarrabbee. Why, with New York and London at her disposal, she elected to\nremain in the Middle West, puzzled them, though they found her answer,\n\"that she belonged there,\" satisfying Grace Larrabbee's cosmopolitanism\nwas of that apperception that knows the value of roots, and during her\nwidowhood she had been thrusting them out. Mrs. Larrabbee followed by\n\"of\" was much more important than just Mrs. Larrabbee. And she was,\nmoreover, genuinely attached to her roots.\n\nHer girlhood shyness--rudeness, some called it, mistaking the effect for\nthe cause--had refined into a manner that might be characterized as\n'difficile', though Hodder had never found her so. She liked direct men;\nto discover no guile on first acquaintance went a long way with her, and\nnot the least of the new rector's social triumphs had been his simple\nconquest.\n\nEnveloped in white flannel, she met his early train at the Ferry; an\nunusual compliment to a guest, had he but known it, but he accepted it\nas a tribute to the Church.\n\n\"I was so afraid you wouldn't come,\" she said, in a voice that conveyed\nindeed more than a perfunctory expression. She glanced at him as he sat\nbeside her on the cushions of the flying motor boat, his strange eyes\nfixed upon the blue mountains of the island whither they were bound, his\nunruly hair fanned by the wind.\n\n\"Why?\" he asked, smiling at the face beneath the flying veil.\n\n\"You need the rest. I believe in men taking their work seriously, but\nnot so seriously as you do.\"\n\nShe was so undisguisedly glad to see him that he could scarcely have been\nhuman if he had not responded. And she gave him, in that fortnight, a\nglimpse of a life that was new and distracting: at times made him forget\n--and he was willing to forget--the lower forms of which it was the\nquintessence,--the factories that hummed, the forges that flung their\nfires into the night in order that it might exist; the Dalton Streets\nthat went without. The effluvia from hot asphalt bore no resemblance to\nthe salt-laden air that rattled the Venetian blinds of the big bedroom to\nwhich he was assigned. Her villa was set high above the curving shore,\nfacing a sheltered terrace-garden resplendent in its August glory; to\nseaward, islands danced in the haze; and behind the house, in the\nsunlight, were massed spruces of a brilliant arsenic green with purple\ncones. The fluttering awnings were striped cardinal and white.\n\nNature and man seemed to have conspired to make this place vividly\nunreal, as a toy village comes painted from the shop. There were no\nhalf-tones, no poverty--in sight, at least; no litter. On the streets\nand roads, at the casino attached to the swimming-pool and at the golf\nclub were to be seen bewildering arrays of well-dressed, well-fed women\nintent upon pleasure and exercise. Some of them gave him glances that\nseemed to say, \"You belong to us,\" and almost succeeded in establishing\nthe delusion. The whole effect upon Hodder, in the state of mind in\nwhich he found himself, was reacting, stimulating, disquieting. At\nluncheons and dinners, he was what is known as a \"success\"--always that\nmagic word.\n\nHe resisted, and none so quick as women to scent resistance. His very\nunbending attitude aroused their inherent craving for rigidity in his\nprofession; he was neither plastic, unctuous, nor subservient; his very\nhomeliness, redeemed by the eyes and mouth, compelled their attention.\nOne of them told Mrs. Larrabbee that that rector of hers would \"do\nsomething.\"\n\nBut what, he asked himself, was he resisting? He was by no means a\nPuritan; and while he looked upon a reasonable asceticism as having its\nplace in the faith that he professed, it was no asceticism that prevented\na more complete acquiescence on his part in the mad carnival that\nsurrounded him.\n\n\"I'm afraid you don't wholly approve of Bar Harbor,\" his hostess\nremarked; one morning.\n\n\"At first sight, it is somewhat staggering to the provincial mind,\" he\nreplied.\n\nShe smiled at him, yet with knitted brows.\n\n\"You are always putting me off--I never can tell what you think.\nAnd yet I'm sure you have opinions. You think these people frivolous,\nof course.\"\n\n\"Most of them are so,\" he answered, \"but that is a very superficial\ncriticism. The question is, why are they so? The sight of Bar Harbor\nleads a stranger to the reflection that the carnival mood has become\npermanent with our countrymen, and especially our countrywomen.\"\n\n\"The carnival mood,\" she repeated thoughtfully, \"yes, that expresses it.\nWe are light, we are always trying to get away from ourselves, and\nsometimes I wonder whether there are any selves to get away from. You\nought to atop us,\" she added, almost accusingly, \"to bring us to our\nsenses.\"\n\n\"That's just it,\" he agreed, \"why don't we? Why can't we?\"\n\n\"If more clergymen were like you, I think perhaps you might.\"\n\nHis tone, his expression, were revelations.\n\n\"I--!\" he exclaimed sharply, and controlled himself. But in that moment\nGrace Larrabbee had a glimpse of the man who had come to arouse in her an\nintense curiosity. For an instant a tongue of the fires of Vulcan had\nshot forth, fires that she had suspected.\n\n\"Aren't you too ambitious?\" she asked gently. And again, although she\ndid not often blunder, she saw him wince. \"I don't mean ambitious for\nyourself. But surely you have made a remarkable beginning at St. John's.\nEverybody admires and respects you, has confidence in you. You are so\nsure of yourself,\" she hesitated a moment, for she had never ventured to\ndiscuss religion with him, \"of your faith. Clergymen ought not to be\napologetic, and your conviction cannot fail, in the long run, to have its\neffect.\"\n\n\"Its effect,--on what?\" he asked.\n\nMrs. Larrabbee was suddenly, at sea. And she prided herself on a lack of\nthat vagueness generally attributed to her sex.\n\n\"On--on everything. On what we were talking about,--the carnival feeling,\nthe levity, on the unbelief of the age. Isn't it because the control has\nbeen taken off?\"\n\nHe saw an opportunity to slip into smoother waters.\n\n\"The engine has lost its governor?\"\n\n\"Exactly!\" cried Mrs. Larrabbee. \"What a clever simile!\"\n\n\"It is Mr. Pares,\" said Hodder. \"Only he was speaking of other symptoms,\nSocialism, and its opposite, individualism,--not carnivalism.\"\n\n\"Poor man,\" said Mrs. Larrabbee, accepting the new ground as safer, yet\nwith a baffled feeling that Hodder had evaded her once more, \"he has had\nhis share of individualism and carnivalism. His son Preston was here\nlast month, and was taken out to the yacht every night in an unspeakable\nstate. And Alison hasn't been what might be called a blessing.\"\n\n\"She must be unusual,\" said the rector, musingly.\n\n\"Oh, Alison is a Person. She has become quite the fashion, and has more\nwork than she can possibly attend to. Very few women with her good looks\ncould have done what she has without severe criticism, and something\nworse, perhaps. The most extraordinary thing about her is her contempt\nfor what her father has gained, and for conventionalities. It always\namuses me when I think that she might have been the wife of Gordon\nAtterbury. The Goddess of Liberty linked to--what?\"\n\nHodder thought instinctively of the Church. But he remained silent.\n\n\"As a rule, men are such fools about the women they wish to marry,\" she\ncontinued. \"She would have led him a dance for a year or two, and then\ncalmly and inexorably left him. And there was her father, with all his\nability and genius, couldn't see it either, but fondly imagined that\nAlison as Gordon Atterbury's wife, would magically become an Atterbury\nand a bourgeoise, see that the corners were dusted in the big house, sew\nunderwear for the poor, and fast in Lent.\"\n\n\"And she is happy--where she is?\" he inquired somewhat naively.\n\n\"She is self-sufficient,\" said Mrs. Larrabbee, with unusual feeling,\n\"and that is just what most women are not, in these days. Oh, why has\nlife become such a problem? Sometimes I think, with all that I have,\nI'm not, so well off as one of those salesgirls in Ferguson's, at home.\nI'm always searching for things to do--nothing is thrust on me. There\nare the charities--Galt House, and all that, but I never seem to get at\nanything, at the people I'd like to help. It's like sending money to\nChina. There is no direct touch any more. It's like seeing one's\nopportunities through an iron grating.\"\n\nHodder started at the phrase, so exactly had she expressed his own case.\n\n\"Ah,\" he said, \"the iron grating bars the path of the Church, too.\"\n\nAnd just what was the iron grating?\n\nThey had many moments of intimacy during that fort night, though none in\nwhich the plumb of their conversation descended to such a depth. For he\nwas, as she had said, always \"putting her off.\" Was it because he\ncouldn't satisfy her craving? give her the solution for which--he began\nto see--she thirsted? Why didn't that religion that she seemed outwardly\nto profess and accept without qualification--the religion he taught set\nher at rest? show her the path?\n\nDown in his heart he knew that he feared to ask.\n\n\n\nThat Mrs. Larrabbee was still another revelation, that she was not at\nrest, was gradually revealed to him as the days passed. Her spirit, too,\nlike his own, like 'Mrs Constable's, like Eldon Parr's, like Eleanor\nGoodrich's, was divided against itself; and this phenomenon in Mrs.\nLarrabbee was perhaps a greater shock to him, since he had always\nregarded her as essentially in equilibrium. One of his reasons, indeed,\n--in addition to the friendship that had grown up between them,--for\ncoming to visit her had been to gain the effect of her poise on his own.\nPoise in a modern woman, leading a modern life. It was thus she\nattracted him. It was not that he ignored her frivolous side; it was\nnicely balanced by the other, and that other seemed growing. The social,\nshe accepted at what appeared to be its own worth. Unlike Mrs. Plimpton,\nfor instance, she was so innately a lady that she had met with no\nresistance in the Eastern watering places, and her sense of values had\nremained the truer for it.\n\nHe did not admire her the less now he had discovered that the poise was\nnot so adjusted as he had thought it, but his feeling about her changed,\ngrew more personal, more complicated. She was showing an alarming\ntendency to lean on him at a time when he was examining with some concern\nhis own supports. She possessed intelligence and fascination, she was a\nwoman whose attentions would have flattered and disturbed any man with a\nspark of virility, and Hodder had constantly before his eyes the\nspectacle of others paying her court. Here were danger-signals again!\n\nMrs. Plaice, a middle-aged English lady staying in the house, never\nappeared until noon. Breakfast was set out in the tiled and sheltered\nloggia, where they were fanned by the cool airs of a softly breathing\nocean. The world, on these mornings, had a sparkling unreality, the\ncold, cobalt sea stretching to sun-lit isles, and beyond, the vividly\npainted shore,--the setting of luxury had never been so complete. And\nthe woman who sat opposite him seemed, like one of her own nectarines,\nto be the fruit that crowned it all.\n\nWhy not yield to the enchantment? Why rebel, when nobody else\ncomplained? Were it not more simple to accept what life sent in its\norderly course instead of striving for an impossible and shadowy ideal?\nVery shadowy indeed! And to what end were his labours in that smoky,\nwestern city, with its heedless Dalton Streets, which went their\ninevitable ways? For he had the choice.\n\nTo do him justice, he was slow in arriving at a realization that seemed\nto him so incredible, so preposterous. He was her rector! And he had\naccepted, all unconsciously, the worldly point of view as to Mrs.\nLarrabbee,--that she was reserved for a worldly match. A clergyman's\nwife! What would become of the clergyman? And yet other clergymen had\nmarried rich women, despite the warning of the needle's eye.\n\nShe drove him in her buckboard to Jordan's Pond, set, like a jewel in the\nhills, and even to the deep, cliff bordered inlet beyond North East,\nwhich reminded her, she said, of a Norway fiord. And sometimes they\nwalked together through wooded paths that led them to beetling shores,\nand sat listening to the waves crashing far below. Silences and\ncommonplaces became the rule instead of the eager discussions with which\nthey had begun,--on such safer topics as the problem of the social work\nof modern churches. Her aromatic presence, and in this setting,\ncontinually disturbed him: nature's perfumes, more definable,\n--exhalations of the sea and spruce,--mingled with hers, anaesthetics\ncompelling lethargy. He felt himself drowning, even wished to drown,\n--and yet strangely resisted.\n\n\"I must go to-morrow,\" he said.\n\n\"To-morrow--why? There is a dinner, you know, and Mrs. Waterman wished\nso particularly to meet you.\"\n\nHe did not look at her. The undisguised note of pain found an echo\nwithin him. And this was Mrs. Larrabbee!\n\n\"I am sorry, but I must,\" he told her, and she may not have suspected the\nextent to which the firmness was feigned.\n\n\"You have promised to make other visits? The Fergusons,--they said they\nexpected you.\"\n\n\"I'm going west--home,\" he said, and the word sounded odd.\n\n\"At this season! But there is nobody in church, at least only a few,\nand Mr. McCrae can take care of those--he always does. He likes it.\"\n\nHodder smiled in spite of himself. He might have told her that those\noutside the church were troubling him. But he did not, since he had\nsmall confidence in being able to bring them in.\n\n\"I have been away too long, I am getting spoiled,\" he replied, with an\nattempt at lightness. He forced his eyes to meet hers, and she read in\nthem an unalterable resolution.\n\n\"It is my opinion you are too conscientious, even for a clergyman,\" she\nsaid, and now it was her lightness that hurt. She protested no more.\nAnd as she led the way homeward through the narrow forest path, her head\nerect, still maintaining this lighter tone, he wondered how deeply she\nhad read him; how far her intuition had carried her below the surface;\nwhether she guessed the presence of that stifled thing in him which\nwas crying feebly for life; whether it was that she had discovered,\nor something else? He must give it the chance it craved. He must get\naway--he must think. To surrender now would mean destruction. . .\n\nEarly the next morning, as he left the pier in the motor boat, he saw a\npink scarf waving high above him from the loggia. And he flung up his\nhand in return. Mingled with a faint sense of freedom was intense\nsadness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE LINE OF LEAST RESISTANCE\n\nFrom the vantage point of his rooms in the parish house, Hodder reviewed\nthe situation. And despite the desires thronging after him in his flight\nhe had the feeling of once who, in the dark, has been very near to\nannihilation. What had shaken him most was the revelation of an old\nenemy which, watching its chance, had beset him at the first opportunity;\nand at a time when the scheme of life, which he flattered himself to have\nsolved forever, was threatening once more to resolve itself into\nfragments. He had, as if by a miracle, escaped destruction in some\ninsidious form.\n\nHe shrank instinctively from an analysis of the woman in regard to\nwhom his feelings were, so complicated, and yet by no means lacking in\ntenderness. But as time went on, he recognized more and more that she\nhad come into his life at a moment when he was peculiarly vulnerable.\nShe had taken him off his guard. That the brilliant Mrs. Larrabbee\nshould have desired him--or what she believed was him--was food enough\nfor thought, was an indication of an idealism in her nature that he would\nnot have suspected. From a worldly point of view, the marriage would\nhave commended itself to none of her friends. Yet Hodder perceived\nclearly that he could not have given her what she desired, since the\nmarriage would have killed it in him. She offered him the other thing.\nOnce again he had managed somehow to cling to his dream of what the\nrelationship between man and woman should be, and he saw more and more\ndistinctly that he had coveted not only the jewel, but its setting. He\ncould not see her out of it--she faded. Nor could he see himself in it.\n\nLuxury,--of course,--that was what he had spurned. Luxury in contrast\nto Dalton Street, to the whirring factories near the church which\ndischarged, at nightfall, their quotas of wan women and stunted children.\nAnd yet here he was catering to luxury, providing religion for it!\nReligion!\n\nEarly in November he heard that Mrs. Larrabbee had suddenly decided to go\nabroad without returning home. . . .\n\nThat winter Hodder might have been likened to a Niagara for energy; an\nunharnessed Niagara--such would have been his own comment. He seemed to\nturn no wheels, or only a few at least, and feebly. And while the\nspectacle of their rector's zeal was no doubt an edifying one to his\nparishioners, they gave him to understand that they would have been\nsatisfied with less. They admired, but chided him gently; and in\nFebruary Mr. Parr offered to take him to Florida. He was tired, and it\nwas largely because he dreaded the reflection inevitable in a period of\nrest, that he refused. . . . And throughout these months, the feeling\nrecurred, with increased strength, that McCrae was still watching him,\n--the notion persisted that his assistant held to a theory of his own,\nif he could but be induced to reveal it. Hodder refrained from making\nthe appeal. Sometimes he was on the point of losing patience with this\nenigmatic person.\n\nCongratulations on the fact that his congregation was increasing brought\nhim little comfort, since a cold analysis of the newcomers who were\nrenting pews was in itself an indication of the lack of that thing he\nso vainly sought. The decorous families who were now allying themselves\nwith St. John's did so at the expense of other churches either more\nradical or less fashionable. What was it he sought? What did he wish?\nTo fill the church to overflowing with the poor and needy as well as the\nrich, and to enter into the lives of all. Yet at a certain point he met\na resistance that was no less firm because it was baffling. The Word, on\nhis lips at least, seemed to have lost it efficacy. The poor heeded it\nnot, and he preached to the rich as from behind a glass. They went on\nwith their carnival. Why this insatiate ambition on his part in an age\nof unbelief? Other clergymen, not half so fortunate, were apparently\nsatisfied; or else--from his conversation with them--either oddly\noptimistic or resigned. Why not he?\n\nIt was strange, in spite of everything, that hope sprang up within him,\na recurrent geyser.\n\nGradually, almost imperceptibly, he found himself turning more and\nmore towards that line of least resistance which other churches were\nfollowing, as the one Modern Solution,--institutional work. After all,\nin the rescuing of bodies some method might yet be discovered to revive\nthe souls. And there were the children! Hodder might have been likened\nto an explorer, seeking a direct path when there was none--a royal road.\nAnd if this were oblique it offered, at least, a definite outlet for his\nenergy.\n\nSuch was, approximately, the state of his mind early in March when Gordon\nAtterbury came back from a conference in New York on institutional work,\nand filled with enthusiasm. St. John's was incredibly behind the times,\nso he told Hodder, and later the vestry. Now that they had, in Mr.\nHodder, a man of action and ability--ahem! there was no excuse for a\nparish as wealthy as St. John's, a parish with their opportunities,\nconsidering the proximity of Dalton Street neighbourhood, not enlarging\nand modernizing the parish house, not building a settlement house with\nkindergartens, schools, workshops, libraries, a dispensary and day\nnurseries. It would undoubtedly be an expense--and Mr. Atterbury looked\nat Mr. Parr, who drummed on the vestry table. They would need extra\nassistants, deaconesses, trained nurses, and all that. But there were\nother churches in the city that were ahead of St. John's--a reproach\n--ahem!\n\nMr. Parr replied that he had told the rector that he stood ready to\ncontribute to such a scheme when he, the rector; should be ready to\napprove it. And he looked at Mr. Hodder.\n\nMr. Hodder said he had been considering the matter ever since his\narrival. He had only one criticism of institutional work, that in his\nobservation it did not bring the people whom it reached into the Church\nin any great numbers. Perhaps that were too much to ask, in these days.\nFor his part he would willingly assume the extra burden, and he was far\nfrom denying the positive good such work accomplished through association\nand by the raising of standards.\n\nMr. Ferguson declared his readiness to help. Many of his salesgirls, he\nsaid, lived in this part of the city, and he would be glad to do anything\nin his power towards keeping them out of the dance-halls and such places.\n\nA committee was finally appointed consisting of Mr. Parr, Mr. Atterbury,\nand the rector, to consult architects and to decide upon a site.\n\nHodder began a correspondence with experts in other cities,\ncollected plans, pamphlets, statistics; spent hours with the great\nchild-specialist, Dr. Jarvis, and with certain clergymen who believed\nin institutionalism as the hope of the future.\n\nBut McCrae was provokingly non-committal.\n\n\"Oh, they may try it,\" he assented somewhat grudgingly, one day when the\nrector had laid out for his inspection the architects' sketch for the\nsettlement house. \"No doubt it will help many poor bodies along.\"\n\n\"Is there anything else?\" the rector asked, looking searchingly at his\nassistant.\n\n\"It may as well be that,\" replied McCrae.\n\nThe suspicion began to dawn on Hodder that the Scotch man's ideals were\nas high as his own. Both of them, secretly, regarded the new scheme as a\ncompromise, a yielding to the inevitable . . . .\n\nMr. Ferguson's remark that an enlarged parish house and a new settlement\nhouse might help to keep some of the young women employed in his\ndepartment store out of the dance-halls interested Hodder, who conceived\nthe idea of a dance-hall of their own. For the rector, in the course of\nhis bachelor shopping, often resorted to the emporium of his vestryman,\nto stand on the stairway which carried him upward without lifting his\nfeet, to roam, fascinated, through the mazes of its aisles, where he\ninvariably got lost, and was rescued by suave floor-walkers or pert young\nwomen in black gowns and white collars and cuffs. But they were not all\npert--there were many characters, many types. And he often wondered\nwhether they did not get tired standing on their feet all day long,\nhesitating to ask them; speculated on their lives--flung as most of them\nwere on a heedless city, and left to shift for themselves. Why was it\nthat the Church which cared for Mr. Ferguson's soul was unable to get\nin touch with, or make an appeal to, those of his thousand employees?\n\nIt might indeed have been said that Francis Ferguson cared for his own\nsoul, as he cared for the rest of his property, and kept it carefully\ninsured,--somewhat, perhaps, on the principle of Pascal's wager. That\nhe had been a benefactor to his city no one would deny who had seen the\nfacade that covered a whole block in the business district from Tower to\nVine, surmounted by a red standard with the familiar motto, \"When in\ndoubt, go to Ferguson's.\" At Ferguson's you could buy anything from a\npen-wiper to a piano or a Paris gown; sit in a cool restaurant in summer\nor in a palm garden in winter; leave your baby--if you had one--in charge\nof the most capable trained nurses; if your taste were literary, mull\nover the novels in the Book Department; if you were stout, you might be\nreduced in the Hygiene Department, unknown to your husband and intimate\nfriends. In short, if there were any virtuous human wish in the power of\ngenius to gratify, Ferguson's was the place. They, even taught you how\nto cook. It was a modern Aladdin's palace: and, like everything else\nmodern, much more wonderful than the original. And the soda might be\nlikened to the waters of Trevi,--to partake of which is to return.\n\n\"When in doubt, go to Ferguson!\" Thus Mrs. Larrabbee and other ladies\ninterested in good works had altered his motto. He was one of the\nsupporters of Galt House, into which some of his own young saleswomen had\noccasionally strayed; and none, save Mr. Parr alone, had been so liberal\nin his gifts. Holder invariably found it difficult to reconcile the\nunassuming man, whose conversation was so commonplace, with the titanic\ngenius who had created Ferguson's; nor indeed with the owner of the\nimposing marble mansion at Number 5, Park Street.\n\nThe rector occasionally dined there. He had acquired a real affection\nfor Mrs. Ferguson, who resembled a burgomaster's wife in her evening\ngowns and jewels, and whose simple social ambitions had been gratified\nbeyond her dreams. Her heart had not shrunken in the process, nor had\nshe forgotten her somewhat heterogeneous acquaintances in the southern\npart of the city. And it was true that when Gertrude Constable had\nnearly died of appendicitis, it was on this lady's broad bosom that Mrs.\nConstable had wept. Mrs. Ferguson had haunted the house, regardless of\ncriticism, and actually quivering with sympathy. Her more important\ndinner parties might have been likened to ill-matched fours-in-hand, and\nHolder had sometimes felt more of pity than of amusement as she sat with\nan expression of terror on her face, helplessly watching certain unruly\nindividuals taking their bits in their teeth and galloping madly\ndownhill. On one occasion, when he sat beside her, a young man, who\nshall be nameless, was suddenly heard to remark in the midst of an\naccidental lull:\n\n\"I never go to church. What's the use? I'm afraid most of us don't\nbelieve in hell any more.\"\n\nA silence followed: of the sort that chills. And the young man, glancing\ndown the long board at the clergyman, became as red as the carnation in\nhis buttonhole, and in his extremity gulped down more champagne.\n\n\"Things are in a dreadful state nowadays!\" Mrs. Ferguson gasped to\na paralyzed company, and turned an agonized face to Holder. \"I'm so\nsorry,\" she said, \"I don't know why I asked him to-night, except that\nI have to have a young man for Nan, and he's just come to the city,\nand I was sorry for him. He's very promising in a business way;\nhe's in Mr. Plimpton's trust company.\"\n\n\"Please don't let it trouble you.\" Holder turned and smiled a little,\nand added whimsically: \"We may as well face the truth.\"\n\n\"Oh, I should expect you to be good about it, but it was unpardonable,\"\nshe cried . . . .\n\nIn the intervals when he gained her attention he strove, by talking\nlightly of other things, to take her mind off the incident, but somehow\nit had left him strangely and--he felt--disproportionately depressed,\n--although he had believed himself capable of facing more or less\nphilosophically that condition which the speaker had so frankly\nexpressed. Yet the remark, somehow, had had an illuminating effect\nlike a flashlight, revealing to him the isolation of the Church as never\nbefore. And after dinner, as they were going to the smoking-room, the\noffender accosted him shamefacedly.\n\n\"I'm awfully sorry, Mr. Holder,\" he stammered.\n\nThat the tall rector's regard was kindly did not relieve his discomfort.\nHodder laid a hand on his shoulder.\n\n\"Don't worry about it,\" he answered, \"I have only one regret as to what\nyou said--that it is true.\"\n\nThe other looked at him curiously.\n\n\"It's mighty decent of you to take it this way,\" he laid. Further speech\nfailed him.\n\nHe was a nice-looking young man, with firm white teeth, and honesty was\nwritten all over his boyish face. And the palpable fact that his regret\nwas more on the clergyman's account than for the social faux pas drew\nHolder the more, since it bespoke a genuineness of character.\n\nHe did not see the yearning in the rector's eyes as he turned away. . .\nWhy was it they could not be standing side by side, fighting the same\nfight? The Church had lost him, and thousands like him, and she needed\nthem; could not, indeed, do without them.\n\nWhere, indeed, were the young men? They did not bother their heads about\nspiritual matters any more. But were they not, he asked himself, franker\nthan many of these others, the so-called pillars of the spiritual\nstructure?\n\nMr. Plimpton accosted him. \"I congratulate you upon the new plans, Mr.\nHodder,--they're great,\" he said. \"Mr. Parr and our host are coming down\nhandsomely, eh? When we get the new settlement house we'll have a plant\nas up-to-date as any church in the country. When do you break ground?\"\n\n\"Not until autumn, I believe,\" Hodder replied. \"There are a good many\ndetails to decide upon yet.\"\n\n\"Well, I congratulate you.\"\n\nMr. Plimpton was forever congratulating.\n\n\"Up-to-date\"--\"plant\"! More illuminating words, eloquent of Mr.\nPlimpton's ideals. St. John's down at the heels, to be brought up to the\nstate of efficiency of Mr. Plimpton's trust company! It was by no means\nthe first time he had heard modern attributes on Mr. Plimpton's lips\napplied to a sacred institution, but to-night they had a profoundly\ndisquieting effect. To-night, a certain clairvoyance had been vouchsafed\nhim, and he beheld these men, his associates and supporters, with a\ndetachment never before achieved.\n\nThey settled in groups about the room, which was square and high, and\npanelled in Italian walnut, with fluted pilasters,--the capitals of which\nwere elaborately carved. And Hodder found himself on a deep leather sofa\nin a corner engaged in a desultory and automatic conversation with\nEverett Constable. Mr. Plimpton, with a large cigar between his lips,\nwas the radiating centre of one of the liveliest groups, and of him\nthe rector had fallen into a consideration, piecing together bits of\ninformation that hitherto had floated meaninglessly in his mind.\nIt was Mrs. Larrabbee who had given character to the career of the still\ncomparatively youthful and unquestionably energetic president of the\nChamber of Commerce by likening it to a great spiral, starting somewhere\nin outer regions of twilight, and gradually drawing nearer to the centre,\nfrom which he had never taken his eyes. At the centre were Eldon Parr\nand Charlotte Gore. Wallis Plimpton had made himself indispensable to\nboth.\n\nHis campaign for the daughter of Thurston Gore had been comparable to one\nof the great sieges of history, for Mr. Plimpton was a laughing-stock\nwhen he sat down before that fortress. At the end of ten years,\nCharlotte had capitulated, with a sigh of relief, realizing at last her\ndestiny. She had become slightly stout, revealing, as time went on, no\nwrinkles--a proof that the union was founded on something more enduring\nthan poetry: Statesmanship--that was the secret! Step by step, slowly\nbut surely, the memoranda in that matrimonial portfolio were growing\ninto accomplished facts; all events, such as displacements of power, were\nforeseen; and the Plimptons, like Bismarck, had only to indicate, in case\nof sudden news, the pigeonhole where the plan of any particular campaign\nwas filed.\n\nMrs. Larrabbee's temptation to be witty at the expense of those for whom\nshe had no liking had led Hodder to discount the sketch. He had not\ndisliked Mr. Plimpton, who had done him many little kindnesses. He was\ngood-natured, never ruffled, widely tolerant, hail-fellow-well-met with\neverybody, and he had enlivened many a vestry meeting with his stories.\nIt were hypercritical to accuse him of a lack of originality. And if by\ntaking thought, he had arrived, from nowhere, at his present position of\nease and eminence, success had not turned to ashes in his mouth. He\nfairly exhaled well-being, happiness, and good cheer. Life had gone well\nwith him, he wished the same to others.\n\nBut to-night, from his corner, Hodder seemed to see Mr. Plimpton with new\neyes. Not that he stood revealed a villain, which he was far from being;\nit was the air of sophistication, of good-natured if cynical acceptance\nof things as they were--and plenty good enough, too!--that jarred upon\nthe rector in his new mood, and it was made manifest to him as never\nbefore why his appeals from the pulpit had lacked efficacy. Mr. Plimpton\ndidn't want the world changed! And in this desire he represented the\nmen in that room, and the majority of the congregation of St. John's.\nThe rector had felt something of this before, and it seemed to him\nastonishing that the revelation had not come to him sooner. Did any one\nof them, in his heart, care anything for the ideals and aspirations of\nthe Church?\n\nAs he gazed at them through the gathering smoke they had become\nstrangers, receded all at once to a great distance. . . . Across\nthe room he caught the name, Bedloe Hubbell, pronounced with peculiar\nbitterness by Mr. Ferguson. At his side Everett Constable was alert,\nlistening.\n\n\"Ten years ago,\" said a stout Mr. Varnum, the President of the Third\nNational Bank, \"if you'd told me that that man was to become a demagogue\nand a reformer, I wouldn't have believed you. Why, his company used to\ntake rebates from the L. & G., and the Southern--I know it.\" He\nemphasized the statement with a blow on the table that made the liqueur\nglasses dance. \"And now, with his Municipal League, he's going to clean\nup the city, is he? Put in a reform mayor. Show up what he calls the\nConsolidated Tractions Company scandal. Pooh!\"\n\n\"You got out all right, Varnum. You won't be locked up,\" said Mr.\nPlimpton, banteringly.\n\n\"So did you,\" retorted Varnum.\n\n\"So did Ferguson, so did Constable.\"\n\n\"So did Eldon Parr,\" remarked another man, amidst a climax of laughter.\n\n\"Langmaid handled that pretty well.\"\n\nHodder felt Everett Constable fidget.\n\n\"Bedloe's all right, but he's a dreamer,\" Mr. Plimpton volunteered.\n\n\"Then I wish he'd stop dreaming,\" said Mr. Ferguson, and there was more\nlaughter, although he had spoken savagely.\n\n\"That's what he is, a dreamer,\" Varnum ejaculated. \"Say, he told George\nCarter the other day that prostitution wasn't necessary, that in fifty\nyears we'd have largely done away with it. Think of that, and it's as\nold as Sodom and Gomorrah!\"\n\n\"If Hubbell had his way, he'd make this town look like a Connecticut\nhill village--he'd drive all the prosperity out of it. All the railroads\nwould have to abandon their terminals--there'd be no more traffic, and\nyou'd have to walk across the bridge to get a drink.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Plimpton, \"Tom Beatty's good enough for me, for a\nwhile.\"\n\nBeatty, Hodder knew, was the \"boss,\" of the city, with headquarters in a\ndowntown saloon.\n\n\"Beatty's been maligned,\" Mr. Varnum declared. \"I don't say he's a\nsaint, but he's run the town pretty well, on the whole, and kept the vice\nwhere it belongs, out of sight. He's made his pile, but he's entitled to\nsomething we all are. You always know where you stand with Beatty. But\nsay, if Hubbell and his crowd--\"\n\n\"Don't worry about Bedloe,--he'll get called in, he'll come home to roost\nlike the rest of them,\" said Mr. Plimpton, cheerfully. \"The people can't\ngovern themselves,--only Bedloe doesn't know it. Some day he'll find it\nout.\" . . .\n\nThe French window beside him was open, and Hodder slipped out, unnoticed,\ninto the warm night and stood staring at the darkness. His one desire\nhad been to get away, out of hearing, and he pressed forward over the\ntiled pavement until he stumbled against a stone balustrade that guarded\na drop of five feet or so to the lawn below. At the same time he heard\nhis name called.\n\n\"Is that you, Mr. Hodder?\"\n\nHe started. The voice had a wistful tremulousness, and might almost\nhave been the echo of the leaves stirring in the night air. Then he\nperceived, in a shaft of light from one of the drawing-room windows near\nby, a girl standing beside the balustrade; and as she came towards him,\nwith tentative steps, the light played conjurer, catching the silvery\ngauze of her dress and striking an aura through the film of her hair.\n\n\"It's Nan Ferguson,\" she said.\n\n\"Of course,\" he exclaimed, collecting himself. \"How stupid of me not to\nhave recognized you!\"\n\n\"I'm so glad you came out,\" she went on impulsively, yet shyly, \"I wanted\nto tell you how sorry I was that that thing happened at the table.\"\n\n\"I like that young man,\" he said.\n\n\"Do you?\" she exclaimed, with unexpected gratitude. So do I. He really\nisn't--so bad as he must seem.\"\n\n\"I'm sure of it,\" said the rector, laughing.\n\n\"I was afraid you'd think him wicked,\" said Nan. \"He works awfully hard,\nand he's sending a brother through college. He isn't a bit like--some\nothers I know. He wants to make something of himself. And I feel\nresponsible, because I had mother ask him to-night.\"\n\nHe read her secret. No doubt she meant him to do so.\n\n\"You know we're going away next week, for the summer--that is, mother and\nI,\" she continued. \"Father comes later. And I do hope you'll make us\na visit, Mr. Hodder--we were disappointed you couldn't come last year.\"\nNan hesitated, and thrusting her hand into her gown drew forth an\nenvelope and held it out to him. \"I intended to give you this to-night,\nto use--for anything you thought best.\"\n\nHe took it gravely. She looked up at him.\n\n\"It seems so little--such a selfish way of discharging one's obligations,\njust to write out a cheque, when there is so much trouble in the world\nthat demands human kindness as well as material help. I drove up Dalton\nStreet yesterday, from downtown. You know how hot it was! And I\ncouldn't help thinking how terrible it is that we who have everything\nare so heedless of all that misery. The thought of it took away all\nmy pleasure.\n\n\"I'd do something more, something personal, if I could. Perhaps I shall\nbe able to, next winter. Why is it so difficult for all of us to know\nwhat to do?\"\n\n\"We have taken a step forward, at any rate, when we know that it is\ndifficult,\" he said.\n\nShe gazed up at him fixedly, her attention caught by an indefinable\nsomething in his voice, in his smile, that thrilled and vaguely disturbed\nher. She remembered it long afterwards. It suddenly made her shy again;\nas if, in faring forth into the darkness, she had come to the threshold\nof a mystery, of a revelation withheld; and it brought back the sense of\nadventure, of the palpitating fear and daring with which she had come to\nmeet him.\n\n\"It is something to know,\" she repeated, half comprehending. The\nscraping of chairs within alarmed her, and she stood ready to fly.\n\n\"But I haven't thanked you for this,\" he said, holding up the envelope.\n\"It may be that I shall find some one in Dalton Street--\"\n\n\"Oh, I hope so,\" she faltered, breathlessly, hesitating a moment. And\nthen she was gone, into the house.","title":"The Inside of the Cup \u2014 Volume 02","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":19933}