Flint Part 32

The relief of rapid motion told upon his overstrained condition. By the time he had rounded the lakes he was calmer. The ascent of the steep, rock-hewn steps of the ramble rested his nerves as much as it taxed his wind, and as he came stramming down the mall, his mind was sufficiently detached from its own hopes and fears to be able to realize that the overhanging elms recalled agreeably the long walk at Oxford, and that the Cathedral spires were fine in the gathering dusk, as one emerged from the Fifth Avenue entrance. The return to the world of men stimulated him, and the long undulating waves of electric lights seemed to beckon to him hopefully as he went on.

The afternoon was gone. That was one comfort, he said, as he reached his own room. It would take half-an-hour to dress for dinner, and that meal might be prolonged to cover another hour; but the evening still stretched onward, seeming interminable to his restless fancy. It was a relief when Brady came in and suggested that they drop in at a meeting of the Salvation Army to be held at a slum post in a region of the city known as Berry Hill.

"Will I go?" he said, echoing the question of his friend, who stood looking out of the window with an appearance of indifference, which deceived no one. "Yes, I will; but I want you to understand that I don't go as you do, out of pure emotional piety, but only to see and hear Nora Costello."

"Well, she is worth it, isn't she?" Brady responded.

"Worth a trip down-town? Without doubt; but that is not the question that is lying down in the depths of the locality you are pleased to call your heart. Come, now," he added, walking across to the window and throwing his arm over Brady's shoulder with one of his rare exhibitions of affection,--"come; make a clean breast of it, and let us talk the thing out from A to Z. _Imprimis_, you are in love with Nora Costello."

Brady started and moved away a trifle, but made no effort at denial till after a minute, when he said rather weakly, "What makes you think so?"

"_Think_ so! Why, man, I must be deaf, dumb, and blind not to _know_ it. Do you suppose I believed that a man at your time of life, brought up as you have been, had suddenly gone daft on this Salvation Army business?"

"It's a 'business', as you call it, that does more good than all the churches put together," answered Brady, hotly.

"Hear him!" echoed Flint, mockingly.

"Hear this son of New England actually declaring that there may be a way to heaven which does not lie between church-pews or start from a pulpit!"

"Flint, you are a scoffer."

"What do I scoff at?"

"Religion."

"Pardon me, but I do not."

"Well, theology, anyway."

"Ah, that is a different matter."

"You call yourself an agnostic."

"No, I don't. 'Agnostic' is too long and too pretentious a word. I prefer to translate it and call myself a know-nothing."

"Don't you believe in G.o.d and a future life--and--and all that sort of thing?" Brady ended rather disjointedly.

"Don't you believe Mars is inhabited? and that the lines on its surface are ca.n.a.ls for irrigation?"

"I don't know," answered Brady, whose mental processes were simple.

"Neither do I," said Flint; "and what is more, neither does any man, any more than he knows about G.o.d and a future life; and so why should we go to making up creeds and breaking the heads of people who don't agree with us when we are all just guessers, and probably all of us wrong?"

"Then you would take away faith out of the world?"

"Not I,--at least not unless I could see something to take its place, which at present I don't; and as for these poor devils who are consoling themselves for their hard lot in this world by the expectation of a soft thing in the next, I would not be such a brute as to shake their confidence if I could, and I don't blame them much if in addition to their heaven they set up a h.e.l.l where, in imagination at least, they can put the folks who have been having a too good time here while they were grunting and sweating under their weary load."

"Then I wonder you have not more sympathy with an organization like the Salvation Army, which is doing its best to lighten the burden of the grunters and sweaters."

"Ah," answered Flint, "I had forgotten the Salvation Army,--it seems so small a branch of a big subject. I am glad you brought me back. But let us go a little further back still, for you know it was not the Army at all that we started to discuss, but only one of its officers, with a slender little figure and a pale face and a big pair of rather mournful dark eyes."

"Oh!" said Brady, taken somewhat off his guard, "but you should see her when she is pleased! They light up just as if a torch had been kindled in them."

"Oh, they do, do they?" said Flint, with genial raillery; "well, you see I never saw her so pleased as that."

"Why, don't you remember on her birthday, when I gave her back the locket?"

"I remember the occasion; but I had precious little chance to see how her eyes looked, for you stood so close to her that n.o.body else could catch a glimpse. I did see something, though."

"What?"

"I saw _you_, and any one more palpably sentimental I never did see."

"Well, what of it? It isn't a crime, I suppose--"

"That depends," Flint answered dryly.

Brady shook off his hand. "What do you mean by that?" he asked angrily.

"I mean," said Flint, folding his arms and looking at his friend steadily, "that you have come to the cross-roads. You cannot go on as you are. You must either give up hanging about Nora Costello, or you must make up your mind to marry her."

"And why not, pray, if I could induce her to accept me?"

"Great Heavens!" cried Flint; "has it gone so far as that?"

"Yes, it has," answered Brady, as defiantly as though Flint had represented his whole family circle; "and if she will marry me I shall be a proud and happy man."

"And your relatives,--the Bradfords and Standishes and all?"

"Plymouth Rock may fall on them for all I care," exclaimed Brady.

"And how about the tambourines and torches?"

Brady colored a little, but he stood his ground manfully.

"I shall never presume to dictate," he answered. "I will go my way and she shall go hers; and if I can lend a helping hand to any of the poor wretches she is trying to save, I shall do it, if I have to take off my kid gloves and get down into the gutter, as many a better man has done before me."

"Well," answered Flint, "if that is the way you take it I have nothing more to say. But if you don't object I would like to be present when you announce the engagement to Miss Standish."

"Miss Standish be hanged!" cried Brady. "It is a question of Miss Costello, I tell you. My only anxiety lies right there. If you had ever been in love you would know how it feels."

"I can imagine," Flint answered, taking up his pipe and looking scrutinizingly into the bowl; "I have read about it in books. But come! if we are going to the rally we must be about it. It is nearly eight by my watch. How long is the confounded thing--excuse me--I mean the gospel gathering?"

"If you are going to make fun of it, Flint, you would better stay at home," said Brady, stiffly.

"No, no, forgive me, Brady! I meant nothing of the kind; it is my accursed habit of joking when I am in earnest, and being so solemn when I try to be funny that I am never in harmony with the occasion.

Go on; I will close the door. I ought not to go, for I half expect Brooke of the Magazine. No matter; I will leave word for him."

As they pa.s.sed the janitor, Flint said, "I shall be back by ten. If any one comes to see me you have the key of my rooms, and let any visitor come in and wait."