Phyllis of Philistia Part 26

"You said all that in your paper, Mr. Holland, and yet I tell you that I abhor your paper--that I shuddered when I read what you wrote about the Bible. The words that are in the Bible have given to millions of poor souls a consolation that science could never bring to them."

"And those consoling words are what I would read to the people every day of the week, not the words which may have a certain historical signification, but which breathe a very different spirit from the spirit of Christianity. Phyllis, it is to be the aim of my life to help on the great work of making the Church once more the Church of the people--of making it in reality the exponent of Christianity and Judaism. That is my aim, and I want you to be my helper in this work."

"And I tell you that I shall oppose you by all the means in my power, paltry though my power may be."

Her eyes were flashing and she made a little automatic motion with her hands, as if sweeping something away from before her. He had become pale and there was a light in his eyes. He felt angry at this girl who had shown herself ready to argue with him,--in her girlish fashion, of course,--and who, after listening to his incontrovertible arguments, fell back resolutely upon a plat.i.tude, and considered that she had got the better of him.

She had got the better of him, too; that was the worst of it; his object in going to her, in arguing with her, was to induce her to promise to marry him, and he had failed.

It was on this account he was angry. He might have had a certain consciousness of succeeding as a theologian, but he had undoubtedly failed as a lover. He was angry. He was as little accustomed as other clergymen to be withstood by a girl.

"I am disappointed in you," said he. "I fancied that when I--when I----"

It was in his mind to say that he had selected her out of a large number of candidates to be his helpmeet, but he pulled himself up in time, and the pause that he made seemed purely emotional. "When I loved you and got your promise to love me in return, you would share with me all the glory, the persecution, the work incidental to this crusade on behalf of the truth, but now----Ah! you can never have loved me."

"Perhaps you are right, indeed," said she meekly. She was ready to cede him this point if he set any store by it.

"Take care," said he, with some measure of sternness. "Take care, if you fancy you love another man, that he may be worthy of you."

"I do not love another man, Mr. Holland," said she gently; scarcely regretfully.

"Do you not?" said he, with equal gentleness. "Then I will hope."

"You will do very wrong."

"You cannot say that without loving someone else. I would not like to hear of your loving such a man as Herbert Courtland."

She started at that piece of impertinence, and then, without the slightest further warning, she felt her body blaze from head to foot.

She was speechless with indignation.

"Perhaps I should have said a word of warning to you before." He had now a.s.sumed the calm dignity of a clergyman who knows what is due to himself. "I am not one to place credence in vulgar gossip; I thought that your father, perhaps, might have given you a hint. Mrs. Linton is undoubtedly a very silly woman. G.o.d forbid that I should ever hear rumor play with your name as I have heard it deal with hers."

His a.s.sumption of the clergyman's solemn dignity did not make his remark less impertinent, considering that Ella Linton was her dearest friend.

And yet people were in the habit of giving George Holland praise for his tact. Such persons had never seen him angry, wounded, and anxious to wound.

There was a pause after he had spoken his tactless words. It was broken by a thrice-repeated cry from Phyllis.

"Lies! Lies! Lies!" she cried, facing him, the light of scorn in her eyes. "I tell you that you have listened to lies; you, a clergyman, have listened to lying gossip, and have repeated that lying gossip to me.

You have listened like a wicked man, and you should be ashamed of your behavior, of your words, your wicked words. If Ella Linton were wicked, you would be responsible for it in the sight of G.o.d. You, a clergyman, whose duty it is to help the weak ones, to give counsel to those who stand on the brink of danger; you speak your own condemnation if you speak Ella Linton's. You have spent your time not in that practical work of the Church--that work which is done silently by those of her priests who are desirous of doing their duty; you have spent your time, not in this work, but in theorizing, in inventing vain sophistries to put in a book, and so cause people to talk about you; whether they talk well or ill of you, you care not so long as they talk; you have been doing this to gratify your own vanity, instead of doing your duty as a clergyman on behalf of the souls which have been intrusted to your keeping. Go away--go away! I am ashamed of you; I am ashamed of myself that I was ever foolish enough to allow my name to be a.s.sociated with yours even for a single day. I shall never, never again enter the church where you preach. Go away! Go away!"

He stood before her with his hands by his sides as a man suddenly paralyzed might stand. He had never recovered from the shock produced by her crying of the word "lies! lies! lies!" He was dazed. He was barely conscious of the injustice which she was doing him, for he felt that he was not actuated by vanity, but sincerity in all that he had hitherto preached and written regarding the Church. Still he had not the power to interrupt her in her accusation; he had not the power to tell her that she was falsely accusing him.

When her impa.s.sioned denunciation of him had come to an end, and she stood with flaming face, one outstretched hand pointing to the door, he recovered himself--partially; and curiously enough, his first thought was that he had never seen a more beautiful girl in a more graceful att.i.tude. She had insulted him grossly; she had behaved as none of the daughters of Philistia would behave in regard to him--him, a clergyman of the Church of England; but he forgot her insults, her injustice, and his only thought was that she was surely the most beautiful woman in the world.

"I am amazed!" he found words to say at last. "I am amazed! I felt certain that you at least would do me justice. I thought--"

"I will not listen to you," she cried. "Every word you utter increases my self-contempt at having heard you say so much as you have said. Go away, please. No, I will go--I will go."

And she did go.

He found himself standing in the middle of an empty room.

Never before had he been so treated by man or woman; and the worst of the matter was that he had an uneasy feeling that he had deserved the scorn which she had heaped upon him. He knew perfectly well that he had no right to speak to her as he had spoken regarding her friend, Ella Linton. Rumor--what right had he to suggest to her, as he had certainly done, that the evil rumors regarding her friend were believed by him at least?

Yes, he felt that she had treated him as he deserved; and when he tried to get up a case for himself, so to speak, by dwelling upon the injustice which she had done him in saying that he had been actuated by vanity, whereas he knew that he had been sincere, he completely failed.

But his greatest humiliation was due to a consciousness of his own want of tact. Any man may forget himself so far as to lose his temper upon occasions; but no man need hope to get on in the world who so far forgets himself as to allow other people to perceive that he has lost his temper.

What was he to do?

What was left for him to do but to leave the house with as little delay as possible?

He went down the stairs, and a footman opened the hall door for him.

He felt a good deal better in the open air. Even the large drawing room which he had left was beginning to feel stuffy. (He was a singularly sensitive man.)

On reaching the rectory he found two letters waiting for him. One from the bishop requesting an early interview with him. The other was almost identical but it was signed "Stephen Linton."

CHAPTER XXVI.

DID HE SAY SOMETHING MORE ABOUT RUTH?

Herbert Courtland had found his way to her drawing room on the afternoon of his return to London; and it was upon this circ.u.mstance rather than upon her own unusual behavior in the presence of George Holland that Phyllis was dwelling so soon as she had recovered from her tearful outburst on her bed. (She had, of course, run into her bedroom and thrown herself upon the bed the moment that she had left the presence of the man whom she had once promised to marry.) She had wept in the sheer excitement of the scene in which she had played the part of leading lady; it had been a very exciting scene, and it had overwhelmed her; she had not accustomed herself to the use of such vehement language as she had found necessary to employ in order to adequately deal with Mr.

Holland and that was how it came about that she was overwhelmed.

But so soon as she had partially recovered from her excitement, and had dried her eyes, she began to think of the visit which had been paid to her, not by George Holland, but by Herbert Courtland. She dwelt, moreover, less upon his amusing account of the cruise of the _Water Nymph_ than upon the words which he had said to her in regard to his last visit. She had expressed her surprise at seeing him. Had he not gone on a yachting cruise to Norway? Surely five days was under rather than over the s.p.a.ce of time necessary to thoroughly enjoy the fine scenery of the fjords.

He had then laughed and said that he had received a letter at Leith making his immediate return absolutely necessary.

"How disappointed you must have felt!" she suggested, with something like a smile upon her face.

His smile was broader as he said:

"Well, I'm not so sure that my disappointment was such as would tend to make me take a gloomy view of life for an indefinite time. Lord Earlscourt is a very good sort of fellow; but----"

"Yes; I quite agree with you," said she, still smiling. "Knowing what follows that 'but' in everyone's mind, we all thought it rather strange on your part to start on that cruise. And so suddenly you seemed to make up your mind, too. You never hinted to me that afternoon that you were anxious to see Norway under the personal conductorship of Lord Earlscourt."

"It would have been impossible for me to give you such a hint," said he.

"I had no idea myself that I wanted greatly to go to Norway, until I met Earlscourt."

"So we gathered from what papa told us when he came in about midnight, bringing Mr. Linton with him," said Phyllis. "Ella had come across to me before nine, to ask me to go with her to 'Romeo and Juliet' at Covent Garden, forgetting that I was dining with Lady Earlscourt."

"But you had not returned from the dinner party at nine," he suggested.

She had certainly succeeded in arousing his interest, even in such ordinary details as those she was describing.

"Of course not; but Ella waited for me; I suppose she did not want to return to her lonely house. She seemed so glad when I came in that she made up her mind to stay with me all night."

"Oh! But she didn't stay with you?"