The First Soprano Part 5

"You are a dear, honest little thing!" cried Adele affectionately.

Then she added very seriously, "but it almost seems to me that if your objections are right they might apply to the whole system."

Winifred looked perplexed. She had dimly thought of that. The word "system" recalled Mr. Bond's phrase, "an organized system of unreality," which she had turned over in her mind a number of times.

Would he call the choir that? She thought of the leader, who professed nothing as a Christian; of the organist, who, she must admit, was a drunkard; of George Frothingham with his careless indifference; and of herself of two days ago. Perhaps there were others--very likely there were--who sang with grace in their hearts unto the Lord, but it certainly looked as though that were no object in their selection. But she thought of Doctor Schoolman, who raised no objections and always sat with such an expression of bland repose while they sang. She thought of the elders--her own father among them--and, indeed, of common consent everywhere in all the churches; at least, all she knew.

Who was she, who was only "just beginning to worship," that she should entertain ideas contrary to them all?

"I don't know," she said hesitatingly to Adele, "I hope you will not think my ideas revolutionary. I can't judge for others--others so much wiser than I. But, for myself, I think I see the way I ought to take."

And so she settled the matter for herself, on her own convictions.

"Perhaps you are right," Adele said.

She could not speak further of the opera which seemed awkwardly out of place in the light of what Winifred had said. After a pause she said:

"I'm afraid we are all hypocrites more or less, but it is a wonder we had not thought of it before. But, do you know, I've sometimes thought it rather queer that Mr. Francis should sing in our choir? He is a confessed infidel. I do not believe our rector knows it. I do not think he would allow it. Mr. Francis just drifted into the choir when we needed a ba.s.so very much. But, when you think of it, isn't it blasphemy to take the name of the Lord, whom he professes not to believe in, so solemnly upon his lips in church?"

Winifred consented that so it seemed to her.

Then a sudden recollection amused Miss Forrester. "Speaking of worshipers," she said, "now there is my precious Cousin d.i.c.k. How do you think he occupied himself in the midst of Morning Prayer a couple of Sundays ago? The rogue! I certainly was keeping the run of the service, but it was edifying to see his head bowed so devoutly until he pa.s.sed a slip of paper over to me. What do you think was on it? Not a suddenly inspired hymn, but some doggerel lines about

"'A certain young woman Who sang high soprano.'

"I looked daggers at him, but of course he saw I wanted to laugh. Then he looked such a picture of rapt piety! Oh, he is a _case_!" And Adele gave way to the laughter she had smothered in church.

Winifred smiled, too, as she thought of the irrepressibly merry youth.

But her pleasure was not as unmixed as it would have been three days before. Henceforth, any jest to be quite enjoyed must be free from taint of irreverence toward holy things. She had "begun to know G.o.d,"

and the knowledge gave a sensitiveness to the honor of His name and the things of His house.

Adele recovered from her mirth and resumed the subject seriously.

"I am afraid we are sorry worshipers, when you come to look at it," she said. "If our office is really such a sacred one--and I see it must be, if we take it seriously--why, then, we ought to be pretty good people; earnest, and reverent, and all that, I mean. But it doesn't seem to be our distinguishing trait," and she smiled. "Not mine, at least. I ought not to generalize too much. I am sure there are persons in our choirs who live beautiful, devoted lives; but the lot I fraternize with mostly are not likely to go to the stake just yet for their piety. What awfully jolly dances the Emmanuel church choir gave last winter! I was invited two or three times and went. But you know it has struck me once or twice as a little odd that we church singers, _as such_, should go into that sort of thing. If some of us should stray into it individually it's nothing remarkable, I suppose. But isn't it a bit queer that, as a company, we should lead off in those things? I suppose," with a twinkle of malicious enjoyment in her eyes, "our Emmanuel church neighbors could not find vent for their joy in the Lord in Hosannas on Sunday, and had to work it off at their heels on week days."

Adele enjoyed her own satire, but Winifred was too repentant to laugh.

"Oh, Adele," she said, "it is dreadful that there has been no 'joy in the Lord' about it. At least, I never knew it in the choir. Christ was never the center of our thoughts" (she was thinking of Mr. Bond's sermon), "the object of devotion. If we worshiped anybody or anything outside of ourselves it was Music."

"Orpheus?" suggested Adele.

"Yes," said Winifred, "we were pagans, I suppose. But oh, Adele, G.o.d is so good to forgive! It seems as though He were not looking at it at all--as if it had never been."

Adele looked at her friend narrowly. "Winnie," she said at length, solemnly, "I know what has happened. You are converted."

Winifred opened her eyes in surprise. She had not thought to so define her new experience. Adele went on:

"We don't talk much about it in our church, you know. But I used to go sometimes with old Auntie Bloom--she was so blind she couldn't see the sidewalk--to a little Methodist church of some sort, Free, or Reformed, or something, and they made a great deal of that. Auntie Bloom used to get rather excited over it herself sometimes when she 'testified.' I used to duck my head when she waved her arms about. 'A new creature!'

she used to shout. 'There's nothing like being a new creature!'" And Adele quoted the old lady with good-natured mimicry.

Winifred's face glowed. "No," she said, "there's nothing like it!--if that is what has happened to me."

Adele looked at the happy face covetously. "You look as though it were good, Winnie," she said, and added meditatively: "I think it is all true about it. But you know, Winnie, when I was confirmed I really meant to be good. It was so solemn, and I thought I never should forget that dear old bishop's hand on my head. But I haven't turned out much of a saint, you know, dear."

"I never thought you were wicked, Adele," said Winifred.

"Well, I never robbed a bank," said Adele, "but there's no question about my being 'this worldly' enough."

Winifred did not know just how to answer this. It seemed a charge that would cover both their previous lives. In a moment's silence a sweet-toned clock on the mantel softly struck a half hour.

"Oh, I must be gone!" cried Miss Forrester, "and we haven't talked about half--"

"Do stay to lunch," interrupted Winifred.

"Impossible, dear. I am due at home--half an hour ago!" and she laughed at the discrepancy between her appointment and appearance.

"Good-by, Winnie." And she was off.

The two, very opposite in temperament, were very warm friends.

Winifred saw beneath a light exterior a quant.i.ty of good, sound sense and a warm heart. She was a frequent guest at their house. Mrs. Gray liked her, though deploring her occasional indulgence in slang. Mr.

Gray enjoyed her racy conversation, and Hubert professed a dislike of her volatile qualities. This last fact grieved Winifred, who liked her friend to be appreciated.

"She has a rather frivolous exterior," she once explained to Hubert, "but she is really very sensible."

"One would like to hear from the sensible interior occasionally," he replied, and Winifred withdrew from the defense. She was the more grieved by his indifference to her friend because, with her quick intuition, she had half guessed at a secret liking in Adele for her cynical brother.

To-day at luncheon Winifred ventured to offer him the information:

"Adele Forrester was in to see me this morning."

"I heard her giggle," he replied laconically, and Winifred subsided into silence.

CHAPTER V

IS G.o.d DEMONSTRABLE?

The scene of the morning in the garden haunted Hubert during the hours of business that day. Matters were attended to with his accustomed skill, but always an undercurrent of memory presented to him Winifred's beaming face and her announcement, "I think I have begun to know G.o.d."

"I wish I knew Him. I wish I knew the truth," he repeated to himself again and again.

Hubert had entered with heartiness into his father's business, and though still young had already attained a partnership in it. "Robert Gray & Son," read the clear, uncompromising sign, and the name of no firm in the city was more respected. Hubert's devotion to business, rather than to more scholarly pursuits, was a deep gratification to the father, who enjoyed his son's fellowship and found help in his fresh enterprise and keen foresight.

To-day Hubert was glad when the last matters were attended to and he was able to go home. At dinner he was abstracted and silent, and retired to his own apartments. Just off his sleeping room was a smaller one which const.i.tuted his laboratory, for Hubert was a man of science in his leisure hours. This room was the one discomfort of poor Mrs. Gray, who feared explosions or electric shocks, and sighed many a time as she heard the door close after the entering form of her son.

To-night it closed firmly, and had not opened again before slumber m.u.f.fled the ears of the apprehensive mother, nor had the light from the single gas burner ceased to throw out its yellow challenge to the mellow, midnight moonlight without. Could Mrs. Gray have looked within, she would have seen Hubert sunk in the depths of a leather covered chair, with his dark, frowning face leaning upon his hand. He was thinking.

Something like this was the matter of his thoughts:

In this little room questions had been asked and answered. From the standpoint of the known, or even from the conjectured, excursions into the unknown had been undertaken, and the explorer returned with trophies of ascertained fact. How had it come to pa.s.s? Obedience to the laws of force revealed had brought its recompense of further revelation. How humbly, with what child-likeness, he had followed those subtle laws propounded to him by others; laws whose deep mystery he could in no wise understand, but which he believed, and, believing, demonstrated. Were there such principles to be observed in the spiritual realm? Were there laws of the unseen kingdom, which, if obeyed, brought demonstration? He gave a little gesture of impatience as he thought of the unthinking a.s.sertion of some that they would believe nought they could not understand!

"Stupid!" he muttered, and remembered an effort of his own, when a school-boy, to illuminate the mind of the gardener with a few scientific facts, only to be met with a loud guffaw of unbelief.