The Puritans Part 55

"It will seem to him a moral catastrophe, a sort of ecclesiastical cataclysm," Maurice continued, "if Father Frontford isn't elected; and as far as I can judge there isn't much chance of that."

"No," she a.s.sented, "I don't think there is much chance."

"He said to me one day," added Maurice thoughtfully, "that in the Catholic Church there never could have been any danger of the election of a heretic bishop. I am afraid this will decide him."

Mrs. Herman regarded him with a smile, studying him as if she were reading the working of his mind.

"You think that a misfortune," she commented. "You feel that it is a step farther into the darkness."

"It is to narrow rather than to broaden his horizon, is it not?"

She played with her fan a moment, smiling to herself in a way which he did not understand, and looking down as if considering some old memory.

Then she met his glance with a look at once kind and wistful.

"It isn't of much use to argue the matter, I suppose," were her words.

"It seems to me as if in talking to you I see my old mental self in a mirror, if you'll pardon me for saying so. When we come out from any conviction, and most of all from a religious belief, it seems to us a profound misfortune that any man should still believe what we have decided is false. By and by I think you will see that the chief point is that a man shall believe. What he believes doesn't so much matter.

It must be the thing that best suits his temperament."

"Then to outgrow a dogma is to weaken our power. It certainly weakens our faith in general."

"Yes," she a.s.sented, "that is the price we must pay for freedom; but if Philip can still believe, I have long ago pa.s.sed the place where I should regret it. Perhaps he is to be envied."

Maurice shook his head.

"We may feel like that in some moods," he concluded with a smile, "but certainly nothing would induce you to change places with him." "Oh, no," she cried; "certainly not. But that is mere womanly lack of logic!"

x.x.xIII

A MINT OF PHRASES IN HIS BRAIN Love's Labor's Lost, i. 1.

The disappointment of Maurice at the failure of his effort to secure his aunt's fortune was perhaps rather more than less keen because the property had never tangibly been his. The t.i.tle of the fancy is that of which men are most tenacious, and the thing which has been held in fee of the imagination is precisely that which it is most grievous to lose.

Maurice returned to Boston completely overcome by the result of his expedition, his mind overflowing with chagrin and anger.

It was not only the money which he had missed, but he had to his thinking lost also the hope of being in a position to press his suit with Berenice. However intangible might be his plans for winning her, they none the less filled his mind. He refused to regard her coldness as enduring. He had in his thoughts imagined so many tender scenes of reconciliation in which he magnanimously forgave her for the sharpness of the repulse of their last meeting or humbly besought pardon for his own offenses, that he came to feel as if all misunderstanding had really been done away with. It had been in his mind that if he were but in a position to meet Berenice on equal terms in regard to fortune all might be well; and to be deprived of this hope was infinitely bitter.

Meanwhile he had before him the problem of reshaping his life. It was necessary that he decide what should take the place of the profession which he had laid down. Fortunately the decision was not difficult, as former inclination had practically settled the matter. The definite shaping of his plans came one day in a talk which he had with his cousin.

"It isn't exactly my affair, Maurice," Mrs. Staggchase said, "but I want to know, and that always makes a thing her affair with a woman,--what are you going to do with your life now that you have pulled it out of the mouth of the church?"

"It is good of you to care to ask," he answered. "I suppose I shall study law."

"May I talk with you quite frankly?" she asked. "Fred does me the honor to say that for a woman I have a reasonably clear head."

"You may say whatever you like, Cousin Diana. I shall only be grateful."

"Well, then, in the first place, how much have you to live on?"

"I've about a thousand dollars a year. What was left of the estate at mother's death amounts to about that. I wanted to give it all to the church when I went into the Clergy House."

"Why didn't you?"

"Father Frontford wouldn't allow it. He said that a continual sacrifice meant more than an act that stripped me of power to decide, and which might be regretted."

"That was a n.o.ble temper," Mrs. Staggchase remarked thoughtfully. "A priest is a strange being. As for you, you say you have never believed, and yet you would have given up everything you possessed."

Maurice flushed, and looked a little shamefaced.

"I never did believe, so far as I can see now; but I thought I did, if you see the difference. My wanting to give up everything wasn't belief; it was a sort of instinctive desire to play fair. If I were to do the thing at all, my impulse was to do it thoroughly. It isn't in my blood to do a thing half way. I'm afraid the explanation doesn't speak very well for my common sense; but so far as I can understand myself that's the way of it."

"But if you didn't believe what were you there for?"

"I was there because Phil was. I don't pretend to understand why I, who led Phil in everything else, who did all sorts of things that he couldn't and had to decide everything else for him, should have followed his lead so in religion; but I did. It was part of my caring for him. It would have hurt him so much if I hadn't, that of course I had to."

Mrs. Staggchase regarded him keenly. He turned away his eyes, thinking of his friend and of the wide gulf which had opened between them, so that he but half heard and did not understand the comment she made softly.

"The _ewigweibliche_ in masculine shape," she murmured, smiling to herself. "When the real came, it couldn't hold its power any longer."

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing. I was speaking in riddles. To come back to business,--you say you've decided upon the law."

"Yes. That was always my choice. I read a good deal of law while I was in college. It wasn't till I graduated two years ago that I fell into theology. It's two years wasted."

"Oh, perhaps, and perhaps not. After all, experience in youth is generally worth what it costs, little as we think so when we pay the price. Well, then, you can easily live on your income if you choose.

Mr. Staggchase and I will be glad to have you make this your home, and"--

"But, Cousin Diana," he interrupted in astonishment, "there is certainly no reason why you should burden yourself with me. Not that I am not a thousand times obliged to you, but"--

"Be as obliged as you like," interrupted she in turn, "only don't be foolish. Fred and I are not exactly sentimentalists, and we both know what we wish. He likes to have you to talk with, and when you have learned to smoke you will find him a very clever and agreeable companion after dinner. He knows the world, and he'll teach you a great many things that you'd be slow to find out for yourself. As for me, you amuse me, let us say. The G.o.ds have spared us the bother of children; but the gifts of the G.o.ds are always to be paid for, and we begin to feel as if there were a sort of loneliness ahead of us with n.o.body to be especially interested in. To have somebody younger to care for is a luxury when you are young yourself, but it's a necessity to age. I a.s.sure you that we shouldn't have you here if we didn't want you, and that we shall turn you out without scruple when we are tired of you."

"Very well, then," he responded with a laugh, "I am rejoiced to remain to be a blessing."

They looked into the fire a little time as if they were considering what effect upon the future this new arrangement would have; then Mrs.

Staggchase glanced up with a smile.

"Just now," she remarked, "before you are plunged in the study of the law, you may do escort duty for me. I am going to call on Berenice Morison."

"On Miss Morison?"

"Yes. Her grandmother is staying with her. Mr. Frostwinch has gone abroad, you know, and as the old house belongs to Bee, she is staying on there."

"But--but she won't care to see me."

"Very likely not," a.s.sented his cousin coolly, "but she'll endure you for my sake."