Part 36 (1/2)

But he wanted their talk to begin in a natural-seeming way. He did not want the portentousness of ”wanting to speak” to her and calling her out to him. He got up at last and went back into the other room. Clementina had gone upstairs, and the book she had been reading was lying closed on the sideboard. He saw it was one of Chasters' books, he took it up, it was ”The Core of Truth in Christianity,” and he felt an irrational shock at the idea of Clementina reading it. In spite of his own immense changes of opinion he had still to revise his conception of the polemical Chasters as an evil influence in religion. He fidgeted past his wife to the mantel in search of an imaginary mislaid pencil.

Clementina came down with some bandage linen she was cutting out. He hung over his wife in a way that he felt must convey his desire for a conversation. Then he picked up Chasters' book again. ”Does any one want this?” he asked.

”Not if I may have it again,” consented Clementina.

He took it back with him and began to read again those familiar controversial pages. He read for the best part of an hour with his knees drying until they smoked over the gas. What curious stuff it was! How it wrangled! Was Chasters a religious man? Why did he write these books? Had he really a pa.s.sion for truth or only a Swift-like hatred of weakly-thinking people? None of this stuff in his books was really wrong, provided it was religious-spirited. Much of it had been indeed destructively illuminating to its reader. It let daylight through all sorts of walls. Indeed, the more one read the more vividly true its acid-bit lines became.... And yet, and yet, there was something hateful in the man's tone. Scrope held the book and thought. He had seen Chasters once or twice. Chasters had the sort of face, the sort of voice, the sort of bearing that made one think of his possibly saying upon occasion, rudely and rejoicing, ”More fool you!” Nevertheless Scrope perceived now with an effort of discovery that it was from Chasters that he had taken all the leading ideas of the new faith that was in him. Here was the stuff of it. He had forgotten how much of it was here. During those months of worried study while the threat of a Chasters prosecution hung over him his mind had a.s.similated almost unknowingly every a.s.similable element of the Chasters doctrine; he had either a.s.similated and trans.m.u.ted it by the alchemy of his own temperament, or he had reacted obviously and filled in Chasters' gaps and pauses. Chasters could beat a road to the Holy of Holies, and shy at entering it. But in spite of all the man's roughness, in spite of a curious flavour of baseness and malice about him, the spirit of truth had spoken through him. G.o.d has a use for harsh ministers. In one man G.o.d lights the heart, in another the reason becomes a consuming fire.

G.o.d takes his own where he finds it. He does not limit himself to nice people. In these matters of evidence and argument, in his contempt for amiable, demoralizing compromise, Chasters served G.o.d as Scrope could never hope to serve him. Scrope's new faith had perhaps been altogether impossible if the Chasters controversy had not ploughed his mind.

For a time Scrope dwelt upon this remarkable realization. Then as he turned over the pages his eyes rested on a pa.s.sage of uncivil and ungenerous sarcasm. Against old Likeman of all people!...

What did a girl like Clementina make of all this? How had she got the book? From Eleanor? The stuff had not hurt Eleanor. Eleanor had been able to take the good that Chasters taught, and reject the evil of his spirit....

He thought of Eleanor, gallantly working out her own salvation. The world was moving fast to a phase of great freedom--for the young and the bold.... He liked that boy....

His thoughts came back with a start to his wife. The evening was slipping by and he had momentous things to say to her. He went and just opened the door.

”Ella!” he said.

”Did you want me?”

”Presently.”

She put a liberal interpretation upon that ”presently,” so that after what seemed to him a long interval he had to call again, ”Ella!”

”Just a minute,” she answered.

(15)

Lady Ella was still, so to speak, a little in the other room when she came to him.

”Shut that door, please,” he said, and felt the request had just that flavour of portentousness he wished to avoid.

”What is it?” she asked.

”I wanted to talk to you--about some things. I've done something rather serious to-day. I've made an important decision.”

Her face became anxious. ”What do you mean?” she asked.

”You see,” he said, leaning upon the mantelshelf and looking down at the gas flames, ”I've never thought that we should all have to live in this crowded house for long.”

”All!” she interrupted in a voice that made him look up sharply. ”You're not going away, Ted?”

”Oh, no. But I hoped we should all be going away in a little time. It isn't so.”

”I never quite understood why you hoped that.”

”It was plain enough.”

”How?”