Part 34 (1/2)

”What a man!” thought Channing. ”I'll bet he doesn't know what a headache is, nor a furry tongue, nor a case of morning blues.--Heigho for the simple life!”

It was not Philip's last visit to Holiday Hill; and more than once on returning from his pastoral rounds, he found Channing in possession of the rectory, deep in one of his father's French books, practising rather futilely with the punching bag that decorated one corner of the living-room, or prowling about with an appreciative eye for old bindings and portraits, and what egg-sh.e.l.l china was left to remind Philip vaguely of the vague, fragile lady who had been his mother.

Farwell, too, came to the rectory; an adaptable, friendly soul, accustomed to fit himself comfortably into whatever surroundings offered themselves, but underneath his casual exterior extremely observant and critical of such things as seemed to him important. Philip, having dined in some elegance at Holiday Hill, had the courage to invite the two to one of his own simple suppers. And as his ancient negress selected that occasion, out of sheer excitement, to revert to her unfortunate habits, Philip himself cooked the meal, serving it without apology or explanation upon a cloth of fine yellowed damask, with his mother's egg-sh.e.l.l china, and certain spoons and forks that bore upon their attenuated tips the worn outlines of a crest. The table was drawn into a window, through which the scent of Philip's little garden floated in.

There were flowers upon the table, too; garden roses in a low pewter bowl, and wax tapers in very beautiful bronze candelabra, at sight of which Farwell's eyes widened enviously.

The actor, an aesthete to his finger-tips, looked with satisfaction about the long, low room, wainscoted in vari-colored books, its great old-fas.h.i.+oned fireplace filled with fragrant pine-boughs, and overhung by a portrait in an oval frame of a dim gentleman in a stock; the mantel crowded with pipes, a punching-bag and dumb-bells in one end of the room, in the other an old square piano, open and inviting, showing evidence of constant use; shabby, comfortable chairs; a large desk with many pigeon-holes, very neat and business-like. Indeed, the whole room, despite its odd agglomeration of furnis.h.i.+ngs, was neat, meticulously neat, even to the spotless curtains, darned in many places by Jemima and the ladies of the Altar Guild.

Farwell spoke his thought aloud, ”There's more character in this room of yours, Benoix, than in all that fine, self-conscious, art-y house of mine,” he declared. ”It could give pointers to any studio I know. It's the real thing!”

Philip flushed with surprise and pleasure. His unpretentious household G.o.ds were very dear to him, dear as they are sometimes to women. They meant more than furniture to the lonely young man; they meant home, and kindred, and all the gentler things that life had denied him.

Channing became lyrical over the salad, and was moved to propose a toast. He lifted his gla.s.s of beer--the best Philip's cellar afforded.

”Here's to the greatest nation on earth, one drop of whose blood is worth more to Art than all the stolid corpuscles that clog the veins of lesser races. Without it what man can hope to write great prose, or paint great pictures, or mix a great salad? _Vive la France!_--Benoix, who taught you how to cook?”

”My father,” said Philip, in a low voice. He had not often occasion to speak of his father, except to Mrs. Kildare.

”I knew it! There's nothing Anglo-Saxon or negroid about this cooking.

Again I say, _Vive la France!_”

After they had gone, Philip did not go immediately to bed. He was too excited--as excited, he thought, smiling, as little Jemima had been with the success of her first party. He put out the lights, and sat by his window in the dark for a long time, going over in his mind the talk of that night. Good man-talk it had been, touching on all the big things that occupy the world's thought to-day, which hitherto Philip had got for himself only out of books and periodicals. He had listened eagerly to these young men, who were interested in larger matters than crops and stock-breeding and local politics. And they had listened to him--he knew that. More than once a remark of Channing recurred to him: ”You're too big for this place, you know. Before long you'll be moving on.”

It was a thought that he had often put deliberately out of his mind. His bishop had been the first to suggest it, some years before.

He looked now through the darkness toward Storm. ”Moving on”? with his lady there, alone, deserted? He tried to picture Kate Kildare away from her environment of field and wood and open s.p.a.ces, sharing with him that crowded intense life of cities toward which his mind yearned. But it was impossible. Once more he put ambition from him--if it was ambition that called. What right has a priest with ambition?

No!--exile he might be, but exile he would remain, and gladly. What were they all but exiles--her daughters, his father in prison and out of prison, James Thorpe, who stayed because she might miss his friends.h.i.+p--all exiles from the world that called them, because of Kate Kildare?

”It's enough to be near her,” he said to himself with a little sigh, looking once more through the darkness toward Storm.

With Farwell and Channing, too, on their way home, some glow of that good talk lingered.

”There's something about the chap--I don't know what it is,” murmured Farwell, vaguely.

Channing nodded comprehension. ”It's that you want him to like you, somehow. You want him to--respect you, I think.”

Farwell looked around at him mockingly. ”What a novel and virtuous sentiment! You'll be getting religion next.” He added after a moment, ”Can't say you're going about it exactly the right way, if you really want the dominie's respect, you know.”

Channing flushed. ”You mean the girl? It's not his girl, Morty--it's the mother he's after. If it were the girl--d.a.m.ned if I wouldn't get out of the way and give him a clear field!”

Farwell jeered. ”Yes, you would! With the quarry in full view?”

”In full pursuit, you mean,” said Channing, ruefully. ”I wish I could make you understand that this affair isn't entirely of my own seeking, Farwell!”

His companion yawned. ”Awkward to be so d.a.m.ned fascinating, isn't it?

Look out--one of these days some of your fair friends are going to band themselves together, and catch you unawares, and marry you, my boy.”

”One isn't a Mormon, worse luck,” grunted the other.