Part 21 (2/2)

”Oh, he has often told me so.”

”Well?”

”Aunt Bell--I--Oh, _you've_ walked on the street with Allan!”

”To be sure I have!”

”Well!”

”Well--of course--that _is_ true in a way--Allan _does_ attract attention the moment he reaches the pavement--and of course every one stares at one--but it isn't the poor fellow's fault. At least, if the boy were at all conscious of it he might in very little ways here and there prevent the very tiniest bit of it--but, my dear, your husband is a man of most striking appearance--especially in the clerical garb--even on that avenue over there where striking persons abound--and it's not to be helped. And I can't wonder he's not pleased with you when it gives him such pleasure to have a modish and handsome young woman at his side.

I met him the other day walking down from Forty-second Street with that stunning-looking Mrs. Wyeth, and he looked as happy and bubbling as a schoolboy.”

”Oh--Aunt Bell--but of course, if you don't see, I couldn't possibly tell you.” She turned suddenly to her letter, as if to dismiss the hopeless task.

Now Aunt Bell, being entirely human, would not keep silence under an intimation that her powers of discernment were less than phenomenal. The tone of her reply, therefore, hinted of much.

”My child--I may see and gather and understand much more than I give any sign of.”

It was a wretchedly empty boast. Doubtless it had never been true of Aunt Bell at any time in her life, but she was nettled now: one must present frowning fortifications at a point where one is attacked, even if they be only of pasteboard. Then, too, a random claim to possess hidden fruits of observation is often productive. Much reticence goes down before it.

Nancy turned to her again with a kind of relief in her face.

”Oh, Aunt Bell, I was sure of it--I couldn't tell you, but I was sure you must see!” Her pen was thrown aside and she drooped in her chair, her hands listless in her lap.

Aunt Bell looked sympathetically voluble but wisely refrained from speech.

”I wonder,” continued the girl, ”if you knew at the time, the time when my eyes seemed to open--when I was deceived by his pretension into thinking--you remember that first sermon, Aunt Bell--how independent and n.o.ble I thought it was going to be. Oh, Aunt Bell--what a slump in my faith that day! I think its foundations all went, and then naturally the rest of it just seemed to topple. Did you realise it all the time?”

So it was religious doubt--a loss of faith--heterodoxy? Having listened until she gathered this much, Aunt Bell broke in--”My dear, you must let me guide you in this. You know what I've been through. Study the higher criticism, reverently, if you will--even broaden into the higher unbelief. Times have changed since my youth; one may broaden into almost anything now and still be orthodox, especially in our church. But beware of the literal mind, the material view of things. Remember that the essentials of Christianity are spiritually historic even if they aren't materially historic--facts in the human consciousness if not in the world of matter. You need not pretend to understand how G.o.d can be one in essence and three in person--I grant you that is only a reversion to polytheism and is so regarded by the best Biblical scholars--but never surrender your belief in the atoning blood of the Son whom He sent a ransom for many--at least as a spiritual fact. I myself have dismissed the Trinity as one of those mysteries to be adoringly believed on earth and comprehended only in heaven--but that G.o.d so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son--Child, do you think I could look forward without fear to facing G.o.d, if I did not believe that the blood of his only begotten Son had washed from my soul that guilt of the sin I committed in Adam? Cling to these simple essentials, and otherwise broaden even into the higher unbelief, if you like--”

”But, Aunt Bell, it _isn't_ that! I never trouble about those things--though you have divined truly that I have doubted them lately--but the doubts don't distress me. Actually, Aunt Bell, for a woman to lose faith in her G.o.d seems a small matter beside losing faith in her husband. You can doubt and reason and speculate and argue about the first--it's fas.h.i.+onable--people rather respect unbelievers nowadays--but Oh, Aunt Bell, how the other hurts!”

”But, my child--my preposterous child! How can you have lost faith in that husband of yours? What nonsense! Do you mean you have taken seriously those harmless jesting little sallies of his about the snares and pitfalls of a clergyman's life, or his tales of how this or that silly woman has allowed him to detect in her that pure reverence which most women do feel for a clergyman, whether he's handsome or not? Take Mrs. Wyeth, for example--”

”Oh, Aunt Bell--no, no--how can you think--”

”I admit Allan is the least bit--er--redundant of those anecdotes--perhaps just the least bit insistent about the snares and pitfalls that beset an attractive man in his position. But really, my dear--I know men--and you need never feel a twinge of jealousy. For one thing, Allan would be held in bounds by fear of the world, even if his love for you were inadequate to hold him.”

”It's no use trying to make you understand, Aunt Bell--you _can't!_”

Whereupon Aunt Bell neglected her former device of pretending that she did, indeed, understand, and bluntly asked:

”Well, what is it, child?”

”Nothing, nothing, nothing, Aunt Bell--it's only what he _is_.”

”What he _is_? A handsome, agreeable, healthy, good-tempered, loyal, upright, irreproachable--”

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