Part 11 (2/2)
”It is not a Protestant church,” answered Dunham, gently, ”as I have tried to explain to you.”
”The Episcopalian?” demanded Captain Jenness.
”The Episcopalian,” sweetly reiterated Dunham.
”I should like to know what kind of a church it is, then,” said Captain Jenness, triumphantly.
”An Apostolic church.”
Captain Jenness rubbed his nose, as if this were a new kind of church to him.
”Founded by Saint Henry VIII. himself,” interjected Staniford.
”No, Staniford,” said Dunham, with a soft repressiveness. And now a threatening light of zeal began to burn in his kindly eyes. These souls had plainly been given into his hands for ecclesiastical enlightenment.
”If our friends will allow me, I will explain--”
Staniford's shaft had recoiled upon his own head. ”O Lord!” he cried, getting up from the table, ”I can't stand _that_!” The others regarded him, as he felt, even to that weasel of a Hicks, as a sheep of uncommon blackness. He went on deck, and smoked a cigar without relief. He still heard the girl's voice in singing; and he still felt in his nerves the quality of latent pa.s.sion in it which had thrilled him when she sang.
His thought ran formlessly upon her future, and upon what sort of being was already fated to waken her to those possibilities of intense suffering and joy which he imagined in her. A wound at his heart, received long before, hurt vaguely; and he felt old.
XI.
No one said anything more of the musicales, and the afternoon and evening wore away without general talk. Each seemed willing to keep apart from the rest. Dunham suffered Lydia to come on deck alone after tea, and Staniford found her there, in her usual place, when he went up some time later. He approached her at once, and said, smiling down into her face, to which the moonlight gave a pale mystery, ”Miss Blood, did you think I was very wicked to-day at dinner?”
Lydia looked away, and waited a moment before she spoke. ”I don't know,”
she said. Then, impulsively, ”Did you?” she asked.
”No, honestly, I don't think I was,” answered Staniford. ”But I seemed to leave that impression on the company. I felt a little nasty, that was all; and I tried to hurt Mr. Dunham's feelings. But I shall make it right with him before I sleep; he knows that. He's used to having me repent at leisure. Do you ever walk Sunday night?”
”Yes, sometimes,” said Lydia interrogatively.
”I'm glad of that. Then I shall not offend against your scruples if I ask you to join me in a little ramble, and you will refuse from purely personal considerations. Will you walk with me?”
”Yes.” Lydia rose.
”And will you take my arm?” asked Staniford, a little surprised at her readiness.
”Thank you.”
She put her hand upon his arm, confidently enough, and they began to walk up and down the stretch of open deck together.
”Well,” said Staniford, ”did Mr. Dunham convince you all?”
”I think he talks beautifully about it,” replied Lydia, with quaint stiffness.
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