Part 13 (1/2)

'Am I to understand that all the three admirers about whom Miss Baddeley suffers remorse are clerics?'

'Yes. Julia has a wonderful attraction for the Church,' said Miss Crofton, 'and that is what causes her difficulties. She _can't_ write to _them_, or communicate to _them_ in personal interviews (as you advised), that her heart is no longer--'

'Theirs,' said Merton. 'But why are the clergy more privileged than the laity? I have heard of such things being broken to laymen. Indeed it has occurred to many of us, and we yet live.'

'I have urged the same facts on Julia myself,' said Miss Crofton. 'Indeed I _know_, by personal experience, that what you say of the laity is true.

They do not break their hearts when disappointed. But Julia replies that for her to act as you and I would advise might be to shatter the young clergymen's ideals.'

'To shatter the ideals of three young men in holy orders!' said Merton.

'Yes, for Julia _is_ their ideal--Julia and Duty,' said Miss Crofton, as if she were naming a firm. 'She lives only,' here Julia twisted the hand of Miss Crofton, 'she lives only to do good. Her fortune, entirely under her own control, enables her to do a great deal of good.'

Merton began to understand that the charms of Julia were not entirely confined to her _beaux yeux_.

'She is a true philanthropist. Why, she rescued _me_ from the snares and temptations of the stage,' said Miss Crofton.

'Oh, _now_ I understand,' said Merton; 'I knew that your face and voice were familiar to me. Did you not act in a revival of _The Country Wife_?'

'Hush,' said Miss Crofton.

'And Lady Teazle at an amateur performance in the Canterbury week?'

'These are days of which I do not desire to be reminded,' said Miss Crofton. 'I was trying to explain to you that Julia lives to do good, and has a heart of gold. No, my dear, Mr. Merton will much misconceive you unless you let me explain everything.' This remark was in reply to the agitated gestures of Julia. 'Thrown much among the younger clergy in the exercise of her benevolence, Julia naturally awakens in them emotions not wholly brotherly. Her sympathetic nature carries her off her feet, and she sometimes says ”Yes,” out of mere goodness of heart, when it would be wiser for her to say ”No”; don't you, Julia?'

Merton was reminded of one of M. Paul Bourget's amiable married heroines, who erred out of sheer goodness of heart, but he only signified his intelligence and sympathy.

'Then poor Julia,' Miss Crofton went on hurriedly, 'finds that she has misunderstood her heart. Recently, ever since she met Captain Lestrange--of the Guards--'

'The fourth?' asked Merton.

Miss Crofton nodded. 'She has felt more and more certain that she _had_ misread her heart. But on each occasion she _has_ felt this--after meeting the--well, the next one.'

'I see the awkwardness,' murmured Merton.

'And then Remorse has set in, with all her horrors. Julia has wept, oh!

for nights, on my shoulder.'

'Happy shoulder,' murmured Merton.

'And so, as she _dare_ not shatter their ideals, and perhaps cause them to plunge into excesses, moral or doctrinal, this is what she has done.

She has said to each, that what the Church, any Church, needs is martyrs, and that if they will go to benighted lands, where the crown of martyrdom may still be won, _then_, if they return safe in five years, then she--will think of naming a day. You will easily see the attractions of this plan for Julia, Mr. Merton. No ideals were shattered, the young men being unaware of the circ.u.mstances. They _might_ forget her--'

'Impossible,' cried Merton.

'They might forget her, or, perhaps they--'

Miss Crofton hesitated.

'Perhaps they might never--?' asked Merton.