Part 10 (1/2)

”No; that doesn't matter a b.u.t.ton,” said Celia, lightly. ”None of us think of that at all.”

”There is the other embarra.s.sment, then,” pursued Theron, diffidently, ”that Father Forbes is a vastly broader and deeper scholar--in all these matters--than I am. How could I possibly hope to influence him by my poor arguments? I don't know even the alphabet of the language he thinks in--on these subjects, I mean.”

”Of course you don't!” interposed the girl, with a confidence which the other, for all his meekness, rather winced under. ”That wasn't what I meant at all. We don't want arguments from our friends: we want sympathies, sensibilities, emotional bonds. The right person's silence is worth more for companions.h.i.+p than the wisest talk in the world from anybody else. It isn't your mind that is needed here, or what you know; it is your heart, and what you feel. You are full of poetry, of ideals, of generous, unselfish impulses. You see the human, the warm-blooded side of things. THAT is what is really valuable. THAT is how you can help!”

”You overestimate me sadly,” protested Theron, though with considerable tolerance for her error in his tone. ”But you ought to tell me something about this Dr. Ledsmar. He spoke of being an old friend of the pr--of Father Forbes.”

”Oh, yes, they've always known each other; that is, for many years. They were professors together in a college once, heaven only knows how long ago. Then they separated, I fancy they quarrelled, too, before they parted. The doctor came here, where some relative had left him the place he lives in. Then in time the Bishop chanced to send Father Forbes here--that was about three years ago,--and the two men after a while renewed their old relations. They dine together; that is the doctor's stronghold. He knows more about eating than any other man alive, I believe. He studies it as you would study a language. He has taught old Maggie, at the pastorate there, to cook like the mother of all the Delmonicos. And while they sit and stuff themselves, or loll about afterward like gorged snakes, they think it is smart to laugh at all the sweet and beautiful things in life, and to sneer at people who believe in ideals, and to talk about mankind being merely a fortuitous product of fermentation, and twaddle of that sort. It makes me sick!”

”I can readily see,” said Theron, with sympathy, ”how such a cold, material, and infidel influence as that must shock and revolt an essentially religious temperament like yours.”

Miss Madden looked up at him. They had turned into the main street, and there was light enough for him to detect something startlingly like a grin on her beautiful face.

”But I'm not religious at all, you know,” he heard her say. ”I'm as Pagan as--anything! Of course there are forms to be observed, and so on; I rather like them than otherwise. I can make them serve very well for my own system; for I am myself, you know, an out-an-out Greek.”

”Why, I had supposed that you were full blooded Irish,” the Rev. Mr.

Ware found himself remarking, and then on the instant was overwhelmed by the consciousness that he had said a foolish thing. Precisely where the folly lay he did not know, but it was impossible to mistake the gesture of annoyance which his companion had instinctively made at his words.

She had widened the distance between them now, and quickened her step.

They went on in silence till they were within a block of her house.

Several people had pa.s.sed them who Theron felt sure must have recognized them both.

”What I meant was,” the girl all at once began, drawing nearer again, and speaking with patient slowness, ”that I find myself much more in sympathy with the Greek thought, the Greek theology of the beautiful and the strong, the Greek philosophy of life, and all that, than what is taught nowadays. Personally, I take much more stock in Plato than I do in Peter. But of course it is a wholly personal affair; I had no business to bother you with it. And for that matter, I oughtn't to have troubled you with any of our--”

”I a.s.sure you, Miss Madden!” the young minister began, with fervor.

”No,” she broke in, in a resigned and even downcast tone; ”let it all be as if I hadn't spoken. Don't mind anything I have said. If it is to be, it will be. You can't say more than that, can you?”

She looked into his face again, and her large eyes produced an impression of deep melancholy, which Theron found himself somehow impelled to share. Things seemed all at once to have become very sad indeed.

”It is one of my unhappy nights,” she explained, in gloomy confidence.

”I get them every once in a while--as if some vicious planet or other was crossing in front of my good star--and then I'm a caution to snakes.

I shut myself up--that's the only thing to do--and have it out with myself I didn't know but the organ-music would calm me down, but it hasn't. I shan't sleep a wink tonight, but just rage around from one room to another, piling all the cus.h.i.+ons from the divans on to the floor, and then kicking them away again. Do YOU ever have fits like that?”

Theron was able to reply with a good conscience in the negative. It occurred to him to add, with jocose intent: ”I am curious to know, do these fits, as you call them, occupy a prominent part in Grecian philosophy as a general rule?”

Celia gave a little snort, which might have signified amus.e.m.e.nt, but did not speak until they were upon her own sidewalk. ”There is my brother, waiting at the gate,” she said then, briefly.

”Well, then, I will bid you good-night here, I think,” Theron remarked, coming to a halt, and offering his hand. ”It must be getting very late, and my--that is--I have to be up particularly early tomorrow. So good-night; I hope you will be feeling ever so much better in spirits in the morning.”

”Oh, that doesn't matter,” replied the girl, listlessly. ”It's a very paltry little affair, this life of ours, at the best of it. Luckily it's soon done with--like a bad dream.”

”Tut! Tut! I won't have you talk like that!” interrupted Theron, with a swift and smart a.s.sumption of authority. ”Such talk isn't sensible, and it isn't good. I have no patience with it!”

”Well, try and have a little patience with ME, anyway, just for tonight,” said Celia, taking the reproof with gentlest humility, rather to her censor's surprise. ”I really am unhappy tonight, Mr. Ware, very unhappy. It seems as if all at once the world had swelled out in size a thousandfold, and that poor me had dwindled down to the merest wee little red-headed atom--the most helpless and forlorn and lonesome of atoms at that.” She seemed to force a sorrowful smile on her face as she added: ”But all the same it has done me good to be with you--I am sure it has--and I daresay that by tomorrow I shall be quite out of the blues. Good-night, Mr. Ware. Forgive my making such an exhibition of myself I WAS going to be such a fine early Greek, you know, and I have turned out only a late Milesian--quite of the decadence. I shall do better next time. And good-night again, and ever so many thanks.”