Part 6 (1/2)
”The friends of Mr. Strathmore are working very hard,” observed Mrs.
Fenton. ”It would be a great misfortune if they were to succeed.”
”But I suppose the friends of Father Frontford are at work too?”
returned Helen.
Ashe thought that he detected a faint trace of satire in her voice, and he turned toward her with earnest gravity.
”It is not to be supposed,” he answered, ”that the friends of the church are idle at a time of so much importance. Mr. Strathmore is really little better than a Unitarian; or at least he is so lax that he gives the world that opinion.”
He felt that this was a reply which must end all inclination to raillery on her part. He began to feel fresh sympathy with the disturbance of Mr. Candish earlier in the dinner. The matter now was to him so vital that he could not talk of it except with the greatest gravity. He watched Helen closely to discover if she were disposed to smile at his reply. He could detect no ridicule in her expression, although she did not seem much impressed with the weight of the charge he had brought against Mr. Strathmore, the popular candidate for the bishopric of the diocese, then vacant.
”Mrs. Chauncy Wilson is doing a good deal,” Mrs. Fenton remarked, glancing smilingly at Helen.
”Oh, yes,” responded the other. ”I remember now that she declined to be on a committee for the picture-show because, as she said, she had to run the campaign for the bishop.”
”The expression,” Candish began, rather stiffly, ”is somewhat”--
”It is hers, not mine,” Helen replied. ”I should not have chosen the phrase myself.”
”It is singular,” Mrs. Fenton said thoughtfully, ”how little general interest there is in this matter of the choice of a bishop.”
”And what there is,” Mrs. Herman put in with a faint suspicion of raillery in her tone, ”comes from the fact that Mr. Strathmore is popular as a radical.”
”It is natural enough that the general public should look at it in that way,” Mr. Candish commented. ”Mr. Strathmore has all the elements of popularity. He is emotional and sympathetic; and religious laxity presented by such a man is always attractive.”
”The infidelity of the age finds such a man a living excuse,” Ashe said, feeling to the full all that the words implied.
Mrs. Fenton smiled upon him, but shook her head.
”That is a somewhat extreme view to take of it, Mr. Ashe. I think it is rather the personal attraction of the man than anything else.”
The talk drifted away into more secular channels, and Ashe in time forgot for the moment that he was already almost a priest. Youth was strong in his blood, and even when a man has vowed to serve heaven by celibacy the must of desire may ferment still in his veins. A youthful ascetic has in him equally the making of a saint and a monster; and until it is decided which he is to be there will be turmoil in his soul. His newly realized love for Mrs. Fenton threw Ashe into a tumult of mingled bliss and anguish. The heart of the most simple mortal soars and exults in the sense that it loves. It may be timid, sad, despairing, but even the smart of love's denial cannot destroy the joy of love's existence. Philip felt the sting of his conscience; he looked upon his pa.s.sion as no less hopeless than it was opposed to his vows; he was overshadowed by a half-conscious foresight of the pain which must arise from it; yet he swam on waves of delight such as even in his moments of religious ecstasy he had never before known. He felt his cheeks flush, and when his cousin glanced at him he dropped his eyes in the fear that they would betray his secret. He dared not look openly at Mrs. Fenton, yet from time to time he stole glances so slyly that he seemed almost to deceive himself and to conceal from his conscience the transgression.
Yet, too, he struggled. He realized at moments what he was doing, and his cheek grew pale at the idea that he was juggling with his conscience and his soul. He tried to attend to the talk, and could only succeed in listening for the sound of her voice. He kept no more hold on the conversation than was sufficient to allow him to put in a word now and then to cover his preoccupation. The instinct of simulation a.s.serted itself as it springs in a bird which flies away to decoy the hunter from its nest. He feigned to be interested, to be as usual, but all his blood was trembling and tumbling with this new delirium; and all struggles to forget his pa.s.sion only increased its intensity.
At moments he was astonished at himself. He could not understand what had taken possession of him. He even whispered a desperate question to himself whether it might not be that he had been singled out for a special temptation of the devil,--a distinction too flattering to be wholly disagreeable. Then he glanced again at his hostess, fair, sweet, and to his mind sacred before him, and felt that he had wronged her by supposing that the arch fiend could make of her a temptation. He had for a moment a humiliating fear that he might have eaten something that after the spare diet of the Clergy House had exhilarated him unduly. He felt that at best he was a poor thing; and he seemed to stand outside of his bare, empty life, pitying and scorning the futility of an existence unblessed by the love of this peerless woman.
The evening went on, and Ashe struggled to conceal the wild commotion of his mind, feeling it almost a relief to get away, so fearful had he been of losing control of his tumultuous emotions. It would be bliss to be alone with his dream.
As he and Mrs. Herman were going home, Helen said:--
”I do wonder”--
”What do you wonder?” he asked.
”Did I say that out loud?” she responded. ”I didn't mean to. I was thinking that I couldn't help wondering whether Edith Fenton will ever marry Mr. Candish.”
The first thought of Ashe was terror lest his secret had been discovered; his second was a memory of the way in which he had seen Mrs. Fenton look at the rector at dinner. He was overwhelmed by a rush of hot anger against his rival.