Part 15 (1/2)

He stopped, and she came toward him holding out her hand. ”I want to thank you for your kindness of the other night. I believe I was ungrateful and perhaps rude at the time, and I have not seen you since to apologize.”

”Pray do not speak of it!” said Denham, flus.h.i.+ng a little as he took her hand. ”There was no occasion whatever for grat.i.tude, and therefore no possible lack of it. I trust you are quite well now.”

”There _was_ occasion for grat.i.tude,” persisted Gerald, ”or at least for an acknowledgment of your kindness, and it is because I am ashamed of my remissness that I take this first opportunity to thank you.”

”You embarra.s.s me,” said Denham, laughingly. ”I am not at all accustomed to having public rest.i.tution made me in this manner, and especially for purely imaginary slights. But may I not be permitted now--as a sort of reward if you will--to inquire if you have quite recovered?”

”At least I have sufficiently recovered to retract my disbelief in kitchen soap, and--and in your skill,” she added, with a little visible effort.

”You honor us above our deserts,--the soap and me,” answered Denham, playfully. ”I don't know how deleteriously it may affect the soap, but as for me I feel myself growing alarmingly conceited. So good-night.”

”What a very elaborate apology,” said De Forest, as Denham went out. ”If the offence were at all proportionate, I tremble to think of the enormity of your crime; or is it because he is a Reverend, that you demean yourself so humbly before him?”

Halloway was still hunting for his hat in the hall, and could scarcely help overhearing De Forest's remark and Gerald's answer.

”I demean myself before n.o.body in seeking to make amends for a previous neglect. The humiliation is in the misconduct, not in the confession of it; and whether I owed the apology to Mr. Halloway or to a beggar in the street, I should have made it quite the same, not at all for sake of his pardon, but simply for sake of clearing my own conscience.”

”Not at all for sake of my pardon,” said Denham, as he strode on toward the church, with the uncomfortable sensation of having been an involuntary eavesdropper. ”It is fortunate that my conceit was only veneered on.”

The following Sunday Gerald was in church both morning and evening, sitting in Phebe's accustomed place. She was one of those noticeable presences impossible to overlook, and as Denham mounted into the pulpit he felt as if he were preaching solely to her, or rather as if hers were the only criticism he feared in all the friendly congregation. He was annoyed that he should feel so, and quite conscious at the same time that he was far from doing his best, and once or twice he caught a flash in the serious eyes fastened on his face, that seemed to say she knew this last fact too, and was impatient with him for it. What excuse had any one, in Gerald's eyes, for not doing his best always? De Forest was with her in the evening, and as Halloway came out of the vestry after service, he found himself directly behind them.

”He's not a mighty orator,” De Forest was saying with his cynical drawl.

”I doubt if he is destined to be one of the pillars or even one of the cus.h.i.+ons of the church.”

”He was not doing his best to-night,” answered Gerald.

”Thank you,” said Halloway, coming quickly to her side, anxious to avoid further eavesdropping. ”Thank you--I mean for thinking I might do better.”

”That is not much to be grateful for, I am afraid,” replied Gerald, ”since it implies, you know, that you have not done well.”

”I hope you like uncompromising truth, Mr. Halloway,” said De Forest, leaning forward to look at him across Gerald. ”It's the only kind Miss Vernor deals in.”

”I prefer it infinitely to the most flattering falsehood imaginable,”

answered Denham.

”I believe clergymen are usually the last people to hear the truth about themselves,” continued Gerald. ”Their position at the head of a community, pre-supposes their capability for the office, and naturally places them outside of the criticism of those under their immediate charge, who are nevertheless just the ones best qualified to judge them.

But of course scholars may not teach the teacher.”

”What an invaluable opening for you who are _not_ one of Mr. Halloway's flock,” said De Forest, ”to undertake to remedy the deficiency, and to be in yourself a whole critical public to him, a licensed _Free Press_ as it were, pointing out all his errors with the most unhesitating frankness and unsparing perspicuity!”

”Do you think your love of truth would hold out long under such a crucial test?” asked Gerald, turning quite seriously to Denham. The moonlight shone full on her clear-cut, cameo-like face. Her eyes, with their shadowy fringe, looked deeper and blacker than midnight. It did not seem possible that truth spoken by her could be any thing but beautiful too.

Denham smiled down at her seriousness.

”Try me.”

”Well, then, it seems to me you do not often enough try to do your best.

You are contented to do well, and not ambitious to do better. You are quite satisfied, so I think, if your sermons are good enough to please generally, instead of seeking to raise your standard all the time by hard effort toward improvement, and I doubt, therefore, if at the end of a year your sermons will show any marked change from what they are to-day.

Am I too hard?”

”You are very just,” answered Denham, pleasantly, though the blood mounted to his face. ”You have found out my weak spot. I confess I am not ambitious. I aspire to no greatness of any kind.”