CHAPTER XI
The Remorse of Wondering Nancy
She awoke to the sun, glad-hearted and made newly buoyant by one of those soundless black sleeping-nights that come only to the town-tired when they have first fled. She ran to the glass to know if the restoration she felt might also be seen. With unbiassed calculation the black-fringed lids drew apart and one hand pushed back of the temple, and held there, a tangled skein of hair that had thrown the dusk of a deep wood about her eyes. Then, as she looked, came the little dreaming smile that unfitted critic eyes for their office; a smile that wakened to a laugh as she looked—a little womanish chuckle of confident joy, as one alone speaking aloud in an overflowing moment.
An hour later she was greeting Bernal where the sun washed through the big room.
"Young life sings in me!" she said, and felt his lightening eyes upon her lips as she smiled.
There were three days of it—days in which, however, she grew to fear those eyes, lest they fall upon her in judgment. She now saw that his eyes had changed most. They gave the face its look of absence, of dreaming awkwardness. They had the depth of a hazy sky at times, then cleared to a coldly lucid glance that would see nothing ever to fear, within or without; that would hide no falseness nor yet be deceived by any—a deadly half-shut, appraising coolness that would know false from true, even though they mated amicably and distractingly in one mind.
The effect of this glance which she found upon herself from time to time was to make Nancy suspect herself— to question her motives and try her defenses. To her amazement she found these latter weak under Bernal's gaze, and there grew in her a tender remorse for the injustice she had done her husband. From little pricking suspicions on the first day she came on the last to conviction. It seemed that being with Bernal had opened her eyes to Allan's worth. She had narrowly, flippantly misjudged a good man—good in all essentials. She was contrite for her unwifely lack of abnegation. She began to see herself and Allan with Bernal's eyes: she was less than she had thought—he was more. Bernal had proved these things to her all unconsciously. Now her heart was flooded with gratitude for his simple, ready, heartfelt praise of his brother—of his unfailing good-temper, his loyalty, his gifts, his modesty so often distressed by outspoken admiration of his personal graces. She listened and applauded with a heart that renewed itself in all good resolves of devotion. Even when Bernal talked of himself, he made her feel that she had been unjust to Allan.
Little by little she drew many things from him—the story of his journeyings and of his still more intricate mental wanderings. And it thrilled her to think he had come back with a message—even though he already doubted himself. Sometimes he would be jocular about it and again hot with a passion to express himself.
"Nance," he said on another night, "when you have a real faith in God a dead man is a miracle not less than a living—and a live man dying is quite as wondrous as a dead man living. Do you know, I was staggered one day by discovering that the earth didn't give way when I stepped on it? The primitive man knowing little of physics doesn't know that a child's hand could move the earth through space—but for a certain mysterious resistance. That's God. I felt him all that day, at every step, pushing the little globe back under me— counteracting me—resisting me—ever so gently. Those are times when you feel you must tell it, Nance—when the God-consciousness comes."
"Oh, Bernal, if you could—if you could come back to do what your grandfather really wanted you to do— to preach something worth while!"
"I doubt the need for my message, Nance. I need for myself a God that could no more spare a Hottentot than a Pope—but I doubt if the world does. No one would listen to me—I'm only a dreamer. Once when I was small they gave me a candy cane for Christmas. It was a thing I had long worshipped in shop-windows —actually worshipped as the primitive man worshipped his idol. I can remember how sad I was when no one else worshipped with me, or paid the least attention to my treasure. I suspect I shall meet the same indifference now. And I hope I'll have the same philosophy. I remember I brought myself to eat the cane, which I suppose is the primary intention regarding them—and perhaps the fruits of one's faith should be eaten quite as practically."
They had sent no word to Allan, agreeing it were better fun to surprise him. When they took the train together on the third day, the wife not less than the brother looked forward to a joyous reunion with him. And now that Nancy had proved in her heart the perverse unwifeliness of her old attitude and was eager to begin the symbolic rites of her atonement, it came to her to wonder how Bernal would have judged her had she persisted in that first wild impulse of rebellion. She wanted to see from what degree of his reprobation she had saved herself. She would be circuitous in her approach.
"You remember, Bernal, that night you went away —how you said there was no moral law under the sky for you but your own?"
He smiled, and above the noise of the train his voice came to her as his voice of old came above the noise of the years.
"Yes—Nance—that was right. No moral law but mine. I carried out my threat to make them all find their authority in me."
"Then you still believe yours is the only authority?"
"Yes; it sounds licentious and horrible, doesn't it; but there are two queer things about it—the first is that man quite naturally wishes to be decent, and the second is that, when he does come to rely wholly upon the authority within himself, he finds it a stricter disciplinarian than ever the decalogue was. One needs only ordinary good taste to keep the ten commandments— the moral ones. A man may observe them all and still be morally rotten! But it's no joke to live by one's own law, and yet that's all anybody has to keep him right, if we only knew it, Nance—barring a few human statutes against things like murder and keeping one's barber-shop open on the Sabbath—the ruder offenses which no gentleman ever wishes to commit.
"And must poor woman be ruled by her own God, too?"
"Why not?"
"Well, it's not so long ago that the fathers of the Church were debating in council whether she had a soul or not, charging her with bringing sin, sickness and death into the world."
"Exactly. St. John Damascene called her 'a daughter of falsehood and a sentinel of hell'; St. Jerome came in with 'Woman is the gate of the devil, the road to iniquity, the sting of the scorpion'; St. Gregory, I believe, considered her to have no comprehension of goodness; pious old Tertullian complimented her with corrupting those whom Satan dare not attack; and then there was St. Chrysostom—really he was much more charitable than his fellow Saints—it always seemed to me he was not only more humane but more human— more interested, you might say. You know he said, 'Woman is a necessary evil, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, a painted ill.' It always seemed to me St. Chrysostom had a past. But really, I think they all went too far. I don't know woman very well, but I suspect she has to find her moral authority where man finds his—within herself."
"You know what made me ask—a little woman in town came to see Allan not long ago to know if she mightn't leave her husband—she had what seemed to her sufficient reason."
"I imagine Allan said 'no.'"
"He did. Would you have advised her differently?"
"Bless you, no. I'd advise her to obey her priest. The fact that she consulted him shows that she has no law of her own. St. Paul said this wise and deep thing: 'I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him that esteemeth anything unclean, to him it is unclean!'"
"Then it lay in her own view of it. If she had felt free to go, she would have done right to go."
"Naturally."
"Yet Allan talked to her about the sanctity of the home."
"I doubt if the sanctity of the home is maintained by keeping unwilling mates together, Nance. I can imagine nothing less sanctified than a home of that sort—peopled by a couple held together against the desire of either or both. The willing mates need no compulsion, and they're the ones, it seems to me, that have given the home its reputation for sanctity. I never thought much about divorce, but I can see that much at once. Of course, Allan takes the Church's attitude, which survives from a time when a woman was bought and owned; when the God of Moses classed her with the ox and the ass as a thing one must not covet."
"You really think if a woman has made a failure of her marriage she has a right to break it."
"That seems sound as a general law, Nance—better for her to make a hundred failures, for that matter, than stay meekly in the first because of any superstition. But, mind you, if she suspects that the Church may, after all, have succeeded in tying up the infinite with red-tape and sealing-wax—believes that God is a large, dark notary-public who has recorded her marriage in a book—she will do better to stay. Doubtless the conceit of it will console her—that the God who looks after the planets has an eye on her, to see that she makes but one guess about so uncertain a thing as a man."
"Then you would advise—"
"No, I wouldn't. The woman who has to be advised should never take advice. I dare say divorce is quite as hazardous as marriage, though possibly most people divorce with a somewhat riper discretion than they marry with. But the point is that neither marriage nor divorce can be considered a royal road to happiness, and a woman ought to get her impetus in either case from her own inner consciousness. I should call divorcing by advice quite as silly as marrying by it."
"But it comes at last to her own law in her own heart?"
"When she has awakened to it—when she honestly feels it. God's law for woman is the same as for man— and he has but two laws for both that are universal and unchanging: The first is, they are bound at all times to desire happiness; the second is, that they can be happy only by being wise—which is what we sometimes mean when we say 'good,' but of course no one knows what wisdom is for all, nor what goodness is for all, because we are not mechanical dolls of the same pattern. That's why I reverence God—the scheme is so ingenious—so productive of variety in goodness and wisdom. Probably an evil marriage is as hard to be quit of as any vice. People persist long after the sanctity has gone—because they lack moral courage. Hoover was quite that way with cigarettes. If some one could only have made Jim believe that God had joined him to cigarettes, and that he mustn't quit them or he'd shatter the foundations of our domestic integrity —he'd have died in cheerful smoke—very soon after a time when he says I saved his life. All he wanted was some excuse to go on smoking. Most people are so— slothful-souled. But remember, don't advise your friend in town. Her asking advice is a sign that she shouldn't have it. She is not of the coterie that Paul describes—if you don't mind Paul once more—'Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth.'"
There had come to the woman a vast influx of dignity —a joyous increase in the volume of that new feeling that called to her husband. She would have gone back, but one of the reasons would have been because she thought it "right"—because it was what the better world did! But now—ah! now—she was going unhampered by that compulsion which galls even the best. She was free to stay away, but of her own glad, loyal will she was going back to the husband she had treated unjustly, judged by too narrow a standard.
"Allan will be so astonished and delighted," she said, when the coupé rolled out of the train-shed.
She remembered now with a sort of pride the fine, unflinching sternness with which he had condemned divorce. In a man of principles so staunch one might overlook many surface eccentricities.
CHAPTER XII
The Flexible Mind of a Pleased Husband
As they entered the little reception-room from the hall, the doors of the next room were pushed apart and they saw Allan bowing out Mrs. Talwin Covil, a meek, suppressed, neutral-tinted woman, the inevitable feminine corollary of such a man as Cyrus Browett, whose only sister she was.
The eyes of Nancy, glad with a knowing gladness, were quick for Allan's face, resting fondly there during the seconds in which he was changing from the dead astonishment to live recognition at sight of Bernal. During the shouts, the graspings, pokings, nudgings, the pumping of each other's arms that followed, Nancy turned to greet Mrs. Covil, who had paused before her.
"Do sit down a moment and tell me things," she urged, "while those boys go back there to have it out!"
Thus encouraged, Mrs. Covil dropped into a chair, seeming not loath to tell those things she had, while Nancy leaned back and listened duteously for a perfunctory ten minutes. Her thoughts ran ahead to Allan—and to Bernal—as children will run little journeys ahead of a slow-moving elder.
Then suddenly something that the troubled little woman was saying fixed her attention, pulling up her wandering thoughts with a jerk.
"——and the Doctor asked me, my dear, to treat it quite confidentially, except to bother Cyrus. But, I'm sure he would wish you to know. Of course it is a delicate matter—I can readily understand, as he says, how the public would misconstrue the Doctor's words and apply them generally—forgetting that each case requires a different point of view. But with Harold it is really a perfectly flagrant and dreadful case of mismating—due entirely to the poor boy's thoughtless chivalry—barely twenty-eight, mind you—as if a man nowadays knows his mind at all well before thirty-five. Of course, divorce is an evil that, broadly speaking, threatens the sanctity of our home life—no one understands that better than your husband—and re-marriage after divorce is usually an outrageous scandal—one, indeed, altogether too common—sometimes I wonder what we're coming to, it seems to be done so thoughtlessly —but individual instances are different—'exceptions prove the rule,' you know, as the old saying goes. Now Harold is ready to settle down, and the girl is of excellent family and all that—quite the social and moral brace he needs, in fact."
Nancy was attentive, yet a little puzzled.
"But—you speak of your son, Harold—is he not already married?"
"That's it, my dear. You know what a funny, bright, mischievous boy Harold is—even a little deliciously wild at times—doubtless you read of his marriage when it occurred—how these newspapers do relish anything of the sort—she was a theatrical young woman —what they call a 'show girl,' I believe. Humph!— with reason, I must say! Of all the egregious and inveterate showiness! My dear, she is positively a creature! Oh, if they'd only invent a monocle that would let a young man pierce the glamour of the footlights. I pledge you my word, she's—but never mind that! Harold was a thoughtless, restless boy—not bad, you know, but heedless. Why, he was quite the same about business. He began to speculate, and of course, being brother Cyrus's nephew, his advantage was considerable. But he suddenly declared he wouldn't be a broker any more—and you'd never guess his absurd reason: simply because some stock he held or didn't hold went up or down or something on a rumour in the street that Mr. Russell Sage was extremely ill! He said that this brought him to his senses. He says to me, 'Mater, I've not met Mr. Sage, you know, but from what I hear of him it would be irrational to place myself in a position where I should have to experience emotion of any sort at news of the old gentleman's taking-off. An event so agreeable to the natural order of God's providence, so plausible, so seemly, should not be endowed with any arbitrary and artificial significance, especially of a monetary character—one must be able to view it absolutely without emotion of any sort, either of regret or rejoicing—one must remain conscientiously indifferent as to when this excellent old gentleman passes on to the Golden Shore'——but you know the breezy way in which Harold will sometimes talk. Only now he seems really sobered by this new attachment——"
"But if he is already married——"
"Yes, yes—if you can call it married—a ceremony performed by one of those common magistrates—quite without the sanction of the Church—but all that is past, and he is now ready to marry one who can be a wife to him—only my conscience did hurt me a little, and brother Cyrus said to me, 'You see Linford and tell him I sent you. Linford is a man of remarkable breadth, of rare flexibility.'"
"Yes, and of course Allan was emphatically discouraging. " Again she was recalling the fervour with which he had declared himself on this point on that last day when he actually made her believe in him.
"Oh, the Doctor is broad! He is what I should call adaptable. He said by all means to extricate Harold from this wretched predicament, not only on account of the property interests involved, but on account of his moral and spiritual welfare; that, while in spirit he holds deathlessly to the indissolubility of the marriage tie, still it is unreasonable to suppose that God ever joined Harold to a person so much his inferior, and that we may look forward to the real marriage—that on which the sanctity of the home is truly based—when the law has freed him from this boyish entanglement. Oh, my dear, I feel so relieved to know that my boy can have a wife from his own class—and still have it right up there—with Him, you know!" she concluded with an upward glance, as Nancy watched her with eyes grown strangely quiet, almost steely—watched her as one might watch an ant. She had the look of one whose will had been made suddenly to stand aside by some great inner tumult.
When her caller had gone she dropped back into the chair, absently pulling a glove through the fingers of one hand—her bag and parasol on the floor at her feet. One might have thought her on the point of leaving instead of having just come. The shadows were deepening in the corners of the room and about her half-shut eyes.
A long time she listened to the animated voices of the brothers. At last the doors were pushed apart and they came out, Allan with his hand on Bernal's shoulder.
"There's your bag—now hurry upstairs—the maid will show you where."
As Bernal went out, Nancy looked up at her husband with a manner curiously quiet.
"Well, Nance—" He stepped to the door to see if Bernal was out of hearing—"Bernal pleases me in the way he talks about the old gentleman's estate. Either he is most reasonable, or I have never known my true power over men."
Her face was inscrutable. Indeed, she only half heard.
"Mrs. Covil has been telling me some of your broader views on divorce."
The words shot from her lips with the crispness of an arrow, going straight to the bull's-eye.
He glanced quickly at her, the hint of a frown drawing about his eyes.
"Mrs. Covil should have been more discreet. The authority of a priest in these matters is a thing of delicate adjustment—the law for one may not be the law for all. These are not matters to gossip of."
"So it seems. I was thinking of your opposite counsel to Mrs. Eversley."
"There—really, you know I read minds, at times— somehow I knew that would be the next thing you'd speak of."
"Yes?"
"The circumstances are entirely different—I may add that—that any intimation of inconsistency will be very unpleasing to me—very!"
"I can see that the circumstances are different—the Eversleys are not what you would call 'important factors' in the Church—and besides—that is a case of a wife leaving her husband."
"Nance—I'm afraid you're not pleasing me—if I catch your drift. Must I point out the difference—the spiritual difference? That misguided woman wanted to desert her husband merely because he had hurt her pride—her vanity—by certain alleged attentions to other women, concerning the measure of which I had no knowledge. That was a case where the cross must be borne for the true refining of that dross of vanity from her soul. Her husband is of her class, and her life with him will chasten her. While here—what have we here?"
He began to pace the floor as he was wont to do when he prepared a sermon.
"Here we have a flagrant example of what is nothing less than spiritual miscegenation—that's it!—why didn't I think of that phrase before—spiritual miscegenation. A rattle-brained boy, with the connivance of a common magistrate, effects a certain kind of alliance with a person inferior to him in every point of view—birth, breeding, station, culture, wealth—a person, moreover, who will doubtless be glad to relinquish her so-called rights for a sum of money. Can that, I ask you, be called a marriage? Can we suppose an all-wise God to have joined two natures so ill-adapted, so mutually exclusive, so repellent to each other after that first glamour is past. Really, such a supposition is not only puerile but irreverent. It is the conventional supposition, I grant, and theoretically, the unvarying supposition of the Church; but God has given us reasoning powers to use fearlessly —not to be kept superstitiously in the shackles of any tradition whatsoever. Why, the very Church itself from its founding is an example of the wisdom of violating tradition when it shall seem meet—it has always had to do this."
"I see, Allan—every case must be judged by itself; every marriage requires a special ruling——"
"Well—er—exactly—only don't get to fancying that you could solve these problems. It's difficult enough for a priest."
"Oh, I'm positive a mere woman couldn't grapple with them—she hasn't the mind to! All she is capable of is to choose who shall think for her."
"And of course it would hardly do to announce that I had counselled a certain procedure of divorce and re-marriage—no matter how flagrant the abuse, nor how obvious the spiritual equity of the step. People at large are so little analytical."
"'Flexible,' Mr. Browett told his sister you were. He was right—you are flexible, Allan—more so than I ever suspected."
"Nance—you please me—you are a good girl. Now I'm going up to Bernal. Bernal certainly pleases me. Of course I shall do the handsome thing by him if he acts along the lines our talk has indicated."
She still sat in the falling dusk, in the chair she had taken two hours before, when Aunt Bell came in, dressed for dinner.
"Mercy, child! Do you know how late it is?"
"What did you say, Aunt Bell?"
"I say do you know how late it is?"
"Oh—not too late!"
"Not too late—for what?"
There was a pause, then she said: "Aunt Bell, when a woman comes to make her very last effort at self-deception, why does she fling herself into it with such abandon—such pretentious flourishes of remorse— and things? Is it because some under layer of her soul knows it will be the last and will have it a thorough test? I wonder how much of an arrant fraud a woman may really be to herself, even in her surest, happiest moments."
"There you are again, wondering, wondering— instead of accepting things and dressing for dinner. Have you seen Allan?"
"Oh, yes—I've been seeing him for three days— through a glass, darkly."
Aunt Bell flounced on into the library, trailing something perilously near a sniff.
Bernal came down the stairs and stood in the door.
"Well, Nance!" He went to stand before her and she looked up to him. There was still light enough to see his eyes—enough to see, also, that he was embarrassed.
"Well—I've had quite a talk with Allan." He laughed a little constrained, uneasy laugh, looking quickly at her to see if she might be observing him. "He's the same fine old chap, isn't he?" Quickly his eyes again sought her face. "Yes, indeed, he's the same old boy—a great old Allan—only he makes me feel that I have changed, Nance."
She arose from her chair, feeling cramped and restless from sitting so long.
"I'm sure you haven't changed, Bernal."
"Oh, I must have!"
He was looking at her very closely through the dusk.
"Yes, we had an interesting talk," he said again.
He reached out to take one of her hands, which he held an instant in both his own. "He's a rare old Allan, Nance!"
CHAPTER XIII
The Wheels within Wheels of the Great Machine
For three days the brothers were inseparable. There were so many ancient matters to bring forward of which each could remember but a half; so many new ones, of which each must tell his own story. And there was a matter of finance between them that had been brought forward by Allan without any foolish delay. Each of them spoke to Nancy about it.
"Bernal has pleased me greatly," said her husband. "He agrees that Grandfather Delcher could not have been himself when he made that will—being made as it was directly after he sent Bernal off. He finds it absurd that the old man, so firm a Christian, should have disinherited a Christian, one devoted to the ministry of Jesus, for an unbeliever like Bernal. It is true, I talked to him in this strain myself, and I cannot deny that I wield even a greater influence over men than over women. I dare say I could have brought Bernal around even had he been selfish and stubborn. By putting a proposition forward as a matter of course, one may often induce another to accept it as such, whereas he might dispute it if it were put forward as at all debatable. But as a matter of fact he required no talking to; he accepted my views readily. The boy doesn't seem to know the value of money. I really believe he may decide to make over the whole of the property to me. That is what I call a beautiful unselfishness. But I shall do handsomely by him—probably he can use some money in that cattle business. I had thought first of ten thousand dollars, but doubtless half that will be wiser. I shall insist upon his taking at least half that. He will find that unselfishness is a game two can play at."
Nancy had listened to this absently, without comment. Nor had Bernal moved her to speech when he said, "You know, Allan is such a sensitive old chap— you wouldn't guess how sensitive. His feelings were actually hurt because I'd kept him out of grandad's money all these years. He'd forgotten that I didn't know I was doing it. Of course the old boy was thinking what he'd have done in my place—but I think I can make it right with him—I'm sure now he knows I didn't mean to wrong him."
Yet during this speech he had shot furtive little questioning looks at her face, as if to read those thoughts he knew she would not put into words.
But she only smiled at Bernal. Her husband, however, found her more difficult than ever after communicating his news to her. He tried once to imagine her being dissatisfied with him for some reason. But this attempt he abandoned. Thereafter he attributed her coldness, aloofness, silence, and moodiness to some nervous malady peculiar to the modern woman. Bernal's presence kept him from noting how really pronounced and unwavering her aversion had become.
Nor did Bernal note her attitude. Whatever he may have read in Allan at those times when the look of cold appraisement was turned full upon him, he had come to know of his brother's wife only that she was Nancy of the old days, strangely surviving to greet him and be silent with him, or to wonder with him when he came in out of that preposterous machine of many wheels that they called the town. No one but Nancy saw anything about it to wonder at.
To Bernal, after his years in the big empty places, it was a part of all the world and of all times compacted in a small space. One might see in it ancient Jerusalem, Syria, Persia, Rome and modern Babylon—with something still peculiar and unclassifiable that one would at length have to call New York. And to make it more absorbing, the figures were always moving. Where so many were pressed together each was weighted by a thousand others—the rich not less than the poor; each was stirred to quick life and each was being visibly worn down by the ceaseless friction.
When he had walked the streets for a week, he saw the city as a huge machine, a machine to which one might not even deliver a message without becoming a part of it—a wheel of it. It was a machine always readjusting, always perfecting, always repairing itself—casting out worn or weak parts and taking in others—ever replacing old wheels with new ones, and never disdaining any new wheel that found its place—that could give its cogs to the general efficiency, consenting to be worn down by the unceasing friction.
Looking down Broadway early one evening—a shining avenue of joy—he thought of the times when he had gazed across a certain valley of his West and dreamed of bringing a message to this spot.
Against the sky many electric signs flamed garishly. Beneath them were the little grinding wheels of the machine—satisfied, joyous, wisely sufficient unto themselves, needing no message—least of all the simple old truth he had to give. He tried to picture his message blazing against the sky among the other legends: from where he stood the three most salient were the names of a popular pugilist, a malt beverage and a theatre. The need of another message was not apparent.
So he laughed at himself and went down into the crowd foregathered in ways of pleasure, and there he drank of the beer whose name was flaunted to the simple stars. Truly a message to this people must be put into a sign of electric bulbs; into a phonograph to be listened to for a coin, with an automatic banjo accompaniment; or it must be put upon the stage to be acted or sung or danced! Otherwise he would be a wheel rejected—a wheel ground up in striving to become a part of the machine at a place where no wheel was needed.
For another experience cooling to his once warm hopes, the second day of his visit Allan had taken him to his weekly Ministers' Meeting—an affair less formidable than its title might imply.
A dozen or so good fellows of the cloth had luncheon together each Tuesday at the house of one or another, or at a restaurant; and here they talked shop or not as they chose, the thing insisted upon being congeniality —that for once in the week they should be secure from bores.
Here Presbyterian and Unitarian met on common ground; Baptist, Catholic, Episcopalian, Congregationalist, Methodist—all became brothers over the soup. Weekly they found what was common and helpful to all in discussing details of church administration, matters of faith, methods of handling their charitable funds; or the latest heresy trial. They talked of these things amiably, often lightly. They were choice spirits relaxed, who might be grave or gay, as they listed.
Their vein was not too serious the day Bernal was his brother's guest, sitting between the very delightful Father Riley and the exciting Unitarian, one Whittaker. With tensest interest he listened to their talk.
At first there was a little of Delitzsch and his Babel-Bible addresses, brought up by Selmour, an amiable Presbyterian of shining bare pate and cheerful red beard, a man whom scandal had filliped ever so coyly with a repute of leanings toward Universalism.
This led to a brief discussion of the old and new theology—Princeton standing for the old with its definition of Christianity as "a piece of information given supernaturally and miraculously"; Andover standing for the new—so alleged Whittaker—with many polite and ingenious evasions of this proposition without actually repudiating it.
The Unitarian, however, was held to be the least bit too literal in his treatment of propositions not his own.
Then came Pleydell, another high-church Episcopalian who, over his chop and a modest glass of claret, declared earnest war upon the whole Hegel-Darwinian-Wellhausen school. His method of attack was to state baldly the destructive conclusions of that school—that most of the books of the Old Testament are literary frauds, intentionally misrepresenting the development of religion in Israel; that the whole Mosaic code is a later fabrication and its claim to have been given in the wilderness an historical falsehood. From this he deduced that a mere glance at the Bible, as the higher critics explain it, must convince the earnest Christian that he can have no share in their views. "Deprive Christianity of its supernatural basis," he said, "and you would have a mere speculative philosophy. Deny the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden, and the Atonement becomes meaningless. If we have not incurred God's wrath through Adam's disobedience, we need no Saviour. That is the way to meet the higher criticism, " he concluded earnestly.
As the only rule of the association was that no man should talk long upon any matter, Floud, the fiery and aggressive little Baptist, hereupon savagely reviewed a late treatise on the ethnic Trinities, put out by a professor of ecclesiastical history in a New England theological seminary. Floud marvelled that this author could retain his orthodox standing, for he viewed the Bible as a purely human collection of imperfect writings, the wonder-stories concerning the birth and death of Jesus as deserving no credence, and denied to Christianity any supernatural foundation. Polytheism was shown to be the soil from which all trinitarian conceptions naturally spring—the Brahmanic, Zoroastrian, Homeric, Plotinian, as well as the Christian trinity— the latter being a Greek idea engrafted on a Jewish stalk. The author's conclusion, by which he reached "an undogmatic gospel of the spirit, independent of all creeds and forms—a gospel of love to God and man, with another Trinity of Love, Truth and Freedom," was particularly irritating to the disturbed Baptist, who spoke bitterly of the day having dawned when the Church's most dangerous enemies were those critical vipers whom she had warmed in her own bosom.
Suffield, the gaunt, dark, but twinkling-eyed Methodist, also sniffed at the conclusion of the ethnic-trinities person. "We have an age of substitutes," he remarked. "We have had substitutes for silk and sealskin—very creditable substitutes, so I have been assured by a lady in whom I have every confidence—substitutes for coffee, for diamonds—substitutes for breakfast which are widely advertised—substitutes for medicine—and now we are coming to have substitutes for religion—even a substitute for hell!"
Hereupon he told of a book he had read, also written by an orthodox professor of theology, in which the argument, advanced upon scriptural evidence, was that the wicked do not go into endless torment, but ultimately shrivel and sink into a state of practical unconsciousness. Yet the author had been unable to find any foundation for universalism. This writer, Suffield explained, holds that the curtain falls after the judgment on a lost world. Nor is there probation for the soul after the body dies. The Scriptures teach the ruin of the final rejecters of Christ; Christ teaches plainly that they who reject the Gospel will perish in the endless darkness of night. But eternal punishment does not necessarily mean eternal suffering; hence the hypothesis of the soul gradually shrivelling for the sin of its unbelief.
The amiable Presbyterian sniffed at this as a sentimental quibble. Punishment ceases to be punishment when it is not felt—one cannot punish a tree or an unconscious soul. But this was the spirit of the age. With the fires out in hell, no wonder we have an age of sugar-candy morality and cheap sentimentalism.
But here the Unitarian wickedly interrupted, to remind his Presbyterian brother that his own church had quenched those very certain fires that once burned under the pit in which lay the souls of infants unbaptised.
The amiable Presbyterian, not relishing this, still amiably threw the gauntlet down to Father Riley, demanding the Catholic view of the future of unbaptised children.
The speech of the latter was a mellow joy—a south breeze of liquid consonants and lilting vowels finely articulated. Perhaps it was not a little owing to the good man's love for what he called "oiling the rusty hinges of the King's English with a wee drop of the brogue"; but, if so, the oil was so deftly spread that no one word betrayed its presence. Rather was his whole speech pervaded by this soft delight, especially when his cherubic face, his pink cheeks glistening in certain lights with a faint silvery stubble of beard, mellowed with his gentle smile. It was so now, even when he spoke of God's penalties for the souls of reprobate infants.
"All theologians of the Mother Church are agreed," replied the gracious father, "first, that infants dying unbaptised are excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven. Second, that they will not enjoy the beatific vision outside of heaven. Third, that they will arise with adults and be assembled for judgment on the last day. And, fourth, that after the last day there will be but two states, namely: a state of supernatural and supreme felicity and a state of what, in a wide sense, we may call damnation."
Purlingly the good man went on to explain that damnation is a state admitting of many degrees; and that the unbaptised infant would not suffer in that state the same punishment as the adult reprobate. While the latter would suffer positive pains of mind and body for his sins, the unfortunate infant would doubtless suffer no pain of sense whatever. As to their being exempt from the pain of loss, grieving over their exclusion from the sight of God and the glories of His Kingdom, it is more commonly held that they do not suffer even this; that even if they know others are happier than themselves, they are perfectly resigned to God's will and suffer no pain of loss in regard to happiness not suited to their condition.
The Presbyterian called upon them to witness that his church was thus not unique in attaining this sentimentality regarding reprobate infants.
Then little Floud cited the case of still another heretic within the church, a professor in a western Methodist university, who declared that biblical infallibility is a superstitious and hurtful tradition; that all the miracles are mere poetic fancies, incredible and untrue—even irreverent; and that all spiritual truth comes to man through his brain and conscience. Modern preaching, according to the book of this heretic, lacks power because so many churches cling to the tradition that the Bible is infallible. It is the golden calf of their worship; the palpable lie that gives the ring of insincerity to all their moral exhortations.
So the talk flowed on until the good men agreed that a peculiarity of the time lay in this: that large numbers of ministers within the church were publishing the most revolutionary heresies while still clinging to some shred of their tattered orthodoxy.
Also they decided that it would not be without interest to know what belief is held by the man of common education and intelligence—the man who behaves correctly but will not go to church.
Here Father Riley sweetly reminded them—"No questions are asked in the Mother Church, gentlemen, that may not be answered with authority. In your churches, without an authority superior to mere reason, destructive questions will be asked more and more frequently."
Gravely they agreed that the church was losing its hold on the people. That but for its social and charitable activities, its state would be alarming.
"Your churches!" Father Riley corrected with suave persistence. "No church can endure without an infallible head."
Again and again during the meal Bernal had been tempted to speak. But each time he had been restrained by a sense of his aloofness. These men, too, were wheels within the machine, each revolving as he must. They would simply pity him, or be amused.
More and more acutely was he coming to feel the futility, the crass, absurd presumption of what he had come back to undertake. From the lucid quiet of his mountain haunts he had descended into a vale where antiquated cymbals clashed in wild discordance above the confusing clatter of an intricate machinery—machinery too complicated to be readjusted by a passing dreamer. In his years of solitude he had grown to believe that the teachers of the world were no longer dominated by that ancient superstition of a superhumanly malignant God. He had been prepared to find that the world-ideal had grown more lofty in his absence, been purified by many eliminations into a God who, as he had once said to Nance, could no more spare the soul of a Hottentot than the soul of a pope. Yet here was a high type of the priest of the Mother Church, gentle, Godly, learned, who gravely and as one having authority told how God would blight forever the soul of a child unbaptised, thus imputing to Deity a regard for mechanical rites that would constitute even a poor human father an incredible monster.
Yet the marvel of it seemed to him to lie in this: that the priest himself lived actually a life of loving devotion and sacrifice in marked opposition to this doctrine of formal cruelty; that his church, more successfully than any other in Christendom, had met the needs of humanity, coming closer to men in their sin and sickness, ministering to them with a deeper knowledge, a more affectionate intimacy, than any other. That all these men of God should hold formally to dogmas belying the humaneness of their actual practise—here was the puzzling anomaly that might well give pause to any casual message-bringer. Struggle as he might, it was like a tangling mesh cast over him—this growing sense of his own futility.
Along with this conviction of his powerlessness there came to him a new sense of reliance upon Nancy. Unconsciously at first he turned to her for sunlight, big views and quiet power, for the very stimulus he had been wont to draw from the wide, high reaches of his far-off valley. Later, came a conscious turning, an open-eyed bringing of all his needs, to lay them in her waiting lap. Then it was he saw that on that first night at Edom her confidence and enthusiasm had been things he leaned upon quite naturally, though unwittingly. The knowledge brought him a vague unrest. Furtive, elusive impulses, borne to him on the wings of certain old memories—memories once resolutely put away in the face of his one, big world-desire—now came to trouble him.
It seemed that one must forever go in circles. With fine courage he had made straight off to toil up the high difficult paths of the ideal. Never had he consciously turned, nor even swerved. Yet here he was at length upon his old tracks, come again to the wondering girl.
Did it mean, then, that his soul was baffled—or did it mean that his soul would not suffer him to baffle it, try as he might? Was that girl of the old days to greet him with her wondering eyes at the end of every high path? These and many other questions he asked himself.
At the close of this day he sought her, eager for the light of her understanding eyes—for a certain waiting sympathy she never withheld. As she looked up now with a kind of composed gladness, it seemed to him that they two alone, out of all the world, were sanely quiet. Silently he sank into a chair near her and they sat long thus, feeling no need of words. At last she spoke.
"Are you coming nearer to it, Bernal?"
He laughed.
"I'm farther away than ever, Nance. Probably there's but one creature in this city to-day as out of place as I am. He's a big, awkward, country-looking dog, and he was lost on Broadway. Did you ever see a lost dog in a city street? This fellow was actually in a panic, wholly demoralised, and yet he seemed to know that he must conceal it for his own safety. So he affected a fine air of confidence, of being very busy about an engagement for which he feared he might be late. He would trot swiftly along for half a block, then pause as if trying to recall the street number; then trot a little farther, and stop to look back as if the other party to his engagement might happen along from that direction. It was a splendid bit of acting, and it deceived them all, in that street of mutterers and hard faces. He was like one of them, busy and hurried, but apparently cool, capable, and ominously alert. Only, in his moments of indecision, his eyes shifted the least bit nervously, as if to note whether the real fear he felt were detected, and then I could read all his secret consternation.
"I'm the same lost dog, Nance. I feel as he felt every time I go into that street where the poor creatures hurry and talk to themselves from sheer nervous fatigue."
He ceased speaking, but she remained silent, fearing lest she say too little or too much.
"Nance," he said presently with a slow, whimsical glance, "I'm beginning to suspect that I'm even more of a fool than Hoover thought me—and he was rather enthusiastic about it, I assure you!"
To which she at length answered musingly:
"If God makes us fools, doubtless he likes to have us thorough. Be a great fool, Bernal. Don't be a small one."