Читать книгу The High Way - Caroline Atwater Mason - Страница 10

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The Reverend Whitney Chance’s urbanity was in marked abeyance on a certain evening early in February. To be sure, with diplomatic relations between the United States and Germany trembling in the balance, public tension was not unnaturally reflected in the mood of men at home as well as abroad. A man had an excuse if his temper was a bit on edge.

The dinner hour in the Chance household, half-past six, was nearly at hand. Madame Chance sat alone in some state in the drawing-room, a sense of expectancy obviously upon her. Dr. Chance from pacing his study, a room beyond the drawing-room, suddenly appeared between the velvet hangings of the doorway, watch in hand, with the question:

“Can you tell me where Nancy is?”

“She went up-stairs a few minutes ago, Whitney. She had to meet the six o’clock train from New York, you know. Miss Prudhomme came in with her just now and they have gone to dress for dinner.”

“You say I know that Nancy had to meet the six o’clock train? I certainly did not know anything of the sort. But I heard somebody come in. Is not Nancy going to the church where she belongs for the Social Centre Banquet to-night?” Dr. Chance’s brow grew darker as he spoke. “You appear to be expecting company, I see. I confess to being puzzled. Who, pray, is Miss Prudhomme? If there is a dinner party here to-night it would seem to me to be in order that I should be informed of the fact.”

While he was speaking Dr. Chance’s daughter had entered the room dressed in light evening costume, her head held a bit high, a slight smile on her lips.

“Dear Daddy,” she began gaily, “you certainly have been awfully shabbily treated, but please remember that when you went out at noon you did not expect to return until after you had married those people out in Magnolia, had been to the church affair and all.”

“In short,” Chance retorted cynically, “I was thought well out of the way and so you went to work to get up a dinner party instead of going to the church to do there what I depended upon you for. I am not surprised. Not in the least surprised. These things happen so often now——”

“Father!” Nancy Chance’s voice was very low, but a sudden colour flared out in her cheeks. She crossed to where her father stood.

“Please, Father! Some one has just come in, Mary Minot, probably, and I think Mr. Conrad will be here, but it is not a dinner party, not in the very least.”

“I suppose young Shannon is among your guests?” her father returned.

“No, he is not,” Nancy replied. “He is taking your place at the church. I would not even ask him. As far as I am concerned I consider, Father, that I have done my part. I worked down at the church steadily, directing the folding of bandages, from ten till three to-day. After that I came back here, and made a gallon of chicken salad with my own hands. I carried the salad to the church and worked there an hour longer setting tables. It seems to me that I am entitled for the evening to keep an engagement elsewhere, especially an engagement made months ago.”

Although her tone remained quiet and respectful every line in the girl’s face and figure expressed defiance.

Dr. Chance’s eyelids flickered.

“May I be so bold as to ask what this engagement is?” he inquired loftily.

“It is the February public meeting of our Club, the one important meeting of the month. And we engaged Miss Prudhomme, a distinguished editor of New York, weeks ago to be present.” A close observer would have perceived that although this announcement was made unhesitatingly and with perfect aplomb the speaker’s guard was now doubled.

“Aha! the Mortals!” Dr. Chance shrugged his shoulders, turned on his heel and crossed to the fireplace. “All is explained, my dear. Nothing further need be said. All Souls’ cannot expect to compete.” His lips were drawn in an unpleasant smile, he waved his hands with a light gesture, as one dismissing a subject. But already Nancy had turned to receive her guest of honour who now stood on the threshold. Mary Minot followed by Barton Conrad were in the background.

The startling vision of Miss Prudhomme drove every trace of cynicism from Dr. Chance’s expression and gesture. A smile, welcoming and benign, brightened his eyes and curved his lips as he advanced with winning courtesy to meet his daughter’s guest.

The guest was a woman neither young nor old, but of slight, graceful figure, of exquisitely produced complexion, and exquisitely coiffured head. She wore a gown of gauzy white. The bodice of the dress retreated from sight in the back, and, held over the shoulder only by a wisp of lace, displayed in abundant measure the whiteness and delicate curves of breast and shoulder and arms. Miss Prudhomme’s modiste had not made the mistake of leaving anything superfluous in her costume.

Nancy Chance, introductions effected and the word given to advance upon the dining-room, noted with mordant sarcasm in her own smile her father’s flattering devotion to Miss Prudhomme as he seated her on his right hand at the table. Urbanity was all to the fore again. The day was won plainly enough, but Nancy liked little the flavour of her petty victory.

Mary Minot, on her host’s left, found herself, dinner under way, wholly at liberty to respond to the rather eager conversational overtures of Conrad. Miss Prudhomme absorbed Dr. Chance’s attention exclusively and quite evidently to their mutual satisfaction, she being greatly struck by his person and manner, he by the discovery that she was connected with the influential and very modern Free Lance. Finding that her department on this organ was that of Current Literature, Dr. Chance lost no time in leading Miss Prudhomme to discuss his chances of recognition should he himself embark on a literary venture.

“The fact is, Miss Prudhomme,” he confided with a smile of engaging frankness, “every man wants to write a book,—one book. My only especial excuse for such an ambition is that I have really something to write about.”

This, Miss Prudhomme, with a look of flattering absorbedness in what was coming, could not for an instant doubt.

“You see,” he went on, “in the twenty-five years in which I have served as a Christian minister, a tremendous change has come over the purpose as well as the practices of my profession.”

“How interesting,” murmured Miss Prudhomme.

“When I started out the whole animus was individualistic, subjective. It was a man-to-man, or I might even say a soul-to-soul business, for it concerned theoretically the everlasting destiny of each person coming into my purview. To-day the emphasis is transferred from the individual to the community, from the part to the whole. It is upon the Social Gospel.”

“I see,” breathed Miss Prudhomme who in fact saw nothing.

“Our present outlook is immeasurably broader, as you perceive,” continued Dr. Chance impressively. “We no longer stress dogma or the personal element in religion. It is the onward sweep of progress in human society which engages us. Naturally the old-fashioned evangelistic element passes from sight. The Bible, likewise, falls into its proper place, as we grasp the great truth that revelation is not static, that God speaks in every age in the hearts of men with equal significance. Do you follow?”

“Oh, I think so, Dr. Chance.” Miss Prudhomme hastened to collect her widely wandering attention at this unexpected challenge.

“The book which I should like to write, if I could venture to believe there would be a welcome for it, might be entitled ‘The Larger Ministry.’”

“Indeed, Dr. Chance,” responded his guest, “such a book as you would write on a theme so vital, I do not hesitate to say, would be sure of a warm welcome. Do tell me more of what you have in mind.”

Miss Prudhomme’s glance aside, as she settled into a listening attitude, conveyed to her the fact that Dr. Chance’s daughter sitting by her, and the young man and woman vis-à-vis, were closely engaged in discussion of what seemed to be to them subjects of liveliest interest quite other than the Social Gospel. She would have relished participation in their gay young interchange of wit and repartee. Still she was convinced that her handsome and extremely polished host was the dominant figure in the group. With this she would do well to be satisfied for the moment.

But hardly was the salad course reached when a summons came for Dr. Chance. The car sent to convey him to a wedding in a suburb of the city was at the door.

“And after the marriage I must be in evidence at our church where a social event of great importance in the life of our coöperative development is on,” commented the clergyman as he rose and made his apologies. “I could have wished,” he began, but a glance at Nancy’s face with its faintly quizzical expression checked him in revealing even the shadow of a desire to exchange the church appointment for a gathering of the Mortals.

The moment’s silence which followed the exit of the head of the family was broken by Miss Prudhomme who, with a faint lifting of her eyebrows and a deprecating smile, exclaimed:

“Oh, I have tried so hard to understand! I wouldn’t for anything have Dr. Chance know what a pagan I am! He has been talking to me in the most fascinating way, and I have tried to look wise, but I hadn’t the least notion what it all meant. All about the change in the church, in his purposes as a minister, you know. But you see we don’t review religious books on the Free Lance and I am kept so busy working on general literature that I never have a moment to spend on such subjects myself. And I haven’t had time to go to church,—except to a wedding now and then,—in—oh,” breaking off with an infectious laugh, “I believe, in this presence, it wouldn’t do for me to say in how long. You would send me straight back to New York and I should never meet your Club at all. Which would be a blow!”

“No danger of that, Miss Prudhomme,” commented Nancy.

“But the rest of you, for all you prattled at such a rate among yourselves, must have got some sort of idea of what Dr. Chance was discussing. Do explain, Mr. Conrad, if that is your name. I believe you are a divinity student——?”

“Correct on both counts. What precisely do you wish me to do?” returned Conrad quietly.

“Do, in just a sentence explain what is this revolution in the church? What? also Why? But mind, only a sentence.”

“What you ask being impossible,” returned Conrad with a lightness matching her own, “I will prove it by saying most inadequately that just now emphasis is laid in many quarters upon Christianity as less a personal, individual concern than a social, communal matter. Will that do, Miss Minot?” he concluded, turning to meet the grave eyes of the girl at his side.

“What my father really means,” put in Nancy, not waiting for Mary Minot to speak, “is, that personal religion being dead, the ministers are trying to bury it as decently as they can with a lot of wreaths woven of social science, civic conscience, all that sort of thing. Very interesting, only, Miss Prudhomme, I am frightfully sorry, but we shall have to take our coffee on the fly or the Mortals will be in despair.”

“Is our car waiting?” asked Mrs. Chance.

“Yes. I heard it just now. It will take you to the church first, Grandmother, as soon as you are ready.”

Mrs. Chance hurriedly rose from the table, then paused and remarked with tightened lips:

“You see, Miss Prudhomme, there are still a few of us left old-fashioned enough to consider that church obligations hold first place. I wish you good-evening.”

The ball of the evening’s program at the Mortals’ gaily lighted and decorated chambers was set rolling without delay upon the arrival on the scene of the group from the Chance dinner table.

The Gregg twins, clad in the slightest and filmiest of supposedly Greek draperies, ushered in the series of experiments in self-expression by a rhythmic dance, daintily graceful, and dreamily sensuous. Their mother, in a costume which held its own for daring with that of the guest of honour, presided throughout the evening over an enormous punch bowl. The twins, having repeated their dance, an effervescent group flocked about their mother clamouring that she give heed to their ecstasies, also clamouring for punch.

“Yes, Dame and Pyth are dear in that number, aren’t they?” Mrs. Gregg could be heard in response. “They really have a lot of that adorable pagan insouciance in their temperament, I think, don’t you? Do let me fill your cup. Yes, they are a precious pair of pagans,—perfectly unprincipled rogues, you know! But I rather fancy them that way, myself.”

This and much more chatter of the kind was restrained only when the program’s continuance demanded attention. For Mrs. Gregg’s punch bowl was as inexhaustible as her sallies of capricious humour, and as ready for all who came. And all came and came more than once, save two or three.

Conrad sat with Mary Minot in a far corner.

“Can you tell me what I am here for?” he said to her in an undertone as Nancy Chance prepared to give a violin solo. “This doesn’t look like my kind of a crowd. Perhaps it’s fortunate that I have to leave in forty minutes to get a train.”

“You are here to express yourself,” was Mary’s rejoinder. “You know self-expression is what the Mortals exist for,—explicitly, avowedly. Many of us, you see, have no other chance but this. There will be a free-for-all talk after Miss Prudhomme.”

“How are you going to express yourself?” he asked. “I fancy it will be less freely than some of our fellow Mortals. I hope you are going to read one of your poems. I never heard but one, you know.”

Conrad’s glance as he spoke disturbed Mary with recollection of Nancy Chance’s casual assurances that he was in love with her.

“Yes, I suppose I shall have to read when Nancy finishes. I promised her I would. But someway to-night I wish I was out of it.”

“You would,” was the concise reply. But the first notes of the violin came to them seeming to appeal through the vibrant air for stillness. “I should if you were not here.”

During the rendition of the violin solo Dr. Hugh Gregg, a rare visitor to the Chambers of the Mortals, strayed in. He seated himself quietly near the door and wore an air calculated to discourage easy approach.

When the music ended, however, he was first to take Nancy by the hand and his smile of approval spoke of a somewhat intimate sympathy between them.

“Very beautiful, very truly given. I came for this,” he said rather low. “Thank you, Mischance.” Nancy laughed a little as he so called her.

The poem which Mary Minot read, and which Barton Conrad listened to with eager ears, was a minor poem on a minor key, full of fugitive grace. It was vigorously applauded and encored, but Mary persisted in effacing herself as swiftly and noiselessly as possible.

A few more experiments in self-expression by the Mortals themselves were followed by a brief interval in which unquestionably all present were engaged in personally expressing themselves to the top of their bent. Then, suddenly, a few notes struck on the piano brought the company back to their places. In the expectant stillness following, Miss Prudhomme was introduced with flattering portrayal of her conspicuous achievement in the field of literary criticism.

Her attack proved her mastery of her own resources, of her theme, and of her audience. Audacious wit and penetrating, if cynical snap judgment were joined to an apparently limitless familiarity with the general literature of the day. The common run of these books she scourged with biting sarcasm for all-pervading mediocrity. The twofold curse of current literature she described as its superabundance in quantity and its mediocrity in quality. To confine herself to fiction:—never had there been such enormous output; never fiction of such all-pervading banality. She cautioned young writers in the audience to wait long and train themselves with inexorable severity before they ventured to sally forth before the public with their experiments.

“It is not difficult,” she proceeded, “just now, to find a publisher even for a poor or a crude book. If it has certain popular elements and ‘plays to the galleries’ on the right key any book can get a chance. The publishers will see to it that its wrapper or morning-jacket, so to speak, describes it as epoch-making, the author as headed straight for immortality. They will secure a few press notices to the same effect. Then the book is launched on its brief life,—possibly six or eight weeks at most,—and disappears promptly into the gulf which must be bottomless since the present product of ineptitude never fills it up.

“But in the midst of this noisy torrent of mediocre books,—I am still speaking of fiction in particular,” proceeded Miss Prudhomme, “we have a few exceptions, novels whose quality ought to overawe the average writer into silence. Let me mention two outstanding books which in themselves alone redeem our day and our day’s standards. The first, Catherine Conant, is written by a well-known Englishwoman who has long since thrown aside the shackles of convention. The book pierces to the deep places of the heart, the mainsprings of a woman’s soul. It sheds upon the problem of the freedom of the human spirit an incomparable illumination. While it sounds the deeps of passion, shirking nothing, giving full emphasis to the urge of the physical, it is absolutely clean, as it is splendidly courageous. In short it is a masterpiece of art.

“But truer than truth, as has been said, stronger, because serener, than Catherine Conant, is Wilmott Hutton’s new novel,—I trust every one here has read it,—I speak, of course, of The Law of Liberty. One stands wordless and overcome in the presence of this book. It is beyond our criticism, for its calm scientific temper is capable of regenerating mankind. In it we hear the cosmic laughter of the universe at the imbecilities of Puritanism. It is, I say it boldly, the highest point thus far reached in our generation in English fiction.”

Much more of like purport filled out the lines of Miss Prudhomme’s performance. It closed amid a furore of excited applause, during which Conrad slipped unnoticed from the room.