It seemed to Millard that Phillida would be the better for seeing more
of life. He would not have admitted to himself that he could wish her
any whit different from what she was. But he was nevertheless disposed
to mold her tastes into some likeness to his own--it is the impulse of
all advanced lovers and new husbands. It was unlucky that he should have
chosen for the time of beginning his experiment the very evening of the
day on which she had heard Mrs. Frankland. Phillida's mind was all aglow
with the feelings excited by the address when Millard called with the
intention of inviting her to attend the theater with him.
He found a far-awayness in her mood which made him keep back his
proposal for a while. He did not admire her the less in her periods of
exaltation, but he felt less secure of her when she soared into a region
whither he could not follow. He hesitated, and discussed the weather of
the whole week past, smiting his knee gently with his gloves in the
endeavor to obtain cheerfulness by affecting it. She, on her part, was
equally eager to draw Millard into the paths of feeling and action she
loved so well, and while he was yet trifling with his gloves and the
weather topic, she began:
"Charley, I do wish you could have heard Mrs. Frankland's talk to-day."
Phillida's hands were turned palms downward on her lap as she spoke;
Millard fancied that their lines expressed the refinement of her
organization.
"Why doesn't she admit men?" he said, smiling. "Here you, who don't need
any betterment, will become so good by and by that you'll leave me
entirely behind. We men need evangelizing more than women do. Why does
Mrs. Frankland shut us out from her good influences?"
"Oh! you know she's an Episcopalian, and Episcopalians don't think it
right for women to set up to teach men."
"I'm Episcopalian enough, but if a woman sets up as a preacher at all, I
don't see why she shouldn't preach to those that need it most. It's only
called a 'Bible reading'"--here Charley carefully spread his gloves
across his right knee--"there's no law against reading the Bible to
men?" he added, looking up with a quick winning smile. "Now you see she
turns the scripture topsy-turvy. Instead of women having to inquire of
their husbands at home, men are obliged to inquire of their wives and
sweethearts. I don't mind that, though. I'd rather hear it from you than
from Mrs. Frankland any day." And he gathered up his gloves, and leaned
back in his chair.
Phillida smiled, and took this for an invitation to repeat to him part
of what Mrs. Frankland had said. She related the story of Elizabeth
Fry's work in Newgate, as Mrs. Frankland had told it, she retold Mrs.
Frankland's version of Florence Nightingale in the hospital, and then
she paused.
"There, Charley," she said deprecatingly, "I can't tell these things
with half the splendid effect that Mrs. Frankland did. But it made a
great impression on me. I mean to try to be more useful."
"You? I don't see how you can be any better than you are, my dear. That
kind of talk is good for other people, but it isn't meant for you."
"Don't say that; please don't. But Mrs. Frankland made a deep impression
on all the people at Mrs. Van Horne's."
"At Mrs. Van Horne's?" he asked, with curiosity mingled with surprise.
"Yes; I went with Mrs. Hilbrough."
"Whew! Has Mrs. Frankland got in there?" he said, twirling his cane
reflectively. "I hadn't heard it."
"It isn't quite fair for you to say 'got in there,' is it, Charley? Mrs.
Frankland was invited by Mrs. Van Horne to give her readings at her
house, and she thought it might do good," said Phillida, unwilling to
believe that anybody she liked could be more worldly than she was
herself.
"I did not mean to speak slightingly of Mrs. Frankland," he said; "I
suppose she is a very good woman. But I know she asked Mrs. Hilbrough to
let her read in her house. I only guessed that she must have managed
Mrs. Van Horne in some way. It is no disgrace for her to seek to give
her readings where she thinks they will do good."
"Did she ask Mrs. Hilbrough?" said Phillida.
"Mrs. Hilbrough told me so, and the Van Horne opening may have been one
of Mrs. Hilbrough's clever contrivances. _That_ woman is a perfect
general. This reading at Mrs. Van Horne's must be a piece of her fine
work."
Just why this view of the case should have pained Phillida she could
hardly have told. She liked to dwell in a region of high ideals, and she
hated the practical necessities that oblige high ideals to humble
themselves before they can be incarnated into facts. There could be no
harm in Mrs. Frankland's seeking to reach the people she wished to
address, but the notion of contrivance and management for the promotion
of a mission so lofty made that mission seem a little shop-worn and
offended Phillida's love of congruity. Then, too, she felt that to
Millard Mrs. Frankland was not so worshipful a figure as to herself, and
a painful lack of concord in thought and purpose between her lover and
herself was disclosed. The topic was changed, but the two did not get
into the same groove of thought during the evening.
Even though a lover, Millard did not lose his characteristic
thoughtfulness. Knowing that early rest was important for the mother,
and conjecturing that she slept just behind the sliding-doors, Charley
did not allow himself to outstay his time. It was only when he had taken
his hat to leave that he got courage to ask Phillida if she were
engaged for the next afternoon. When she said no, he proposed the
theater. Phillida would have refused the invitation an hour before, but
in the tenderness of parting she had a remorseful sense of pain
regarding the whole interview. With a scrupulousness quite
characteristic she had begun to blame herself. To refuse the invitation
to the Irving matinee would be to add to an undefined estrangement which
both felt but refused to admit, and so, with her mind all in a jumble,
she said: "Yes; certainly. I'll go if you would like me to, Charley."
But she lay awake long that night in dissatisfaction with herself. She
had gained nothing with Charley, her ideals had been bruised and broken,
her visions of future personal excellence were now confused, and she was
committed to give valuable time to what seemed to her a sort of
dissipation. Would she never be able to emulate Mrs. Fry? Would the
lofty aspiration she had cherished prove beyond her reach? And then,
once, just once, there intruded the unwelcome thought that her
engagement with Millard was possibly a mistake, and that it might defeat
the great ends she had in view. The thought was too painful for her; she
banished it instantly, upbraiding herself for her disloyalty, and
replacing the image of her lover on its pedestal again. Was not Charley
the best of men? Had he not been liberal to the Mission and generous to
Mina Schulenberg? Then she planned again the work they would be able to
accomplish together, she diligent, and he liberal, until thoughts of
this sort mingled with her dreams.
She went to see Irving's _Shylock_. The spectacular street scenes
interested her; the boat that sailed so gracefully on the dry land of
the stage excited her curiosity; and she felt the beauty and artistic
delicacy of the _Portia_. But she was ill at ease through it all. She
was too much in the mood of a moralist to see the play merely as a work
of art; she could not keep her mind from reverting to matters having
nothing to do with the play, such as the versatility of an actress's
domestic relations. And she could not but feel that in so far as the
play diverted her, it did so at the expense of that strenuousness of
endeavor for extraordinary usefulness which her mind had taken under the
spell of Mrs. Frankland's speech.
"Didn't you like it?" said Millard, when they had reached the fresh air
of the street and disentangled themselves from the debouching crowd--a
noble pair to look upon as they walked thus in the late afternoon.
"Yes," said Phillida, spreading her parasol against the slant beams of
the declining sun, which illuminated the red brick walls and touched the
lofty cornices and the worn stones of the driveway with high lights,
while now this and now that distant window seemed to burn with ruddy
fire--"yes; I couldn't help enjoying Miss Terry's _Portia_. I am no
judge, but as a play I think it must have been good."
"Why do you say 'as a play'?" he asked. "What could it be but a play?"
He punctuated his question by tapping the pavement with his cane.
Phillida laughed a little at herself, but added with great seriousness:
"Would you think worse of me, Charley, if I should tell you that I don't
quite like plays?" And she looked up at him in a manner at once
affectionate and protesting.
Millard could not help giving her credit for the delicacy she showed in
her manner of differing from him.
"No," he said; "I couldn't but think the best of you in any case,
Phillida, but you might make me think worse of myself, you know, for I
do like plays. And more than that," he said, turning full upon her, "you
might succeed in making me think that you thought the worse of me, and
that would be the very worst of all."
This was said in a half-playful tone, but to Phillida it opened again
the painful vision of a possible drawing apart through a contrariety of
tastes. She therefore said no more in that direction, but contented
herself with some general criticisms on Irving's _Shylock_, the
incongruities in which she pointed out, and her criticisms, which were
tolerably acute, excited Millard's admiration; and it is not to be
expected that a lover's admiration should maintain any just proportion
to that which calls it forth.
Again the Thursday sermon at Mrs. Van Horne's came around, and again
Phillida was restored to a white heat of zeal mingled with a rueful
distrust of her own power to hold herself to the continuous pursuit of
her ideal. Millard, perceiving that she dreaded to be invited again,
refrained from offering to take her to the theater. He waited several
weeks, and then ventured, with some hesitation, to ask her to go with
him to see one of the Wagner operas. He was frightened at his own
boldness in asking, and he kept his eyes upon the ferule of his cane
with which he was tapping the toe of his boot, afraid to look up while
she answered. She saw how timidly he asked, and her heart was cruelly
wounded by the necessity she felt to refuse; but she had fortified
herself to resist just such a temptation.
"I'd rather not go, Charley," she said slowly, in accents so pleading
and so full of pain that Millard felt remorse that he should have
suggested such a thing.
But this traveling on divergent lines could not but have its effect upon
them. He was too well-mannered, she was too good, both were too
affectionate, for them to quarrel easily. But there took place something
that could hardly be called estrangement; it was rather what a Frenchman
might, with a refinement not possible in our idiom, call an
_eloignement_. In spite of their exertions to come together, they drew
apart. This process was interrupted by seasons of renewed tenderness.
But Phillida's zeal, favored by Mrs. Frankland's meetings, held her back
from those pursuits into which Millard would have drawn her, and only a
general interest in her altruistic aims was possible to him. Again and
again he made some exertion to enter into her pursuits, but he could
never get any farther than he could go by the aid of his check-book.
Once or twice she went with him to some public entertainment, but those
social pursuits to which he was habituated she avoided as dissipations.
Thus they loved each other, but it is pitiful to love as they did, while
unable to conceal from themselves that a gulf lay between the main
tastes and pursuits of the one and the other.