Mrs. Gouverneur concluded not to try her clever hand on Millard and
Phillida again. Pessimistic Philip could no longer reproach her for
having blasted his hopes, for he had a new chance if he chose to improve
it. But to improve any opportunity seemed to be out of Philip's power,
except perhaps the opportunity to spend his last available dollars on a
rare book. He had of late been seeking a chance to invest some hundreds
in a copy of Captain John Smith's "Generall Historie of Virginia,"
provided that he could find a copy with 1624 on the title-page. The 1626
was rare and almost, if not exactly, word for word the same as the 1624;
but it would not do. For there were already several twenty-sixes in this
country, and there was no fun in possessing a book that two or three
other people could boast of having. When not busy with his books Philip
was mostly crouched in an armchair in his library, or for a change
crouched in an armchair at the Terrapin Club--in either case smoking
and, as his mother believed, making profound reflections which might one
day come to something. For how could a bright-minded man like Philip
fail to bring forth something of value, seeing he bought expensive
books and gave so much of his time to meditation?
That Phillida should be specially asked to dine at her aunt's was rather
inevitable under the circumstances, and Mrs. Gouverneur saw to it that
she came when Philip was at home and when there was no other company.
This arrangement pleased Phillida; Uncle Gouverneur was dull enough, but
Cousin Philip was always interesting in talk, and a good fellow, if he
did spend his life in collecting books mostly of no particular value to
anybody but a curiosity-hunter, and in poking good-natured fun at other
people's cherished beliefs.
The meal was well-nigh finished when Philip said to his cousin who
confronted him--there were only four at the table:
"Phillida, I saw Mrs. Maginnis day before yesterday at Mrs.
Benthuysen's. She is still sounding your praises as a faith-healer, but
she confided to me that a pious girl and a minister's daughter ought not
to be proud. She suggested that you didn't get that from your father.
'Her pride comes from the mother's side, they tell me,' she said. 'How's
that, Mr. Gouverneur?' and she laughed at what she regarded a capital
drive at me."
Phillida was not pleased at the mention of Mrs. Maginnis. Since the
death of Wilhelmina, two weeks before, her mind had been disturbed as to
the substantial value of faith-cures. Dr. Beswick's rationalism on the
subject rose to trouble her. Happily she had not been sent for to visit
any new cases, the death of Wilhelmina, her first notable example,
having a little spoiled the charm of her success, as Dr. Beswick had
foreseen. Doubt had made her cowardly, and there lurked in her mind a
hope that she might no more be called upon to exercise her gift in the
direction of faith-healing, and that she might thus without the
necessity of a formal decision creep out of responsibility and painful
notoriety in a matter concerning which she could not always feel
absolutely sure of her ground. To this shrinking the revolt of her taste
against such getters-on as Miss Bowyer had contributed, for her mind was
after all that of a young woman, and in a young woman's mind taste is
likely to go for more than logic. To Philip's words about Mrs. Maginnis
she only replied:
"Curious woman, isn't she?"
"Yes," interposed Mrs. Gouverneur, desirous of turning the talk away
from what she saw was a disagreeable subject to Phillida--"yes; and I
don't see the use of taking such people into society in such a hurry,
merely because they _are_ exceedingly rich."
"Mrs. Maginnis is respectable enough," said Philip, "and interesting,"
he added with a laugh; "and I thought her the most brilliant of the
party at Mrs. Benthuysen's, taking her diamond necklace into the
account."
"Yes; no doubt she's entirely respectable," said Mrs. Gouverneur. "So
are ten thousand other people whom one doesn't care to meet in society.
It seems to me that New York society is too easy nowadays."
"It's not too easy toward the poor; eh, Phillida?"
"That's no great deprivation to the poor," said Phillida. "They could
not indulge in fashionable amusements anyhow, and some of the most
sensible among them believe that the families of fairly prosperous
workingmen are happier and more content than the rich."
"Certainly people in the social world are not examples of peace of
mind," said Philip. "For me, now, I would have sworn last week that I
should be as perfectly happy as a phoebe-bird on a chimneytop if I could
only get a John Smith of 1624, which I've been trying for so long. But I
got it yesterday, and now I'm just miserable again."
"You want something else?" queried Phillida, laughing.
"Indeed I do. You see the splendid John Smith looks lonesome. It needs a
complete set of De Bry's Voyages to keep it company. But I couldn't find
a complete De Bry for sale probably, and I couldn't afford to buy it if
I should stumble on it. John Smith has eaten up the remainder of my book
allowance for this year and nibbled about two hundred dollars out of
next year."
When dinner was over Philip said:
"Come up-stairs, Phillida, you and mother, and see my lovely old Captain
Smith in the very first edition, with the fresh-looking portrait of
Pocahontas as Lady Rebecca."
"You go, Phillida; I'll follow you in a minute," said Mrs. Gouverneur.
"The book is of the earliest impression known," went on Philip with
enthusiasm as he led the way up-stairs followed by his cousin, "and is
perfect throughout except that one page has been mended."
"Mended?" queried Phillida, as she followed Philip into his library and
sitting room. "Do they darn old books as they do old stockings?"
"Oh, yes! it is a regular trade to patch books."
Saying this, Philip turned up the gas, and then unlocked a glass case
which held what he called his "nuggets," and took down the two precious
volumes of the bravest and boastfullest of all the Smiths, laying them
tenderly on a table under the chandelier. Turning the leaves, he
directed Phillida's attention to one that seemed to have the slightest
discoloration of one corner; rather the corner seemed just perceptibly
less time-stained than the rest of the leaf.
"There," he said; "the most skillful mender in London did that."
"Did what?" said Phillida.
"Put on that corner. Isn't it a work of art?"
"I don't see that anything has been done there," said Phillida. "The
corner is ever so little paler than the rest, maybe."
"That is the new piece. The mender selected a piece of hand-made paper
of similar texture to the old, and stained the new piece as nearly to
the tint of the old leaf as possible. Then he beveled the edge of the
leaf, and made a reverse bevel on the piece, and joined them with
exquisite skill and pains."
Phillida held the leaf between her and the light, regarding it with
wonder, hardly able to believe that a piece had been affixed.
"But, Philip, how did he get a corner with the right printing on it? The
line where the two are joined seems to run through the middle of words
and even through the middle of letters."
"All the letters and parts of letters on the corner were made by the
hand of the mender. He has imitated the ink and the style of the ancient
letters. Take this magnifying glass and you may be able to detect the
difference between the hand-made letters in the new part and the printed
ones. But to the naked eye it is perfect."
"What a genius he must be!" said Phillida. "I should think that the book
would be worth more than if it had never been torn. Do they ever tear a
piece out just for the sake of mending it?"
"On the contrary, it would have added fifty dollars to the price of this
copy if the original page had been complete, or if it could have been
mended without a possibility of detection--say by a process of
faith-cure."
Philip said this laughing, as he set a chair for Phillida, and then sat
down himself.
"I beg pardon, Phillida. I oughtn't to jest about what you--feel--to be
sacred."
Phillida colored, and compressed her lips a little. Then she said:
"I don't think I ought to refuse to hear anything you have to say about
faith-cure, Philip. You evidently differ with me. But I want to know the
truth; and I--" here Phillida made a long pause, smoothing out the folds
of her gown the meanwhile. "I will tell you, Cousin Phil, that I am not
always so confident as I used to be about the matter."
Mrs. Gouverneur looked into the room at this moment, but perceiving
that the conversation had taken on a half-confidential tone, she only
said:
"I'll have to leave you with Philip a little longer, Phillida. I have
some things to see to," and went out again.
Philip went to a drawer of rare old prints, and turned them over rapidly
until he came to one of Charles II. touching for the king's evil.
"There," he said; "Charles was a liar, a traitor who took money to
betray the interests of his country, and a rake of the worst. You
wouldn't believe that he could cure sickness by any virtue in his royal
touch. Yet great doctors and clergymen of the highest ranks certify
incredible things regarding the marvelous cures wrought by him. If one
might believe their solemn assertions, more cures were wrought by him
than by any other person known to history. The only virtue that Charles
possessed was lodged in his finger-tips."
"How do you account for it?"
"The evidence of a cure is the obscurest thing in the world. People get
well by sheer force of nature in most cases. Every patent medicine and
every quack system is therefore able to count up its cures. Then, too,
many diseases are mere results of mental disturbance or depression. The
mind has enormous influence on the body. I know a doctor who cured a
woman that had not walked for years by setting fire to the bedding where
she lay and leaving her a choice to exert herself or be burned."
"But there are the cures by faith related in the Bible. I am afraid
that if I give up modern cures I must lose my faith in miracles," said
Phillida. An unusual tenderness in Philip's speech had dissipated her
reserve, and she was in a mood to lay bare her heart. In this last
remark she disclosed to Philip her main difficulty. With a mind like
hers such things are rather matters of association than of simple logic.
Religion and miracles were bound up in the same bundle in her mind. To
reject the latter was to throw away the former, and this, by another
habitual association in her mind, would have seemed equivalent to the
moral subversion of the universe. On the other hand she had associated
modern faith-healing with Scripture miracles; the rejection of
faith-cures involved therefore a series of consequences that seemed
infinitely disastrous.
If it had been merely an abstract question Philip would not have
hesitated to reject the miraculous altogether, particularly in any
conversation in which such a rejection would have yielded interesting
results. But Phillida's confiding attitude touched him profoundly. After
all, he deemed faith a very good thing for a woman; unbelief, like
smoking and occasional by-words, was appropriate only to the coarser
sex.
"Well," he replied evasively, "the Bible stands on a very different
ground. We couldn't examine the ancient miracles just as we do modern
faith-cures if we wished. The belief in Bible miracles is a poetic and
religious belief, and it does not involve any practical question of
action to-day. But faith-healing now is a matter of great
responsibility."
Philip spoke with a tremor of emotion in his voice. His cousin was
sitting at the other side of the table looking intently at him, and
doing her best to understand the ground of his distinction between
ancient and modern miracles, which Philip, agitated as he was by a
feeling that had no relation to the question, did not succeed in
clearing up quite to his own satisfaction. Abandoning that field
abruptly, he said:
"What I urge is that you ought not to trust too much to accidental
recoveries like that of the Maginnis child. If faith-healing is a
mistake it may do a great deal of harm."
Phillida's eyes fell to the table, and she fingered a paper-weight with
manifest emotion.
"What you say in regard to responsibility is true, Philip. But if you
have a power to heal, refusal is also a responsibility. I know I must
seem like a fool to the rest of you."
"No," said Philip, in a low, earnest voice; "you are the noblest of us
all. You are mistaken, but your mistake is the result of the best that
is in you; and, by George! Phillida, there is no better in anybody that
lives than there is in you."
This enthusiastic commendation, so unexpected by Phillida, who had felt
herself in some sense under the ban of her family, brought to the
parched and thirsty heart the utmost refreshment. She trembled visibly,
and tears appeared in her eyes.
"Thank you, Philip. I know the praise is not deserved, but your kindness
does me no end of good."
Mrs. Gouverneur came in at this moment. Phillida's eyes and Philip's
constraint showed her that something confidential had passed between
them, and she congratulated herself on the success of her plan, though
she could not divine the nature of the conversation. Phillida would not
be a brilliant match for Philip in a worldly point of view, but it had
long been a ruling principle with Mrs. Gouverneur that whatever Philip
wanted he was to have, if it were procurable, and as the husband of such
a woman as Phillida he ought to be a great deal happier than in mousing
among old books and moping over questions that nobody could solve.
Besides, Phillida possessed one qualification second to no other in Mrs.
Gouverneur's opinion--there could be no question that her family was a
first-rate one, at least upon the mother's side. The intrusion of a
third person at this moment produced a little constraint. To relieve
this Mrs. Gouverneur felt bound to talk of something.
"I scold Philip for wasting his time over old books and such trifles,"
she said to Phillida. "I wish you could persuade him out of it."
"Trifles!" exclaimed Philip. "Trifles are the only real consolation of
such beings as we are. They keep us from being crushed by the
immensities. If we were to spend our time chiefly about the momentous
things, life would become unendurable."
The conversation drifted to indifferent subjects, and Philip talked with
an unwonted gayety that caused Phillida to forget her anxieties, while
Mrs. Gouverneur wondered what change had come over her son that he
should feel so much elation. The confidence and affection that Phillida
had exhibited while conversing with him this evening consoled Philip for
the misery of having to live, and his cheerfulness lasted throughout her
visit. At its close he walked towards her home, with her hand upon his
arm, in an atmosphere of hope which he had not been accustomed to
breathe. At the door Phillida said:
"Good-night, Cousin Philip. Thank you for the kind advice you have given
me. I don't think I shall agree with it, but I'll think about it." Then
in a low voice she added, "If I have made a mistake it has cost me
dear--nobody knows how dear."
After he had left her Philip's buoyancy declined. These last words,
evidently full of regrets as regarded her relation with Charley, gave
him a twinge of his old jealousy and restored him to his habitual
discouragement.