THE WORLD IS STILL DECEIVED
Merchant of Venice, iii. 2.
However much or little the ill-starred letter of Mrs. Wilson may have
had to do with it, the fact was that both houses of the convention
elected Mr. Strathmore by majorities sufficiently large to satisfy even
his friends. The lay delegates were more generally in his favor than
the clergy, which circumstance gave for a time some shadowy hope to the
high-church party that the House of Bishops might refuse to confirm the
election; but whatever consolation was derived from such an expectation
was of short duration. The election was ratified, and almost
immediately preparations were begun for the consecration of the new
bishop.
Father Frontford remarked to an interviewer at the close of the
convention that "it was not the least happy of the incidents of the
election that Mr. Strathmore had been chosen by a majority so decided,
since it indicated clearly the wishes of the church;" and he used his
influence to prevent any attempt to induce the House of Bishops to
oppose the choice of the convention. As soon as the matter was settled
he called upon Mr. Strathmore and offered his congratulations in person.
"It is true that I would have prevented your election had I been able,"
he said frankly; "but that was entirely a question of church polity. I
hardly need say how complete is my confidence in your sincerity and
your ability."
"Brother," Mr. Strathmore replied, with that smile whose charm no man
could resist, "I thank you for coming, and I thank you for your
generous words. One thing we may be sure of and be grateful to God for.
The church is certainly too great and too stable to be shaken by the
mistakes of any one man. If we differ sometimes about the best way of
showing it outwardly, we at least are one in wishing the best interests
of religion and of humanity."
Father Frontford had had some difficulty in soothing Mrs. Wilson after
the election. She declared vehemently that the House of Bishops should
not confirm Mr. Strathmore.
"I will go to New York myself," she announced. "I know I can manage the
Metropolitan. If he's on our side we can prevent that infidel
Strathmore from getting a majority."
It is possible that Father Frontford, with all his decision, might have
been unable to prevent some demonstration, but Dr. Wilson quietly
remarked to his wife:--
"Elsie, we've had enough of this bishop racket. I'm devilish tired of
the whole thing, and I wish you'd find a new amusement."
"But, Chauncy," she responded, "think how maddening it is to be beaten!
And as for that Fred Rangely, I could dig out his eyes and pour in hot
lead!"
Wilson chuckled gleefully.
"You played your private theatricals just a little prematurely. It was
devilish clever of him to get back at you that way; but that letter has
made newspaper talk enough about you, and you'd better drop church
politics. Isn't it time to get your stud into shape for the summer?"
Elsie shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't know. I hate to give it up while there's a fighting chance.
The campaign has been a lot of fun. However, I suppose you are right.
You have a dreadfully aggravating way of being. Besides, I am pretty
tired of parsons, and horses wear better."
She therefore managed to secure a visiting English duke with a
characteristically shady reputation, gave the most brilliant dinner of
the season in his honor, and retired to her country place in a blaze of
glory; finding some consolation for all her disappointments in the
purchase of a couple of new racers with pedigrees far longer than that
of the duke.
Easter came that year almost at its earliest, and it was therefore
found possible to have the consecration of the new bishop in June. To
it were assembled all the dignitaries of the church. Boston for a
couple of days overflowed with men in ecclesiastical garb; and if the
general public was not deeply stirred by the importance of the event,
all those connected with it were full of interest and excitement.
Mrs. Wilson surprised her friends by returning to town and reopening
her house for the consecration week. She announced to her husband her
intention of doing this as they sat in the library at their country
place while Dr. Wilson smoked his final pipe for the night. They had
been dining out, and had driven home in the moonlight, chatting of the
people they had seen and the gossip they had heard. Elsie was in high
spirits, amusing her husband by her satirical remarks. At last she
said:--
"I hope, Chauncy, you won't mind if I go off for a week."
"Off for a week? Where are you going?"
"Into town to open the house for the consecration of the great Bishop
Strathmore."
"Well," her husband said, laughing, "I like your grit. If you can't
win, you won't show the white feather."
She laughed in turn, as gleefully and as musically as a child.
"I'm going for revenge."
"Oh, that's it. Is Rangely to die?"
"Pooh, it isn't Rangely. He's too insignificant. I can snub him any
time. It's better fun than that."
"Well, let's hear."
"You know that Marion Delegass is to end her season with a week in
Boston."
"Well? You are not going to Boston to see her, are you? You've seen her
in Paris and New York enough to last, I should think."
"Oh, no; I'm going to meet her."
"Marion Delegass, the most notoriously disreputable actress even on the
French stage? Well, she'll be a change from your parsons."
"Luckily her last week is the week of the consecration of the heathen."
"Is she to take part?"
"Don't be flippant. I am to give Mlle. Delegass a luncheon. I've
arranged it by letter. By one of the most curious coincidences in the
world it comes on the very day of the consecration."
"That is amusing, but I don't see that it's much of a revenge."
"No?" Elsie responded demurely, casting down her eyes. "I am so sorry
that Mrs. Strathmore can't come."
"Mrs. Strathmore? You didn't ask her!"
"Why, of course, Chauncy, I wanted to show that I hadn't any ill
feeling against the family of my bishop."
"To meet Marion Delegass?"
"Of course. I thought it would liven Mrs. Strathmore up a little. She
always reminded me of water-gruel with not enough salt in it."
Dr. Wilson burst into a roar of laughter, leaning back in his chair and
slapping his knee.
"Marion Delegass! Why she's left more husbands and lovers behind her
than a sailor has wives! Marion Delegass and that prig in petticoats!
Well, Elsie, you do beat the devil!"
"Am I to understand that you know His Satanic Majesty well enough to
speak with authority?" she laughed. "What do you think now of my
revenge?"
"I don't exactly see where the revenge comes in. She won't come to the
lunch."
"Come? Oh, no; thank Heaven, she won't come. She'd be like a death's
head in a punch-bowl. She won't come, but she'll tell that she was
invited. She'll be too furious not to tell; and everybody will know
that I asked her. That's all I care about."
Wilson laughed again.
"Well," he said again, "you are the cheekiest and the most amusing
woman in town. You'll shock all your relations, but they must be
getting hardened to that by this time."
Whether the relatives were on this occasion more or less shocked than
upon others was not a question to which Elsie devoted any especial
thought. She gave her luncheon, and all the world knew that she had
invited Mrs. Strathmore to meet Marion Delegass on the day of the
consecration. Mrs. Strathmore was so enraged that she talked flames and
fury, even going so far as to wonder whether there were not some
possibility of excommunication; so that her tormentor was enchanted
with the success of her revenge.
The consecration took place on a beautiful June day, and was as
imposing a function in its line as Boston had ever seen. Trinity was
crowded to overflowing, and if the ceremony was less imposing than
would have been the induction of a Catholic bishop, it was impressive
and dignified. The sunlight filtering through the windows of stained
glass splashed fantastic colors over the long surpliced train which
wound through the aisles down to the chancel, singing processionals of
joyous hope; the air was full of the sense of solemn meaning; the organ
pealed; the noble words of the fine old ritual spoke to the hearts of
the hearers, and carried their message of a faith which took hold upon
the unseen. Above all the circumstance, the form, the conventions, the
creeds, rose the spirit of the worshipers, uplifted by the thrilling
realization of the outpouring of the soul of humanity before the
unknown eternal.
Maurice had accompanied Mrs. Staggchase and Miss Morison to the
ceremony. It had been his impulse not to go, but his cousin urged it,
and it needed little to induce him to go to any place where Berenice
was, even though it were a church. He went with some secret misgiving
lest the service should move him more than he wished; but to his
satisfaction he found that while he felt aesthetic pleasure, he was
inclined to be critical about the doctrine of the ritual. His
satisfaction, he reflected, would have been thought amusing by Mrs.
Staggchase; but it at least assured him that he had not been mistaken
in his mental attitude toward the creed he had discarded.
The thing which most moved him was the sight of Philip among the
surpliced deacons in the procession. Philip's face seemed to him
thinner and paler than of old; he blamed himself that he had not
disregarded his friend's injunction, and insisted upon seeing him. To
his repeated requests Philip had returned answer that he could not bear
the meeting. Maurice had come at length to feel something almost of
resentment at the wall which this prohibition put between them; but
to-day, seeing the white countenance, he experienced a pang of deep
self-reproach. He reflected how sharply his defection must have weighed
his friend down. He should have tried to comfort him; at least he
should have assured Phil that in spite of whatever might come his
affection would remain unchanged.
He thought lovingly of the old days when he and Phil were together, and
of the plans they had sometimes made for keeping if possible together
even after they went out into the world to work. He had the impatience
of one who has recently put a doctrine by for the blindness, as it
seemed to him, which kept Phil still in the power of the old
superstition; but with his friend's white face, marked with mental
suffering, there to soften him, he dwelt little on this, and much on
his affection for his friend and fellow.
As Maurice brooded, watching Philip moving slowly down the aisle,
Berenice bent forward to take a book from the rack, and her face came
between him and his friend. The thought of Philip vanished as a shadow
before a sun-burst. He was conscious only of Berenice, sitting there so
near him, her dark eyes serious with the solemnity of the occasion, her
cheeks tinged with a color so lovely that the lining of a shell or the
petals of a rose were poor things with which to compare it. He forgot
all else, and lost himself in a delicious, troubled dream of what might
be. Surely, surely she must love him! He could not give her up; it was
not possible that he should not some day win her. He fixed on her a
look so ardent that it seemed to compel her glance to meet his. The
flush in her cheek deepened, and he reflected with an exultant thrill
that even in the absorption of a time like this he could reach and move
her spirit.
The rest of the service was little to Maurice. He heard the music,
listened now and then to the words which were being spoken, thought for
a moment here and there upon the strangeness that these people should
be consecrating Mr. Strathmore and not recognizing in the least that
they were assisting at the breaking down of the church; he gave a
little reflection to his own interview with the new bishop, unable
completely to satisfy himself how far Mr. Strathmore was sincere and
how far simply following out a policy; these and other matters floated
through his mind, but they were mere trifles on the surface. His real
thought was of Berenice, always of Berenice. The fluttered, troubled
look which he had seen when his gaze had compelled hers, a look which
seemed to him full of confession of things unutterable, full almost of
appeal as if she realized that she was betraying a feeling that she
feared to own even to herself, this look of a moment so fleeting clocks
could hardly have measured it, filled him with a wild, unreasoning
bliss. He did not again try to challenge her eyes. He sat in a dream of
happiness; a vague, intangible, ecstatic sense that all was well, that
the universe was in tune, and that all things were but ministers of his
joy.
When the ceremonial was concluded Mrs. Staggchase went home with
Berenice to lunch with Mrs. Morison. Maurice put them into their
carriage, feeling that he could not let Berenice go out of his sight.
He stood on the curbstone watching the carriage as if it had set out on
a voyage to regions unknown and far; then smiling at himself with a
realization of what he was doing he turned back to go home himself. As
he did so he came face to face with Philip.