A ROMANTIC EPISODE
When the rector of Christ Church learned from Ruth Tracy that the Widow
Bradley was willing to see him, he found an early opportunity to call
on her. She received him courteously, and listened intently to all
that he said, but he found her even more reticent than she had been on
the occasion of his first visit. She was, however, interested in his
crusade for social justice in the Church and asked him many questions
concerning it. At the conclusion of his visit she freely offered to
him any assistance which she was capable of giving in the carrying
on of his fight. The subject of personal religion was barely touched
upon. The rector was too wise to force that matter upon her attention
prematurely. But, thereafter, the Reverend Mr. Farrar had no more
devoted adherent in the entire city than Mary Bradley, unless indeed
it might have been Ruth Tracy herself. When Miss Tracy was informed of
the widow’s attitude toward the conflict in the parish, she came again
to see her and took counsel with her concerning the efforts that might
be made among the residents of Factory Hill to awaken and further an
interest in Christ Church and in the cause of its rector. Mrs. Bradley
again promised her assistance and she gave it. She gave it so freely
and so effectively that both Miss Tracy and the rector came soon to
look upon her as one of their most valued and faithful advisers and
helpers. But members of the socialistic body by which she was employed
complained that her office in the Potter Building was becoming a
headquarters for religious propaganda. Stephen Lamar suggested to
her one day that she was hired to spread the doctrines of socialism
and not to fight the battles of unorthodox clergymen. She laughed at
that, and told him that when he came to a right understanding of the
principles of his creed he would know that it all worked to the same
end, and that to sow dissension in the churches was to advance by that
much the social millennium. She added, moreover, that whenever the
League considered that her services were not worth her salary, she
would gladly relinquish her position. He made no further complaint.
He did not again chide her, as he had done on several occasions, for
her regular attendance on the services at Christ Church. So long as he
discovered no particular awakening of religious sensibility on her part
he was content thereafter to let her have her own way. As his desire
for her increased and grew more and more imperious, his caution was
augmented, lest by his own inadvertence he should thwart the happiness
to which he confidently looked forward.
But Mary Bradley’s work and influence in behalf of the rector of Christ
Church and of his cause were not confined to the proletariat among whom
she dwelt. By no means! Her position brought her into contact, not with
wealthy people, for these rarely have any leaning toward socialism; but
with a number of persons of intellectuality and high standing in the
community; and among these she awakened, unobtrusively, subtly perhaps,
an interest in if not a sympathy for the fighting rector.
Barry Malleson was one of her converts. He had, all his life, been an
attendant at Christ Church, his father was a liberal contributor to all
of its financial needs, his mother and sisters, aristocratically pious,
were devoted to its interests. But, under the influence and gentle
persuasion of Mary Bradley, proletarian, agnostic, revolutionist,
Barry Malleson was transformed from an outspoken opponent of the
rector’s views to a warm supporter of his cause. Not that all this
was accomplished at a single sitting. It required many interviews,
interviews which Barry not only freely granted, but, if the truth must
be told, interviews which he diligently sought. He was no stranger at
socialistic headquarters in the Potter Building. Twice, at least, he
had been seen walking on the street with the handsome secretary. He
made no concealment of his admiration for her. It was not his nature
to conceal anything. But, when his friends rallied him on his apparent
conquest, he admitted that as yet the affair was a mere matter of
personal friendship, and was largely due to a common interest with
Mrs. Bradley in certain social problems. No one attributed to him any
improper motive. He had the cleanest of minds. He was the farthest
of any man in the city from being a rake. That was why the public
regarded the situation so seriously. That was why certain mothers with
marriageable daughters, who preferred wealth and social standing to
brilliancy of intellect, deprecated, in sorrowful if not severe terms,
the young man’s apparent infatuation. As for Miss Chichester, she was
inconsolable. She had tried suggestion, persuasion, intimidation, in
turn; but all in vain. Barry was good-naturedly obstinate. Even in the
face of the most dreadful prognostications as to what might happen
if he should continue his relations with the widow, he persistently
declined to break them off. Yet, in reality, Barry had not begun
to reach that stage in his siege of Mrs. Bradley’s heart which his
friends gave him credit for having reached. He had spoken no word
of love to her. He realized that her late consort had departed this
life so recently as the last September, and that the first snow of
winter had but lately fallen. And Barry was a gentleman. Moreover he
had not yet been able to overcome a certain diffidence, a slowness of
thought, a lack of fluency of speech while in her presence. He felt
that this might be a serious drawback when the time should really come
for love-making. For it must be admitted that Barry had taken into
contemplation more than once a proposal of marriage to the widow, and
the difficulties which might beset it. He could not quite understand
his own hesitancy. Heretofore he had shown perfect self-composure in
his association with women of all social grades. He had asked Ruth
Tracy to marry him with as much self-assurance and ease of manner as he
would have exhibited in asking for another cup of coffee at breakfast
time. If Jane Chichester had appealed to his romantic fancy in the
slightest degree, he could have proposed marriage to her without the
quickening of a pulse or the moving of an eyelash. But the very thought
of approaching the Widow Bradley on the subject of love and matrimony
threw him into a fever and flutter of excitement.
The gradual winning over of Barry to the rector’s cause had been
attended with some raillery on the part of his friends, and some
unhappy comments in his presence on the part of members of his family.
But once persuaded he was not easily dissuaded. Not that his adherence
to either party in the conflict was a matter of great moment. He was
not a vestryman, he was not a communicant, he was without voice, and,
broadly speaking, without influence in the counsels of the church,
yet his defection was not without its bearing on the case, and he,
himself, considered his change of attitude as being most significant
and important. The matter of the controversy weighed heavily on his
mind. He gave it much time and thought. On more than one occasion he
interviewed the rector, the several vestrymen, and some of the leading
women of the church, in a fruitless effort to bring about harmony. The
questions that had arisen occupied his attention to the exclusion of
more important matters. Their consideration seriously interfered with
the due performance of the duties that had been assigned to him as
vice-president of the Malleson Manufacturing Company, although it must
be admitted that his neglect, if it was such, did not appear to hamper
the corporation to any appreciable extent in the carrying on of its
business. He knew that the resolution for the rector’s dismissal was
to come before the vestry for action on that Friday evening. Every one
in the city who had any interest at all in the case knew it. But there
were few who were as greatly disturbed by the knowledge as was Barry
Malleson. He went in the afternoon to see a majority of the vestrymen
concerning the matter, but, with the exception of Emberly and Hazzard,
they were all either obdurate or reticent. His protests against the
proposed action fell generally upon stony ground. The next morning he
picked up the morning paper and ran his eyes over the columns until
they fell upon the brief but sensational account of the action of the
vestry the night before.
“Well,” he said, “I see they’ve done it.”
It was at the breakfast table. The members of the family were gathered
for the morning meal.
“Who’s done what?” asked his sister, Miss Veloura.
“Why,” was the reply, “the vestry has resolved to put Farrar out.”
“It’ll be a good riddance,” was the comment of Barry’s mother.
“If they could only do the same thing to Ruth Tracy,” said the elder
sister.
“And the Bradley woman,” added Miss Veloura.
Mr. Malleson, the elder, ate his grapefruit and remained discreetly
silent.
“Why the Bradley woman?” asked Barry, bridling up.
“Because she’s a nuisance and a nobody,” was the reply.
And then little Miss Ramona, aged fifteen, who had heard some of the
gossip of the town, rebuked her sister in this wise:
“You shouldn’t say such things about Mrs. Bradley, Veloura. She may be
your sister-in-law yet.”
“Horrors!” The ejaculation came from the elder sister.
“Have you made up your mind to marry her, Barry?” persisted Miss Ramona.
And Barry replied doggedly:
“Yes; if she’ll have me.”
To describe the consternation that reigned at Mr. Malleson’s
breakfast-table following this answer would be to give a fairly good
illustration of the meaning of the word itself. They all knew, of
course, that Barry was paying some attention to the widow. Knowledge of
that fact could not well escape them. Every rich young man, however,
was entitled to indulge in temporary aberrations of fancy, and Barry
was indulging in his. But to have him really and seriously contemplate
marriage with the woman! Again, “Horrors!” The family gathering broke
up in a storm from which tears were not entirely absent, and every one
lost his or her temper save only Barry. He never lost his temper. An
unkind friend said of him, one day, that he had never had any temper
to lose. When he rose from the breakfast-table he did not wait for his
car. He put on his hat and overcoat and started down-town on foot. He
struck into Main Street at the foot of the hill and followed it almost
its entire length. He did not turn off in the direction of the factory,
but went straight on until he reached the Potter Building, three blocks
farther down. Ignoring the elevator he mounted the staircase to the
second floor and entered the room occupied by the Socialist League as a
headquarters. Mrs. Bradley was already there and at work. Moreover she
was alone. When Barry came in she gave him a welcoming smile and word.
“I’m glad you came,” she said. “There are two or three things about
which I want to talk with you.”
“I suppose Farrar’s case is one of them,” said Barry. “You know they’ve
started to put him out.”
“Yes, I’ve just been reading about it in the morning papers.”
“So have I. That’s what I came for: to see what we’re going to do about
it.”
“Do? What can we do? They have him beaten. He may as well admit it――and
take his medicine.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. It struck me we might get up a
petition.”
“To whom?”
“To the bishop. They say the whole thing is up to the bishop now.”
“Who would sign it?”
“Why, I thought you might get all those people on Factory Hill that go
there to church, and I could scuttle around among his friends in the
city――――”
She interrupted him impatiently.
“That would be worse than useless,” she said. “Do you think, for one
moment, that your bishop of the Church would listen to the cry of the
poor as against the demand of the rich? It’s preposterous!”
“Well, I know the bishop. He’s a pretty good fellow. I’ve had him out
in my car. I might go to him personally and explain matters.”
She smiled at that. But she said nothing in derogation of Barry’s
influence.
“You are one man against fifty of your own class,” she remarked. “You
could do nothing. It would be a waste of time and money to visit the
bishop.”
“But, I say, we mustn’t let Farrar get knocked out like that, and not
do a thing to help him.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know but it would be a mercy to him to withhold
all help and encouragement. The end would come sooner. The struggle
would not be so prolonged. The aggregate amount of pain he will suffer
will be less.”
Barry looked at her with uncomprehending eyes.
“Eh?” he said. “I don’t quite get you.”
“Why, they’re bound to destroy him. They’ll do it. That’s a foregone
conclusion. It would be vastly better for him to make his peace with
them now, to abandon his heresies along with his poor, and save himself
from ecclesiastical annihilation. But,” and she looked beyond Barry
into some sunlit, splendid distance, “if he does hold out, if he does
defy them, if he does go down fighting, he’ll be a hero, like――like his
own Jesus Christ.”
The flame was in her cheeks, her eyes were burning, her muscles
were tense with the stress of her emotion. Suddenly she changed the
subject. She was again calm. Her voice took on its accustomed, musical,
well-modulated tones.
“There’s another thing,” she said, “about which I wanted to speak to
you.”
Barry started, as if from sleep. Apparently she could cast a spell on
him, and waken him from it at her will.
“Eh?” he replied; “how was that?”
“There’s another thing,” she repeated, “about which I wanted to speak
to you.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s about your men. I hear they are dissatisfied with the present
wage scale, and are going to demand concessions when the agreement
expires in January.”
“Why, I’ve heard something of the kind. But there’s no occasion for it.
Really there isn’t. The men have a very liberal agreement. I signed it
myself as vice-president of the company last January.”
“Nevertheless the men are dissatisfied with it. They’re going to demand
a change. The question is what are your people going to do for them?”
“Why, the matter hasn’t come up. We haven’t considered it.”
“Pardon me, but I think it’s time you did. Do not misunderstand me. I’m
not a member of the Union, and I don’t represent the men in any way.
But I’m interested in them. I feel that they’re deserving of better
wages than they’re getting, and better conditions of labor, and that
they ought to get those things without having to fight for them.”
“But they’ve already got them, Mrs. Bradley.”
“Oh, I know that’s the way you look at it, but you don’t see it from
the men’s standpoint at all. I wish you could. I wish I could make you.
I sympathize with them so deeply. That’s why I’m interceding for them.”
“A――it’s very kind of you.”
“I suppose I ought to go to your father. He’s president of the company.
But I don’t know him. I should be afraid. I hear he’s very stern.”
“Oh, not so very. That depends on how you happen to strike him.”
“I wouldn’t take the chance of making a fortunate strike. But it
occurred to me that you are vice-president of the company, and that’s
nearly as important a position, and――and I know you.” Her eloquent
eyes rested on Barry’s for a moment in mute appeal, and then modestly
dropped. “You’ve been my friend,” she continued, “and my adviser. And,
somehow, I’m not afraid to talk to you.”
She looked up at him shyly, bewitchingly. When she looked up at him
that way he never failed to lose himself completely.
“Oh, that’s all right,” he assured her. “You’ve nothing to fear from
me. I――I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”
“No,” she said, “I know you wouldn’t. I’ve always felt that you
were perfectly”――she was going to say harmless; but she didn’t; she
said――“unselfish. And so I thought you would let me talk to you about
the men.”
“You can talk to me about anything, Mrs. Bradley――anything.”
“Thank you! Now, may I ask you what wages the men are getting?”
“Certainly! All the way from a dollar sixty for the common laborer up
to four dollars a day for the skilled workman.”
“Do you call that enough?”
“Why, I hadn’t thought about it. But I’m sure no better wages are paid
anywhere.”
“Perhaps not. But is it enough? Could you, for instance, live on a
dollar sixty a day?”
“But I’m not a common laborer.”
“Well, then, could you live on four dollars a day, and――support a
family?”
The widow’s eyes dropped again.
“I’m not a skilled workman, either,” protested Barry, waiting for the
alluring lids to rise.
“No? What are you?”
“I――I’m vice-president of the company.”
“You receive some compensation, I suppose, for performing the onerous
duties of the position?”
“Sure! I get four hundred dollars a month.”
“Well, for the sake of argument, let us say you earn that amount. And
let us say that Bricky Hoover, for instance, earns four dollars a day.
Do you work any harder for your money than he works for his?”
“But I work with my brains.”
“Your――your what?”
“My brains, Mrs. Bradley.”
There was a little smile about the widow’s mouth, but Barry was both
unsuspecting and helpless.
“Oh, yes,” she responded. “Well, he works with his hands plus his
brains, and puts in longer hours than you do besides. Why shouldn’t he
get at least as much for his work as you do for yours?”
“But you don’t consider the responsibility, the――the mental burden, the
nervous strain, the――the wear and tear.”
“Very good! Let us say then that yours is the harder job, that it is
four times as hard as his. How would you like to change places with
him, and have it easier?”
“Mrs. Bradley! The idea!”
“Well, how would you like, then, to change jobs with him, and each
retain his own salary?”
“Me? Work in the mill, like him, for four hundred dollars a month?”
“Yes.”
“I couldn’t think of it, Mrs. Bradley. Really, I couldn’t.”
Barry looked down at his smooth, white hands with their well-manicured
extremities, at his carefully creased trousers and his highly-polished
shoes.
Mrs. Bradley laughed a little, but not tantalizingly nor maliciously.
“Well,” she said, “then we’ll not compel you to make the change. But,
assuming that you work equally hard, can you give me any good reason
why you should receive four times as much pay as he does?”
“Why――why, I can’t think of any just at this moment. But there is one.
I’m sure there is one.”
“Then let’s figure the thing out a little farther. You are both men
with hearts, brains, bodies, ambitions, desires. There is no natural
law which gives one preference over the other. An hour of his time is
worth as much to him, as a man, as an hour of your time is worth to
you. An hour’s labor takes as much of his effort, strength, vitality,
as an hour’s labor takes of yours. Why should he get one hundred
dollars a month for what he gives to society, and you get four hundred
dollars a month for what you give?”
“Why, I――I never thought of it just that way.”
“Think of it that way, Mr. Malleson. Look at it occasionally from the
standpoint of the man who works for wages. If he works equally hard
with you to produce the profits that your company earns, why shouldn’t
he share equally with you in the matter of compensation for his work?”
“Honestly, Mrs. Bradley, I don’t know.”
“I thought you didn’t. I thought you hadn’t considered it. I wish you
would consider it, Mr. Malleson. And when the men come to you with
their plea or demand for better wages or conditions, especially the
dollar sixty men, look at the matter from their standpoint, for once,
and be fair with them.”
Having concluded her appeal, she rested her elbows on the table, put
her hands against her cheeks, and looked him through with her splendid
eyes.
Poor Barry! He had neither will nor wit nor logic to refute her
argument or pierce the fallacy with which it was enmeshed. Indeed,
under the spell of her eyes and voice, he felt himself drifting
helplessly toward the shoals of that socialism which he never
understood but always abhorred.
“Mrs. Bradley,” he replied, finally, “I――I shall do my duty.”
“I knew you would,” she said. “I knew you would be just and generous,
because”――her eyes went down again――“because you have been both just
and generous to me.”
Her voice came like soft music to Barry’s ears, attuned to receive
it. Before his eyes floated a roseate haze. And up, out of the haze,
looming uncertainly but with great promise, he saw the shadowy outline
of an opportunity. It came upon him so suddenly that it almost took
away his breath. It must have been instinct or intuition; it certainly
was not quickness of thought which led him to grasp it.
“No one,” he heard himself say, “could help being just and generous to
you.”
“Why do you say that, Mr. Malleson?”
“I――I don’t know.” He was beginning to flounder again. “Yes, I do.”
There was a sudden accession of courage. “It’s because it’s true. It’s
because you deserve it. It’s――it’s because everybody likes you.”
“You are trying to flatter me, Mr. Malleson.”
“No, honestly, I’m not. I mean it. I mean that you――I might say――without
qualification――――”
He was hopelessly entangled and had to stop. She came unobtrusively to
his aid.
“I think I understand you,” she said. “It’s delightful to be appreciated
by――those whom you appreciate.”
For the fourth time in ten minutes her eyes were veiled by her lashes.
It’s a fascinating trick when the rest of the countenance is in
complete harmony with it.
The opportunity already partially grasped was taking on substance and
a definite outline. Something whispered to Barry that he should take a
firmer hold. He leaned across the table toward the charming secretary,
and started in again.
“A――speaking for myself,” he said, “I may say I’ve admired a good many
women, but I’ve never admired anybody quite so much as I do you.”
Well spoken, Barry! She couldn’t fail to understand that. That she did
understand it was evidenced by the deepening flush in her cheeks, by
the nervous tapping of her finger-tips on the surface of the table, by
the slight tremulousness in her voice as she asked:
“What is there to admire about me, Mr. Malleson?”
“Your beauty, for one thing,” answered Barry promptly.
“I thought I was very plain.”
It is remarkable with what a clear conscience a woman can lie when she
is deprecating what she knows to be her own charms.
“But you’re not,” protested Barry. “There isn’t a woman in my set, in
fact there isn’t a woman in the upper grade of society in this city,
one half so handsome as you are.”
Barry’s tongue was becoming loosened by his earnestness. The widow’s
eyes narrowed a trifle, but if there was any danger behind them they
did not reveal it.
“And if that were true what advantage would it be to me,” she asked,
“belonging as I do to the lower classes?”
Barry’s answer came promptly and decisively.
“It has been of advantage to you, Mrs. Bradley. It has attracted me to
you.”
She looked at him curiously.
“It is not always wise or prudent,” she said, “for women belonging to
the lower classes to attract rich and aristocratic young gentlemen to
them.”
“But I’m in earnest, Mrs. Bradley. I’m awfully in earnest. I――I must
have you.”
“Mr. Malleson!”
“Pardon me! I didn’t mean it.”
“Mr. Malleson!”
“I mean I did mean it, but I didn’t mean it offensively.”
“Oh, I’m so relieved. A woman in my station in life has to be so
exceedingly careful of her reputation.”
“That’s all right, Mrs. Bradley. I wouldn’t do a thing, or say a thing
to in any way――to――――”
“Thank you!”
“And, besides, I’m honest in all this――dead honest. I mean it; really,
I do.”
There was no doubt about his earnestness. His face glowed with it. His
hands twitched with it. Every line of the body that he bent toward her
was eloquent with it.
“Just what do you mean, Mr. Malleson?”
“I――I mean that I love you.”
It was out at last. No “honey-tongued Anacreon” could have said more
to express his meaning. She sat across the table from him. She had
taken one hand from her cheek and was pressing it against her heart.
Her eyes were downcast. Her face was flushed with excitement. Between
her half-parted lips her white teeth shone. Her labored respiration was
manifest even to Barry’s untutored eyes. If Stephen Lamar had seen her
in that moment and in that mood his impetuosity would have leaped its
bounds. Barry was indeed fascinated but he was not propelled.
She lifted her eyes slowly to his.
“You――love me?” she asked.
“Yes, Mrs. Bradley.”
It seemed a full minute that she sat there looking at him. Finally she
said:
“Do you know what love is?”
And he replied:
“Why, certainly! I’m in it.”
“Oh, but I mean do you really comprehend it?” And without waiting for
a reply she went on impulsively: “Do you know how beautiful it is? how
wonderful? how terrible? Do you?”
The questions came with such force and rapidity that Barry sat stunned
and speechless. But it was not necessary that he should answer her;
she did not expect a reply. She turned her face away from him and
looked out, through the one dim window of her room, on the dead-wall
of the building that fronted on the other street. What or whom did
she see beyond that square of tempered light that her eyes grew moist
and tender, and her face radiant with a light that only great love
can bring? Not Barry, indeed! He still sat speechless, motionless,
bewildered, utterly at a loss to know what to do or to say. The silence
was broken at last by Mrs. Bradley herself. She sighed and turned back
toward him.
“Pardon me!” she said. “I did not mean to be abrupt. And you are very
good to tell me all this. But, you know, there are reasons why I can’t
listen to love-making――at least not yet.”
Barry awoke. His mind grasped her meaning. Her widowhood was so recent.
She must honor it. He honored her for respecting it.
“True!” he said. “I understand. I’ll wait. I was only filing a lien
anyway.”
She smiled a little at that.
“Thank you!” she replied. “Now, to go back to Mr. Farrar. I’ve changed
my mind about him. I think he ought to be encouraged, heartened,
helped. Do it, Mr. Malleson. Do all you can for him. Get every one
else to do everything in their power to hold up his hands in this
splendid fight he’s making against aristocratic tyranny.”
“I will, Mrs. Bradley. You can rest assured that my hat’s in the ring
for him. I’ll go see him this morning and ask what I can do. No, I
can’t see him this morning. I promised Jane Chichester to take her
out in my car to Blooming Grove, and I suppose I’ve got to do it, or
I won’t hear the end of it. But I’m with him, Mrs. Bradley, heart and
soul.”
She smiled again, and rose and gave him her hand.
“Thank you so much!” she said as she permitted her hand to remain in
his grasp. “You are a real crusader.”
Barry did not know just what a crusader was, but he did know that Mrs.
Bradley smiled on him, and looked at him out of eloquent eyes, and he
went out from her presence with such a buoyant sensation of pride and
happiness as, in all his life before, he had never experienced.
After he had gone the secretary of the Socialist League turned again
to her books and papers, but she did not resume her work. Instead she
sat staring out through the dim window at the dead-wall across the
area. What was there about a dead-wall that could, with such foreboding
significance, so hold her gaze?
A woman entered her office and interrupted her musings. She turned
toward her visitor impatiently, but not discourteously.
“I have not yet had an opportunity,” she said, in answer to the woman’s
inquiry, “to take up your matter with the directors of the League.”
“Then I hope you’ll soon find one,” was the reply. “You should know
that it is of the utmost importance, both to your organization and to
ours, that we should know definitely and without delay where you stand
in the matter.”
“There is no question about where we stand in the matter, Mrs.
Dalloway. Our organization is wholly in sympathy with your movement.
We should not be socialists if we were not. It’s one of our cardinal
doctrines that women are entitled to equal rights with men in
everything.”
“I know it is,” replied the visitor sharply. “But theory is one thing
and practice is another. I want to see your organization actually and
definitely doing something for woman suffrage.”
The secretary turned toward her books.
“I’ll bring your matter before the board,” she said, “at the earliest
opportunity.”
“Very well. See that you do.”
And the society suffragist flounced out as abruptly as she had entered.
But Mrs. Bradley did not yet take up her tasks. She sat with her face
in her hands in silent contemplation. After a little while she rose
and began pacing up and down the floor of her office. It was apparent
that for some reason she was greatly perturbed. Was it because Barry
Malleson had made love to her? Poor Barry! He was as far from Mary
Bradley’s thought in that moment as her thought was from the golden
streets of the New Jerusalem.
Finally she took down her hat and coat from the peg where they were
hanging, put them on, and went out into the street.
At the first corner she met Stephen Lamar. He was in a jocose mood.
“‘Where are you going, my pretty maid?’” he asked her.
“‘I’m going to school, kind sir, she said.’”
“‘May I go with you, my pretty maid?’”
“You would be turned out, and have to feed on grass,” she answered him.
“But I would be feeding on clover while I was with you.”
“Steve, I’m in no mood for pleasantries this morning. I want to be let
alone.”
“Where are you going?”
“It would not be profitable for you to know.”
He looked at her curiously for a moment before speaking again. Finally
he said:
“They gave your preacher a slap in the face last night.”
“Yes. What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing. It’s none of my business.”
“It’s the business of every fair and decent man in this city.”
He bit his lip, but he did not reply in kind. He simply asked, for the
third time:
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to see Mr. Farrar.”
“What for?”
“To offer him my sympathy――and help.”
“You’re going on a fool’s errand.”
She did not resent the remark. She said quietly:
“It may be, but――I’m going.”
“Mary, I don’t approve of it.”
“I’m not concerned about your approval.”
“Have I no rights whatever?”
“None that interfere with my duties.”
He made no further attempt to dissuade her. He knew how utterly useless
it would be. He contented himself with saying:
“There’ll be no peace in this city till that man is a thousand miles
away.”
And she replied: “It’s war that this city needs, not peace.”
He stood on the corner and watched her out of sight, but he made no
attempt to follow her. That would have been rash and futile.
Threading her way along the busy thoroughfare, she passed through the
heart of the city and turned into a cross street. At the end of the
second block she was in the shadow of the spire of Christ Church. Just
beyond, across the lawn whitened by the first December snow, stood
the rectory. Her heart began to fail her when she saw it. Her gait
lessened; an unreasoning fear swept down upon her. It seemed to her
that the snow on the lawn hid some tragic thing which she dared not
pass by. She stopped, turned, and would have retraced her steps had not
the high-pitched voice of a newsboy a block away come at that moment to
her ears.
“_Mornin’ Mail!_ All ’bout the trouble in Christ Church!”
She clenched her gloved hands, faced the rectory, went up the walk,
mounted the steps and rang the bell. A maid admitted her, announced
her, and ushered her into the library. The rector came in from his
study and greeted her cordially. Burdened and care-worn indeed he
seemed to be, but not harassed nor dismayed. And when she saw that
his faith was not dimmed nor his courage broken, the old diffidence
came back upon her; the diffidence that always embarrassed her in his
presence, and she could not talk. The errand she had had in mind seemed
to have faded away.
“It’s nothing much that I came for,” she said brokenly.
“You do not need an errand when you come here,” he assured her. “You
are always welcome.”
“But I believe it was about what your vestry did last――night.”
“They did what I have long been expecting them to do. It was no
surprise to me.”
“And I wanted to tell you that if there is anything I can possibly
do――――”
She paused, and he came to her assistance.
“Thank you, Mrs. Bradley! You have already done heroic service for me.
You have defended me in quarters where it was vitally important that I
should not be misunderstood.”
His commendation brought a new flush to her cheeks.
“I want to be still more helpful,” she said. “Tell me what else to do.”
He might have urged her, then, to accept his religion. The way was open
for such an appeal, but he did not make it. It did not seem to him that
the time was yet ripe. He simply replied:
“You are more than kind. There is little that any one can do. It is a
matter now for the bishop.”
“So Barry Malleson told me. He is very much concerned about you.”
“He has been very faithful. While not believing fully in my theories he
has, nevertheless, believed fully in me, and has stood up valiantly in
my defense. I believe I am indebted to you for that, Mrs. Bradley. I am
told that it was you who converted him to my cause. In fact he has told
me so himself.”
“He flatters me.”
“He admires you. And it is not a long road which leads from admiration
to love.”
“Why do you say that, Mr. Farrar?”
“Because I want to bring you two together. Because such a friendship
would be a practical exemplification of the doctrine I have been
preaching.”
“Mr. Farrar, my widowhood has been very recent.”
“Pardon me if I have trespassed! In considering eternal verities I had
forgotten temporal misfortunes.”
“And I shall not marry again.”
“Do not say that, Mrs. Bradley. You have, Providence permitting, many
years to live. It is not quite meet that you should pass them in
loneliness.”
“To marry, one must first love.”
“That’s very true.”
“And I――I must love――blindly!”
She brought out the word with desperate, yearning emphasis.
“And may you not love blindly?” he asked.
He could not fathom, at that moment, the mystery that lay back of her
marvelous, grief-burdened eyes; but, long afterward, he remembered the
way she looked upon him, and then he knew.
“God forbid!” she cried. Then, suddenly, the incongruity, the boldness,
the unwomanliness of what she had been saying flashed upon her, and she
covered her face with her hands. Seeing how great was her perturbation
he sought to soothe her.
“Never mind!” he said; “we’ll not discuss it any more now. Some other
time perhaps.”
She took her hands down from her eyes.
“No, not any other time,” she declared. “Not ever again. I can’t――bear
it.”
“As you wish. I’m so sorry to have distressed you. And you came to
comfort me, and to offer help.”
“I still offer it.”
“And the time will come when you shall give it in even greater
abundance than you have given it in the past.”
She had already risen to go, and she took his proffered hand. His grasp
was so firm and strong and friendly――and lingering. The door of the
rectory closed behind her, and with colorless face and mist-covered
eyes she groped her way to the street.
As she turned into the main thoroughfare she saw the Malleson car go
by, and in it were Barry and Jane Chichester, each in a fur coat, bound
presumably for Blooming Grove.
But Mary Bradley walked back to the Potter Building, to the narrow,
second floor rear room which constituted the office of the Socialist
League, hung her plain hat and coat on their accustomed peg, took out
her books and papers, and applied herself to her tasks.