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CHAPTER V

"Has the success of the experiment justified the labor and enthusiasm you spent upon it?"

"Yes, Noel, the result far surpasses my hopes, and I am impatient for you to visit us, not only to understand fully the complete success of the work, but to receive the grateful acknowledgments of every member of the Order."

"Then you bar your doors against me, because any expression of thanks is annoying, and the great pleasure I gave myself in deeding the property to you would be marred. Remember, Vernon, I am not a well-rounded character, measured by your ecclesiastical tape-line, and one of my ugly angles is aversion to thanks. If you have drained the marshland and reclaimed the house from mildew and mice you have made your neighbors debtors."

"The same Noel Herriott of college days!"

"Only more so, if you please. Nothing human is immutable, and if a man does not improve he grows worse. By the way, is your reverence still 'Brother' Temple, or have you climbed the ladder of spiritual promotion?"

"I am always Vernon to you, but the world knows me as 'Father' Temple. When will you come to us at 'Calvary House' and inspect the rich harvest from the seed you sowed? I long for the one thing you have withheld – your deep, hearty sympathy in my grand and holy work."

"Meaning that nothing less than the three vows will assure you of my safety?"

"That is beyond all that I ever dared to hope, but your cordial approbation would cheer me more than the indorsement of any other man. Generous though you are in financial assistance, your mental attitude toward our Order is that of the smiling tolerance with which one watches a child building a house of cards."

"However tentative my opinion relative to the scope and permanence of your religious movement, you cannot doubt that I earnestly desire the success to which the sanctity of your motive entitles you. Partial as I am to gymnastic methods, I allow no athletic feats in my mental processes; I neither run nor leap to conclusions, and you must give me time. You and I always approach vital questions by different paths: you lean generally to collectiveness; I usually prefer the slower leverage of individualism. You are burning the candle of life at both ends, and trying to realize your noble ideals; I plod far behind, with only a feeble taper and indulge no higher hope than to idealize my realities."

"When will you come to the lovely home you have given us? There is one room we have called 'Founder's,' and set apart for you; and, Noel, no sun sets that has not brought us to our knees in prayer for you who made it possible for us to own a chapel. When shall we welcome you?"

"Not now. I must go home, where matters need attention. Strange, is it not, that the magic of a name should outlive all it represents? That lonely old stone house staring at its shadow on the lake has no vital element of home except my horses and dogs, and one Maltese cat that sleeps in my arm-chair. When Nina married Senator Kent the last thread that tied me to anything like domesticity snapped, and I followed my bent and prowled from land to land."

"Why do you not marry some sweet, gentle woman and settle yourself?"

"Scarcely the advice one might expect from the priestly Father of an Anglican celibate order. Has your creed narrowed to such alternatives? Either a cell at Calvary or the snare and disillusions of marriage? Unfortunately for me, women have exerted only a traditional influence on my life. My own young mother died before I could remember her, and I was consigned to tutors when I should have been trundling hoops. I went early to college, and after father's second marriage was rarely at home; hence my acquaintance with women in the home circle is nebulous and legendary. As a boy I disdained sweethearts; as a man they disdain me. The only woman I ever really cared for would no more marry me than a stone slab in a cemetery; so, with many thanks, I cannot utilize your counsel, and it only remains for you to keep a cell for me at Calvary. Some day at eventide I may creep in, and you will kindly shrive and bless me."

Mr. Herriott had been leaning back in his chair, with his hands clasped behind his head, and when he rose he towered six feet two inches, smiling gravely at the upturned face of Father Temple, whose sombre clerical habit contrasted vividly with the white yachting flannels worn by his friend.

"Ah, Noel, what a Viking you look! Save prize fighting, is there anything in the realm of athletics you have not accomplished?"

"I fear you would not compliment me with even that civilized exception if you had seen a skirmish, minus weapons, that I had with a hairy, tattooed Dyak in a Borneo jungle where I hunted orchids. Vernon, if you trained your muscles more, and let up a little on your soul, allowed it a breathing spell, you would not look so flaccid and anæmic. Don't prefer monkish Latin to Juvenal: mens sana in corpore sano! You observe, respect for your Reverence prevents my offering you the Rabelais parody. Come, dine with me to-night."

"No, thank you. I am to give a brief 'retreat.' Tell me about my cousin Eglah; you crossed the ocean in the same steamer."

"You have not seen her?"

"For a few moments only. She is a beautiful girl."

"What remains to be said – since you accord her the mantle of beauty, whose folds, broader even than charity's, hide all defects? Where shall I begin? Being her cousin, you must know what I have merely heard: that she swept through college like a southern tornado – or should I have said like a meteor? – carrying off the honors, and was the youngest graduate who had ever turned the heads of the spectacled lecturers. Yet it appears she values her trophy merely because her laurels pleased her father, at whose feet she sits in adoration. In her physique, gymnastic training leaves nothing to be improved; she won badges, and can hold her own at basket-ball, tennis, rowing, and swimming. Is not the catalogue complete? So much for mental attainments and physical perfection, but in the domain of womanly emotions she is simply an unknown quantity – a latter-day sphinx, fresh and fair before drifting desert sands deface her. If a lover should ever win her heart he will certainly be entitled to it, by the supreme right of discovery. Her affection for Judge Kent absolutely rules her, and in one respect she is unique, she is as utterly incapable of flirtations as an unfledged owl."

"On account of the family connection you have been thrown so intimately into her society that I hoped you could tell me something of her religious tendencies."

"I am such a confirmed tramp that my visits to the family have been brief and interrupted by long absences. Eglah always appealed peculiarly to my sympathy because of the pathetic antagonism of her environment. Your cousin, Judge Kent, was very much disliked at the South, where sectional political rancor was, is, and will be rife, and his child suffered keenly on that account. When she came north to live, her social surroundings were even worse, because she furiously resented every reflection upon the people of the South, where the Maurices were conspicuous in war records. Her efforts at loyalty all around the circle have not made smooth sailing for her, and her motives were doubtless complex. You are curious about her 'religious tendencies'? If you are wise you will not stir any Calvary leaven into the pure sweet flour of her soul, unless you covet war á outrance with that nondescript personage Mrs. Mitchell – an anomalous blend, alert as a lynx, wary as a fox, stealthy as a cougar – who serves Eglah in divers and sundry capacities: an amalgamated foster-mother, housekeeper, maid, companion, chaperon, and confidante. She is a Simon-pure puritan, prim as Priscilla, and her processes of reasoning are quite as broad as the edge of a razor. That she viciously opposes all forms of 'ritualism' I happen to know from listening to a discussion between her and Eglah, in which the whole bundle of dogmas was thrashed out, from 'historic episcopate' and 'confession' to incense, candles, and 'reservation of the sacrament.' What a pile of chaff they built! Eglah's appreciation of sensuous beauty and classical music inclines her to gorgeous vestments, jewelled windows, and the rhythmic chanting of choristers that lift their chins like Raphael's cherubs, but Mrs. Mitchell finds in the severe simplicity of her own tabernacle an added sanctity, and your Calvary House will be to her that of Rimmon. In Rome Judge Kent had a touch of fever which frightened Eglah into telegraphing for me at Basle, where I was attending a scientific congress, so we came home together."

"If Eglah's enthusiasm could be aroused in our mission work, she would wield an incalculable power for good."

"Vernon – pardon the lapse into argot – 'don't!' Let the child pick her own way to peace. She is not addicted to enthusiasms: one attack long ago destroyed her susceptibility to subsequent seizures; she can be enthusiastic over only one teraph – her father. Must you go? Wait a moment. Friendship is frank, and I am sorry to see you losing the vigor that in college days distinguished you. Fast less, and sleep more. Come home with me and hunt and fish and row, and let other people's souls enjoy a vacation."

As they shook hands Father Temple asked:

"And what have scientific congresses done for your soul, Noel?"

"Drawn me closer, I hope, to the Creator whose subtle and inexorable laws are best revealed to the faithful student that fearlessly analyzes His universal work. The sole aim of scientists is 'to admit nothing false, and to omit nothing true.' Vernon, have faith in me as of old, and keep a cell whitewashed for me at Calvary House. Truly —

 
"So many paths lead up to God,
'Twere strange if any soul should miss them all."
 

With his hand on the stair rail the minister paused and looked back.

"One thing I wish to ask is whether Eglah had any special admirers abroad? American heiresses are attractive."

"She had as many beaux as she chose to permit. Two attachés of American legations were particularly attentive, and a handsome English naval officer whose father is a duke will doubtless cross the ocean to renew his acquaintance. Possess your soul in patience. Her heart is as sound asleep as when she dreamed in her crib, and the man who wakes and wins it will travel no macadamized road. Before Lent she will be in New York for a week, and when Congress adjourns the family will come to me on the Lake for a visit."

Given a man of thirty-three, unusually good-looking, possessing by inheritance a large fortune, dowered with infinite leisure upon which no professional duties laid intrusive claim, handicapped by no church obligations, and the world assumes that he has inevitably run the gamut of those iniquities set by Satan as snares for the idle rich. Intensely virile as was Noel Herriott, his polished placidity of manner and courteous conservatism masked in some degree the strength and tenacious obstinacy of a character that presented enigmatical phases to those who knew him best. Heredity and education had combined in kneading him physically, mentally, and morally along rather peculiar curves during the plastic period of boyhood, and the finishing touches that determined the mould came from his parting interview with his Presbyterian father, when Fergus Herriott sent him away to college.

"My son, God gave you a remarkably fine body. Neither neglect nor abuse it, but be sure you master it from the start, else you will be the slave of your own flesh. Bad habits are the leeches that would suck a Hercules to effeminacy. Steer as clear of the sins labelled "Thou shalt not" as you would of that leper island down in the Pacific. The ten commandments are equal links in the moral chain, and it is no man's privilege to pick and choose which he will break or which he will keep; because if he violates one, it is merely a question of temptation, necessity, and opportunity when he will transgress all. If he bears false witness and lies, he will steal money as he filched character; if he covets his neighbor's wife, the time comes when he murders her husband. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. You are going where you will hear much fine talk about 'lofty, broadening, philosophic ideals' and 'progressive, altruistic standards of humanitarianism and honor.' Now mark you, God's laws are not 'progressive,' they are absolutely fixed, and when you are as old as I am you will have learned that 'man's honor,' unless based on them, is merely a sliding scale set up on a quicksand. My boy, try to lead such a clean life that when the mirror of records is held up to you in the final judgment you will not squirm and want to look the other way; and now, my last word is, you had the great misfortune to lose your dear, sweet mother in this world – be sure you deserve to find her in the next."

During the journey to college he found in his well-filled pocket-book a folded sheet containing additional memoranda in his father's cramped, old-fashioned writing.

"Be honest first, then generous – never wasteful. Pose on no pedestals and you will escape falls. Avoid priggishness, which is detestable mental dry-rot; and flee from cant, the convenient domino of hypocrisy. Cultivate genuine sympathy for all suffering humanity, and remember that a man's safest companion is his own conscientious, incorruptible self-respect."

Doubtless in the years that followed Noel realized that indeed but that he succeeded fairly well might have been inferred from a certain scar on his throat, received while chastising two of his classmates who had caricatured him in doggerel under the title of "Sir Dandy Galahad." Misled by the quiet reserve of his manner, and an inborn courtesy that made him as good a listener as talker, strangers never suspected the existence of a temper fierce and, when fully aroused, well-nigh implacable. In his third collegiate year the death of his father left him untrammelled in the selection of a profession, and soon after he entered into possession of a fortune so large that its golden key would have opened the door of almost any career he might have chosen. His mental trend was toward scientific studies, and his dominant scheme of investigation embraced the elusive problems of anthropology. His individual and favorite hypothesis involved the genesis of aboriginal American man, and to secure all prehistoric and especially pre-glacial data he had attended post-collegiate lectures at several European universities, supplemented by sojourns in Central America, Pacific Islands, and British North America.

 
"Souls were dangerous things to carry straight
Through all the spilt saltpetre of the world;"
 

Since the death of his stepmother, Mr. Herriott had established temporary headquarters in New York in "apartments" not far from the old Herriott house, which by provision of his wife's will was now the property of Judge Kent. While the family of the senator usually remained in Washington, Eglah and Mrs. Mitchell frequently spent a week in New York, and on such occasions, if Noel chanced to be in the city, they relied upon him to serve as escort when needed. That he had successfully run the gauntlet of Eliza's years of cautious, suspicious observation, and finally commanded her admiring confidence, contributed in some degree to the easy camaraderie maintained between Eglah and himself: on her part a genuinely trusting friendship, pure and simple; on his that cool, watchful quietude that holds in leash the one deep passionate love of a strong nature and a lonely life. From the day he first saw the little quivering white-clad girl standing in the sunset glow that flooded the fragrant, flower-filled dining-room at Nutwood, he had opened the empty temple of his heart, and where no image dwelt – save the memory of his father – he lifted this child to a pure altar, and offered silent homage.

CHAPTER VI

"Of course, Mr. Herriott, you are vastly amused by my ambitious pretension."

"Why Mr. Herriott? And why assume amusement which I certainly have not expressed?"

"Not verbally; but I quite understand that look in your eyes, when by sheer force of will you hold your lips from smiling. Only courtesy keeps in check your contempt for our 'higher education.'"

"Eglah, be a little more just in your generalizations. If the education be really 'higher' and thorough, no reasonable man could afford to disparage it. You have spent the morning over volumes of tedious statistics, extracting figures on ad valorem and 'specific' schedules that only a custom-house clerk or a tariff expert could utilize by eliminating nonessentials and compiling valuable tables. Why waste this perfect day over metric puzzles – dekameter, hectoliter, myriagram?"

"Father wished the exact figures, and to work for him is my greatest pleasure."

"Do not confound motive and accomplishment. Your father's secretary would have collected the statistics in half the time and in a more satisfactory form, simply because he has been trained for such search, as dogs are taught to hunt truffles."

"Mr. Metcalf was needed in Washington, and as father has tried me sufficiently to trust the accuracy of my work, he asked me to make this investigation while I was in New York. Mr. Noel, to help him even in trifles is my very life; he is my world, my all."

Mr. Herriott lifted his hat and bowed.

"Your devotion is beautiful and sacred, and Judge Kent should feel proud of the list of rivals he so successfully defies. Perhaps it has not yet occurred to him that in chaining yourself to his library desk you are restricted to sawdust diet."

"Varied now and then, you must admit, by banquets of opera, germans, receptions, teas, theatre parties, and the embassies. When I was working so hard at college I looked forward eagerly to 'coming out,' as to a magical door that would swing suddenly open into a wonderful world, where, because of new conditions, I should become a different person, and shed my girlish ideas as serpents slip their skins; but since the 'open sesame,' and I have 'arrived,' I seem to have lost nothing of the past, and my old, tiresome self is tyrannous as ever."

"Is social life in Washington disappointing?"

"That is scarcely the right term. Life is certainly very brilliant, and gay and panoramic, and I enjoy music and dancing, and some dinner parties; above all, I find keen pleasure in following a spirited debate in the House, or listening to speeches in the Senate, but sometimes I catch myself wondering if this is indeed all – the veritable kernel of society, politics, diplomacy, or merely the shell partly cracked. Life here and in Washington does not seem so absolutely real as it was at home, at Nutwood."

They were driving in Central Park, and Eglah shared the front seat of the trap where Mr. Herriott held the reins of his spirited horses, and brought them down to a steady, rapid trot. It was a cold but sunny day in February, and as he laced his way in and out of the stream of vehicles, he and his companion were the theme of much comment from the passing throng. Fastidious in the matter of clothes, he was always remarkably well dressed – a fact accentuated by his unusual height and erect carriage – and at the two fashionable clubs to which he belonged he was generally regarded "as all around, the best looking member." The dark steel-blue grey eyes – with no hint of yellow – which his Scotch father gave him, lost something of their penetrating brilliance under the long jet lashes that, with black brows and thick clustering hair, his mother had contributed, and his naturally clear olive skin had been weather-tanned in various climates to a browner tint. In profile his face resembled a bronze medallion, and when he smiled his well-cut lips, that in repose seemed ominously thin, showed curves of rare beauty around a faultless set of teeth. The sun of prosperity had ripened and mellowed his manhood, and, as yet, no acid of cynicism had invaded his nature.

Gowned in a fur-trimmed cloth of hunter's green, Eglah wore a velvet toque of same hue, that failed to conceal the mass of golden-brown hair burnished by sunshine into the similitude of a white-oak leaf dyed in autumn. Under delicate, level brows, her large dark eyes —chataigne in some lights, almost black at times – were set rather far apart in an oval face whose exquisitely clear, pure pallor was stained only by the healthy rich red of slender lips, that had a treacherous trick of quivering when any strong emotion stirred the deeps of her heart. By the accepted canons of art and cultured taste her form and features had been adjudged "beautiful," and some great-grandmother of the far South had dowered her with a peculiar grace of movement – not languid, nor sinuous, nor Delsartian – a natural idiosyncrasy that made the manner of her steps, the lifting of head and motion of hands, unlike other women's. Only one gift – most potent of all – had been withheld from her birthright: she was absolutely devoid of personal magnetism, and her habitual cold indifference approached haughtiness, that the world resented. A certain aloofness of manner hedged her around even in the midst of the social whirl, and though in conversation the lovely eyes appeared to meet frankly those confronting hers, people were vaguely conscious that some veil was rarely lifted from their soft, shining depths.

Sudden congestion in the line of equipages, stretching far ahead, had caused a temporary halt, and when the knot dissolved, and the impatient horses sprang forward once more, Eglah said:

"I thought you loved good music too well to lose last night's opera treat, and until the final act I expected you."

"Shall I flatter myself that even in the midst of the select party occupying my box you really missed me?"

"Certainly I missed you – all the more because some of them chattered, and you would have hushed the tattle."

"Am I so successful in the rôle of ogre as to over-awe my guests in an opera box?"

"Your quiet way of setting an example of good breeding is sometimes contagious among thoughtless people."

"My lucky star is surely ascending: you have paid me two compliments, and I am puzzled to know whether I shall be expected to balance my account at ad valorem rates on the basis of your assessment or mine?"

"Oh, you and I established free trade long ago, and I can always tell you the truth without pausing to weigh words as do legation attachés, and as father does when wily lobbyists intercept him on his way from committee rooms. Mr. Noel, had you any special reason for absenting yourself? The lovely lilac orchids were, of course, far more ornamental in your empty chair, and you must not think me lacking in appreciation because I am so tardy in thanking you for them."

"An unexpected change in the date of a lecture given by one of my friends kept me away, when I had hoped to join you. As I had promised to attend, there was no alternative when a belated note informed me that last night had been selected for its delivery."

"Tell me about it."

"If I should so afflict you, most certainly you would vote me a bore, or fall asleep in self-defence."

"When you say that, you know curiosity always covets the forbidden."

"At your peril then! It was a monograph on the autochthonic origin of American races, and by way of ornamentation bristled with such graceful trifles as cephalic index, brachycephalic, and dolichocephalic, and was sprinkled with the curry of Votanic legends, and choice tid-bits from the Quiché Popol Vuh and from Codex Chimalpopoco! Sounds spicy, doesn't it? Piques your appetite for a larger slice?"

"No, thank you. Yet you preferred that tiresome jargon to listening to a superb tenor solo?"

"In a way – yes. We all ride hobby-horses from the nursery to the cemetery, and it is merely a question of individual taste what blood strain or pedigree we choose. My racing stable is not so generously supplied as yours, which embraces colts of various breeds: reports of fisheries commissions, bounties, American tonnage from 18 – to 18 – , and a vast – "

"Sarcasm does not fit you becomingly, Mr. Noel; it hangs askew, like a clown's cap on a cowl. What have you registered your own special toy, that you canter so vigorously around the world? Is it called ethnology, or totemism, or anthropology?"

"When I have finished trying all its gaits, and find the sum total satisfactory, I shall label it, and fit a comfortable side saddle and introduce you formally. Now, Miss Kent, come to confession. Did you see the list of passengers who arrived on yesterday's steamer from Liverpool?"

"I did not."

"Can you recollect a certain prophecy I made at Cowes, anent a handsome naval officer who entertained us at luncheon on his father's yacht?"

"Cassandra was a woman, and men should not trespass on the one feminine right of 'I told you so,' that has descended to us intact from Hecuba's daughter. But, Mr. Noel, if you mean – "

She turned and looked up into his eyes.

"Yes, I met him this morning at the club, where Ogden introduced him, and I saved him a useless journey to Washington by telling him you were here for a few days."

"I can only say I am sorry to hear it."

"While he is in New York I must, in part, return the hospitality shown us, and your father will pay the remainder of the debt in Washington. I have arranged a dinner for this evening, and later we shall see 'Hamlet,' then a supper afterward at Delmonico's. Will you join us at the theatre, if I call for you, bringing Mrs. St. Clair as chaperon?"

"Thank you, I much prefer not to be one of the party; besides, I have a previous engagement. I am going with my cousin, Vernon Temple, to a meeting of shop girls, a sort of night school established by some of his lady friends."

"What class does he teach?"

"I believe he 'talks' now and then on 'feminine arts,' and to-night there will be a lecture on lace making and tapestry guilds, illustrated of course by a sketch of the inevitable Matilda and the indestructible 'Bayeux.' I am trying to classify this new cousin, who seems to me a queer blend of mediæval monk, pre-Raphaelite reformer, and socialist. He is altogether unlike any one I ever knew, but his beautiful, sad face reminds me of a picture I saw in Munich – a young priest administering the viaticum to his dying sweetheart, whom he forsook for holy orders."

Lowering his eyelids, Mr. Herriott glanced keenly at her.

"You find Temple wonderfully magnetic at times?"

"Scarcely that. 'Magnetic' implies so much and really explains so little. When I see his ceaseless struggle to keep the heel of his spirit on the neck of his flesh, it suggests a fanatical rebellion against that equipoise God saw fit to establish. Like Joubert, 'he seems to be a soul that by accident met with a body, and tries to make the best of it.' My cousin Temple is fond of you."

"Despite much difference of opinion on many questions, our friendship has survived the 'storm and stress' period, and I honor a man whose battle cry for humanity is:

 
"'Make trade a Christian possibility,
And individual right no general wrong.'
 

Have you noticed the expression of Mrs. Mitchell's face when they happen to meet?"

"Haven't I! It is too funny to see her narrow her eyes and look at him as if he were some unclassified beast whose method of pouncing on his prey had not yet been warningly advertised. She is convinced he is an ecclesiastical infernal machine trying to wreck our family orthodoxy. I asked him – "

She stopped suddenly at sight of two gentlemen approaching on horseback, and Mr. Herriott smiled, as he whispered:

"Lo! the second son of a duke!"