第54章

He caught the shine of a thin bracelet-band of gold under the sleeve.A delicate, significant odor just hinted its presence in the air about this outstretched arm--something which was not a perfume, yet deserved as gracious a name.

He rose to his feet, and took the proffered hand with a deliberate gesture, as if he had been cautiously weighing all the possible arguments for and against this momentous compact.

"I promise," he said gravely, and the two palms squeezed themselves together in an earnest clasp.

"Right you are," exclaimed the lady, once more with cheery vivacity."Mind, when it's all over, I'm going to give you a good, serious, downright talking to--a regular hoeing-over.I'm not sure I shan't give you a sound shaking into the bargain.You need it.

And now I'm going out to help Alice."

The Reverend Mr.Ware remained standing after his new friend had left the room, and his meditative face wore an even unusual air of abstraction.He strolled aimlessly over, after a time, to the desk by the window, and stood there looking out at the slight figure of Brother Soulsby, who was bending over and attentively regarding some pink blossoms on a shrub through what seemed to be a pocket magnifying-glass.

What remained uppermost in his mind was not this interesting woman's confident pledge of championship in his material difficulties.He found himself dwelling instead upon her remark about the incongruous results of early marriages.

He wondered idly if the little man in the white tie, fussing out there over that rhododendron-bush, had figured in her thoughts as an example of these evils.Then he reflected that they had been mentioned in clear relation to talk about Alice.

Now that he faced this question, it was as if he had been consciously ignoring and putting it aside for a long time.

How was it, he asked himself now, that Alice, who had once seemed so bright and keen-witted, who had in truth started out immeasurably his superior in swiftness of apprehension and readiness in humorous quips and conceits, should have grown so dull? For she was undoubtedly slow to understand things nowadays.Her absurd lugging in of the extension-table problem, when the great strategic point of that invitation foisted upon the Presiding Elder came up, was only the latest sample of a score of these heavy-minded exhibitions that recalled themselves to him.

And outsiders were apparently beginning to notice it.

He knew by intuition what those phrases, "good, honest little soul" and "kind, sweet little body" signified, when another woman used them to a husband about his wife.

The very employment of that word "little" was enough, considering that there was scarcely more than a hair's difference between Mrs.Soulsby and Alice, and that they were both rather tall than otherwise, as the stature of women went.

What she had said about the chronic misfortunes of intellectual men in such matters gave added point to those meaning phrases.Nobody could deny that geniuses and men of conspicuous talent had as a rule, all through history, contracted unfortunate marriages.In almost every case where their wives were remembered at all, it was on account of their abnormal stupidity, or bad temper, or something of that sort.Take Xantippe, for example, and Shakespeare's wife, and--and--well, there was Byron, and Bulwer-Lytton, and ever so many others.

Of course there was nothing to be done about it.

These things happened, and one could only put the best possible face on them, and live one's appointed life as patiently and contentedly as might be.And Alice undoubtedly merited all the praise which had been so generously bestowed upon her.She was good and honest and kindly, and there could be no doubt whatever as to her utter devotion to him.These were tangible, solid qualities, which must always secure respect for her.

It was true that she no longer seemed to be very popular among people.He questioned whether men, for instance, like Father Forbes and Dr.Ledsmar would care much about her.Visions of the wifeless and academic calm in which these men spent their lives--an existence consecrated to literature and knowledge and familiarity with all the loftiest and noblest thoughts of the past--rose and enveloped him in a cloud of depression.No such lot would be his! He must labor along among ignorant and spiteful narrow-minded people to the end of his days, pocketing their insults and fawning upon the harsh hands of jealous nonentities who happened to be his official masters, just to keep a roof over his head--or rather Alice's.

He must sacrifice everything to this, his ambitions, his passionate desires to do real good in the world on a large scale, his mental freedom, yes, even his chance of having truly elevating, intellectual friendships.

For it was plain enough that the men whose friendship would be of genuine and stimulating profit to him would not like her.Now that he thought of it, she seemed latterly to make no friends at all.

Suddenly, as he watched in a blank sort of way Brother Soulsby take out a penknife, and lop an offending twig from a rose-bush against the fence, something occurred to him.There was a curious exception to that rule of Alice's isolation.She had made at least one friend.

Levi Gorringe seemed to like her extremely.

As if his mind had been a camera, Theron snapped a shutter down upon this odd, unbidden idea, and turned away from the window.

The sounds of an active, almost strenuous conversation in female voices came from the kitchen.Theron opened the door noiselessly, and put in his head, conscious of something furtive in his intention.

"You must dreen every drop of water off the spinach, mind, before you put it over, or else--"It was Sister Soulsby's sharp and penetrating tones which came to him.Theron closed the door again, and surrendered himself once more to the circling whirl of his thoughts.