The Unhallowed Harvest/Chapter 11
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. Morever 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.