The Literary Sense

"For instance?" Her charming smile enraged him.

"For instance? Well —for instance– you might start a home for those women who began as you have begun, and who have gone down into hell, as you will go – unless you let yourself be warned."

She was for the moment literally speechless. Then she remembered how he had said: "I am not afraid of – your weapons." She drew a deep breath and spoke gently —

"I believe you don't mean to be insulting – I believe you mean kindly to me. Please say no more now. I'll think over it all. I'm not angry – only – do you really think you understand everything?"

He might have answered that he did not understand her. She did not mean him to understand. She knew well enough that she was giving him something to puzzle over when she smiled that beautiful, troubled, humble, appealing half-smile.

He did not answer at all. He stood a moment twisting his soft hat in his hands: she admired his hands very much.

"Forgive me if I've pained you more than was needed," he said at last, "it is only because – " here her smile caught him, and he ended vaguely in a decreasing undertone. She heard the words "king's jewels," "pearl of great price."

When he was gone she said "Well!" more than once. Then she ran to the low mirror over the mantelpiece, and looked earnestly at herself.

"You do look rather nice to-day," she said. "And so he's not afraid of any of your weapons! And I'm not afraid of any of his. It's a fair duel. Only all the provocation came from him – so the choice of weapons is mine. And they shall be my weapons: he has weapons to match them right enough, only the poor dear doesn't know it." She went away to dress for dinner, humming gaily —

"My love has breath o' roses,
O' roses, o' roses;
And arms like lily posies
To fold a lassie in!"

Not next day – she was far too clever for that, but on the day after that he received a note. Her handwriting was charming; no extravagances, every letter soberly but perfectly formed.

"I have been thinking of all you said the other day. You are quite mistaken about some things – but in some you are right. Will you show me how to work? I will do whatever you tell me."

Then the Reverend Christopher was glad of the courage that had inspired him to denounce to his parishioners all that seemed to him amiss in them.

"I am glad," he said to himself, "that I had the courage to treat her exactly as I have done the others – even if she has beautiful hair, and eyes like – like – "

He stopped the thought before he found the simile – not because he imagined that there could be danger in it, but because he had been trained to stop thoughts of eyes and hair as neatly as a skilful boxer stops a blow.

She had not been so trained, and she admired his eyes and hair quite as much as he might have admired hers if she had not been married.

So now the Reverend Christopher had a helper in his parish work; and he needed help, for his plain-speaking had already offended half his parish. And his helper was, as he had had the sense to know she could be, the most accomplished organiser in the country. She ran the parish library, she arranged the school treat, she started evening classes for wood carving and art needlework. She spent money like water, and time as freely as money. Quietly, persistently, relentlessly, she was making herself necessary to the Reverend Christopher. He wrote to her every day – there were so many instructions to give – but he seldom spoke with her. When he called she was never at home. Sometimes they met in the village and exchanged a few sentences. She was always gravely sweet, intensely earnest. There was a certain smile which he remembered – a beautiful, troubled, appealing smile. He wondered why she smiled no more.

Her friends shrugged their shoulders over her new fancy.

"It is odd," her bosom friend said. "It can't be the parson, though he's as beautiful as he can possibly be, because she sees next to nothing of him. And yet I can't think that Betty of all people could really – "

"Oh – I don't know," said the bosom friend of her bosom friend. "Women often do take to that sort of thing, you know, when they get tired of – "

"Of?"

"The other sort of thing, don't you know!"

"How horrid you are," said Betty's bosom friend. "I believe you're a most dreadful cynic, really."

"Not at all," said the friend, complacently stroking his moustache.

Betty certainly was enjoying herself. She had the great gift of enjoying thoroughly any new game. She enjoyed, first, the newness; and, besides, the hidden lining of her new masquerade dress enchanted her. But as her new industries developed she began to enjoy the things for themselves. It is always delightful to do what we can do well, and the Reverend Christopher had been right when he said she was a born general.

"How easy it all is," she said, "and what a fuss those clergy-hags make about it! What a wife I should be for a bishop!" She smiled and sighed.

It was pleasant, too, to wake in the morning, not to the recollection of the particular stage which yesterday's flirtation happened to have reached, but to the sense of some difficulty overcome, some object achieved, some rough place made smooth for her Girls' Friendly, or her wood carvers, or her Parish Magazine. And within it all the secret charm of a purpose transfiguring with its magic this eager, strenuous, working life.

Her avoidance of the Reverend Christopher struck him at first as modest, discreet, and in the best possible taste. But presently it seemed to him that she rather overdid it. There were many things he would have liked to discuss with her, but she always evaded talk with him. Why? he began to ask himself why. And the question wormed through his brain more and more searchingly. He had seen her at work now; he knew her powers, and her graces – the powers and the graces that made her the adored of her Friendly girls and her carving boys. He remembered, with hot ears and neck crimson above his clerical collar, that interview. The things he had said to her! How could he have done it? Blind idiot that he had been! And she had taken it all so sweetly, so nobly, so humbly. She had only needed a word to turn her from the frivolities of the world to better things. It need not have been the sort of word he had used. And at a word she had turned. That it should have been at his word was not perhaps a very subtle flattery – but the Reverend Christopher swallowed it and never tasted it. He was not trained to distinguish the flavours of flatteries. He never tasted it, but it worked in his blood, for all that. And why, why, why would she never speak to him? Could it be that she was afraid that he would speak to her now as he had once spoken? He blushed again.

Next time he met her she was coming up to the church with a big basket of flowers for the altar. He took the basket from her and carried it in.

"Let me help you," he said.

"No," she said in that sweet, simple, grave way of hers. "I can do it very well. Indeed, I would rather."

He had to go. The arrangement of the flowers took more than an hour, but when she came out with the empty basket, he was waiting in the porch. Her heart gave a little joyful jump.

"I want to speak to you," said he.

"I'm rather late," she said, as usual; "couldn't you write?"

"No," he said, "I can't write this. Sit down a moment in the porch."

She loved the masterfulness of his tone. He stood before her.

"I want you to forgive me for speaking to you as I did – once. I'm afraid you're afraid that I shall behave like that again. You needn't be."

"Score number one," she said to herself. Aloud she said —

"I am not afraid," and she said it sweetly, seriously.

"I was wrong," he went on eagerly. "I was terribly wrong. I see it quite plainly now. You do forgive me – don't you?"

"Yes," said she soberly, and sighed.

There was a little silence. Her serious eyes watched the way of the wind dimpling the tall, feathery grass that grew above the graves.

"Are you unhappy?" he asked; "you never smile now."

"I am too busy to smile, I suppose!" she said, and smiled the beautiful, humble, appealing smile he had so longed to see again, though he had not known the longing by its right name.

"Can't we be friends?" he ventured. "You – I am afraid you can never trust me again."

"Yes, I can," she said. "It was very bitter at the time, but I thought it was so brave of you – and kind, too – to care what became of me. If you remember, I did want to trust you, even on that dreadful day, but you wouldn't let me."

"I was a brute," he said remorsefully.

"I do want to tell you one thing. Even if that boy had been holding my hand I should have thought I had a right to let him, if I liked – just as much as though I were a girl, or a widow."

"I don't understand. But tell me – please tell me anything you will tell me." His tone was very humble.