Phases of an Inferior Planet

But the event had not borne out his prophecy. It did not pass, and Anthony did not return.

"It is my head," he explained, half irritably. "There is a wall of scepticism surrounding my brain, through which only the toughest facts may penetrate. I am minus the faculty of credulity."

"Or reverence," Father Speares added, reproachfully. "You regard spiritual things as a deaf man regards sound or a blind man sight."

Anthony's irritation triumphed.

"Or as a man awake regards a dream," he suggested. "The film of superstition has cleared from my eyes, and I see. The truth is that I regard all religions exactly as you regard all except the one which you inherited. An accident of birth has made you a Christian instead of a Moslem or a Brahman, that is all."

"And a twist of the mind has made you an atheist."

"As you please – atheist, agnostic, sceptic, what you will. It only means that you offer me an irrational assumption, and I reject it. It is the custom of you theologians to fit ugly epithets to your opponents, whereas the denial of Christianity no more argues atheism than the denial of Confucianism does. It merely proves that a man refuses to acknowledge any one of the gods which men have created, and that he leaves the ultimate essence outside his generalizations. Such a man has learned the first lesson in knowledge – the lesson of his own ignorance."

"And has missed the greater lesson of the wisdom of God."

Algarcife shrugged his shoulders.

"It is no use," he said; "I can't believe, and I wouldn't if I could."

So he had gone from Father Speares into the world. Virile, strenuous, and possessed with intellectual passion, he had closed the doors of his mind upon commonplaces, and with the improvidence from which mental stamina failed to redeem him had wedded himself to poverty and science.

Five years after leaving Father Speares's roof he returned with Mariana at his side.

"We have come to be married," he announced.

Father Speares gasped and suggested prudence. "It is unwise," he remonstrated – "it is utterly unwise."

"I agree with you," admitted Anthony. "It is unwise, and we know it; but there is nothing else to be done – is there, Mariana?"

Mariana looked into Father Speares's face and smiled.

"Of course you are right," she said, "and we are very foolish, but – but there really isn't anything else to do."

And Father Speares was silenced. He looked at the license a little ruefully, read the service, and sent them off with a benediction.

"God knows, I wish you happiness," he assured Mariana when she kissed him.

Several months later, meeting Algarcife on Broadway, he repeated the words.

"I am happy," returned Algarcife, emphatically. "Mariana is an angel."

"I am glad to hear it," said Father Speares, and he sighed irrelevantly. "A good woman is a jewel of rare value."

The term "good woman," applied to Mariana, gave Anthony a sense of unfitness. Mariana was certainly a jewel, but, somehow, it had never occurred to him to look upon her as a "good woman."

"She is very charming," he remarked, quietly.

Father Speares was regarding him critically. "You are not looking well," he said. "Is it work or worry?"

Algarcife shook his head impatiently. "I – oh, I am all right," he rejoined. "A little extra work, that's all."

"Your book?"

Algarcife's face contracted, and the harassed expression about his mouth deepened.

"No, not my book," he answered, hastily. "I've put that aside for a while. I am trying a hand at bread-winning."

"With satisfactory results, I hope."

Anthony's laugh was slightly constrained.

"Why, certainly! Am I the man to fail?"

"I don't know," commented Father Speares – "I don't know. I never thought of you in that light, somehow. But if I can help you, remember that you were once my boy."

Anthony held out his hand quickly, his voice trembling.

"You are generous – generous as you have always been, but – I am all right."

They parted, Algarcife turning into a cross street. He walked slowly, and the harassed lines did not fade from his mouth. He seemed to have grown older within the last few months, and the fight he was making had bowed his shoulders and sown the seeds of future furrows upon his face.

At the corner he bought a box of sardines and a pound of crackers for Mariana, who liked a late supper. Then he crossed to The Gotham and ascended the stairs.

He found Mariana in a dressing-sack of pink flannel, sitting upon the bed, and engaged in manufacturing an opera-bonnet out of a bit of black gauze and a few pink rose-buds. She was trying it on as he entered, and, catching sight of him, did not remove it as she raised her hand warningly. "Tell me if it is becoming before you kiss me," she commanded, pressing her thimble against her lips.

Anthony drew back and surveyed her.

"Of course it is," he replied; "but what is it, anyway?"

Mariana laughed and leaned towards him.

"A bonnet, of course; not a coal-scuttle or a lamp-shade."

Then she took it from her head and held it before her, turning it critically from side to side.

"Don't you think it might have a few violets against the hair, just above the left temple? I am sure I could take some out of my last summer's hat."

She left the bed and stood upon a chair, to place the bonnet in a box upon the top of the wardrobe. "As a scientific problem it should interest you," she observed. "I created it out of nothing."

Anthony caught her as she descended from the chair.

"As a possible adornment for your head it interests me still more," he replied.

"Because you haven't been married long enough to discover what an empty little head it is?"

"Because it is the dearest head in the world, and the wisest. But what a thriftless house-keeper, not to have set the table!" A door had been cut into his study, and he glanced through. "Do you think you are still below Mason and Dixon's line, where time is not recognized?"

"I forgot it," said Mariana; "but there isn't any bread, so you must go after it. Oh, you didn't get sardines again, did you? I said potted ham – and it is really a very small chicken they sent us."