Father Stafford | Page 8

smiled gently and bade him good-night. A moment later Bob Territon emerged from the open windows of the billiard-room.
"Of all dull dogs, Haddington's the worst; however, I've won five pound of him! Hist! Is the Father here?"
"I am glad to say he is not."
"Oh! Have you squared it with Miss Kate? I saw something was up."
"Miss Bernard's heart, Bob, and mine again beat as one."
"What was it particularly about?"
"An immaterial matter."
"I say, did you see the Father and Claudia?"
"No. What do you mean?"
"Gammon! I tell you what, Eugene, if Claudia really puts her back into it, I wouldn't give much for that vow of celibacy."
"Bob," said Eugene, "you don't know Stafford; and your expression about your sister is--well, shall I say lacking in refinement?"
"Haddington didn't like it."
"Damn Haddington, and you too!" said Eugene impatiently, walking away.
Bob looked after him with a chuckle, and exclaimed enigmatically to the silent air, "Six to four, t. and o."
CHAPTER III.
Father Stafford changes his Habits, and Mr. Haddington his Views.
For sheer placid enjoyment and pleasantness of living, there is nothing like a sojourn in a well-appointed country house, peopled by well-assorted guests. The guests at Millstead Manor were not perhaps particularly well-assorted; but nevertheless the hours passed by in a round of quiet delights, and the long summer days seemed in no wise tedious. The Bishop and Mrs. Bartlett had reluctantly gone to open the bazaar, and Miss Chambers went with them, but otherwise the party was unchanged; for Morewood, who had come originally only for two days, had begged leave to stay, received it on condition of showing due respect to everybody's prejudices, telegraphed for his materials, and was fitfully busy making sketches, not of Lady Claudia, to her undisguised annoyance, but of Stafford, with whose face he had been wonderfully struck. Stafford himself was the only one of the party, besides his artistic tormentor, who had not abandoned himself to the charms of idleness. His great work was understood to make rapid progress between six in the morning, when he always rose, and half-past nine, when the party assembled at breakfast; and he was also busy in writing a reply to a daring person who had recently asserted in print that on the whole the less said about the Council of Chalcedon the better.
"The Pope's wild about it!" reported Bob Territon to the usual after-breakfast group on the lawn: "says the beggar's impudence licks him."
"He shall not work any more," exclaimed Claudia, darting into the house, whence she presently emerged, followed by Stafford, who resignedly sat himself down with them.
Such forcible interruptions of his studies were by no means uncommon. Eugene, however, who was of an observant turn, noticed--and wondered if others did--that the raids on his seclusion were much more apt to be successful when Claudia headed them than under other auspices. The fact troubled him, not only from certain unworthy feelings which he did his best to suppress, but also because he saw nothing but harm to be possible from any close rapprochement between Claudia and Stafford. Kate, on the contrary, seemed to him to have set herself the task of throwing them together; with what motive he could not understand, unless it were the recollection of his ill-fated "Claudia." He did not think this explanation very convincing, for he was well aware that Kate's scorn of Claudia's attractions, as compared with her own, was perfectly genuine, and such a state of mind would not produce the certainly active efforts she put forth. In truth, Eugene, though naturally observant, was, like all men, a little blind where he himself was concerned; and perhaps a shrewd spectator would have connected Haddington in some way with Miss Kate's maneuvers. Such, at any rate, was the view of Bob Territon, and no doubt he would have expressed it with his usual frankness if he had not had his own reasons for keeping silence.
Stafford's state of mind was somewhat peculiar. A student from his youth, to whom invisible things had always seemed more real than visible, and hours of solitude better filled than busy days, he had had but little experience of that sort of humanity among which he found himself. A man may administer a cure of souls with marked efficiency in the Mile End Road, and yet find himself much at a loss when confronted with the latest products of the West End. The renunciation of the world, except so far as he could aid in mending it, had seemed an easy and cheap price to pay for the guerdon he strove for, to one who had never seen how pleasant this wicked world can look in certain of its aspects. Hitherto, at school, at college, and afterward, he had resolutely turned away from all opportunities of enlarging his experience in this direction.