Father Stafford | Page 9

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. He had shunned society, and had taken great pains to restrict

his acquaintance with the many devout ladies who had sought him out
to the barest essentials of what ought to have been, if it was not always,
their purpose in seeking him. The prince of this world was now
preparing a more subtle attack; and under the seeming compulsion of
common prudence no less than of old friendship, he found himself
flung into the very center of the sort of life he had with such pains
avoided. It may be doubted whether he was not, like an unskillful
swimmer, ignorant of his danger; but it is certain that, had he been able
to search out his own heart with his former acuteness of self-judgment,
he would have found the first germs of inclinations and feelings to
which he had been up till now a stranger. He would have discovered
the birth of a new longing for pleasure, a growing delight in the
sensuous side of things; or rather, he would have become convinced
that temptations of this sort, which had previously been in the main
creatures of his own brain, postulated in obedience to the doctrines and
literature in which he had been bred, had become self-assertive realities;
and that what had been set up only to be triumphantly knocked down
had now taken a strong root of its own, and refused to be displaced by
spiritual exercises or physical mortifications. Had he been able to
pursue the analysis yet further, it may be that, even in these days, he
would have found that the forces of this world were already beginning
to personify themselves for him in the attractive figure of Claudia
Territon. As it was, however, this discovery was yet far from him.
The function of passing a moral judgment on Claudia's conduct at this
juncture is one that the historian respectfully declines. It is easy to
blame fair damsels for recklessness in the use of their dangerous
weapons; and if they take the censure to heart--which is not usually the
case--easy again to charge them with self-consciousness or self-conceit.
We do not know their temptations and may not presume to judge them.
And it may well be thought that Claudia would have been guilty of an
excessive appreciation of herself had her conduct been influenced by
the thought that such a man as Stafford was likely to fall in love with
her. Of the conscious design of attracting him she must be acquitted,
for she acted under the force of a strong attraction exercised by him.
Her mind was not entirely engrossed in the pleasures, and what she
imagined to be the duties, of her station. She had a considerable, if

untrained and erratic, instinct toward religion, and exhibited that
leaning toward the mysterious and visionary which is the common
mark of an acute mind that has not been presented with any methodical
course of training worthy of its abilities. Such a temperament could not
fail to be powerfully influenced by Stafford; and when an obvious and
creditable explanation lies on the surface, it is an ungracious task to
probe deeper in the hope of coming to something less praiseworthy.
Claudia herself certainly undertook no such research. It was