The Puritans | Page 2

trouble to ask leave to carry you to Mrs. Gore's this afternoon, more because you wanted to see this Persian than because I cared about it, it is rather late for objections."
Philip raised his eyes to her face only to meet a glance so quizzical that he hastened to avoid it by going to the hall to don his cloak; and a few moments later they were walking up Beacon Hill.
It was one of those gloriously brilliant winter days by which Boston weather atones in an hour for a week of sullenness. Snow lay in a thin sheet over the Common, and here and there a bit of ice among the tree- branches caught the light like a glittering jewel. The streets were dotted with briskly gliding sleighs, the jingle of whose bells rang out joyously. The air was full of a vigor which made the blood stir briskly in the veins.
Philip had not for years found himself in the street with a woman. Seldom, indeed, was he abroad with a companion, except as he took the walk prescribed in the monastic regime with his friend, Maurice Wynne. For the most part he went his way alone, occupied in pious contemplation, shutting himself stubbornly in from outward sights and sounds. Now he was confused and unsettled. Since a fire had a week earlier scattered the dwellers in the Clergy House, and sent him to the home of his cousin, he had gone about like one bewildered. The world into which he was now cast was as unknown to him as if he had passed the two years spent at St. Mark's in some far island of the sea. To be in the street with a lady; to be on his way to hear he knew not what from the lips of a Persian mystic; to have in his mind memory of light talk and pleasant story; all these things made him feel as if he were drifting into a strange unknown sea of worldliness.
Yet his feeling was not entirely one of fear or of reluctance. Sensitive to the tips of his fingers, he felt the influences of the day, the sweetness of his cousin's laughter, the beauty of her face. He was exhilarated by a strange intoxication. He was conscious that more than one passer looked curiously at them as, he in his cassock and she in her furs, they walked up Beacon Street. He felt as in boyhood he had felt when about to embark in some adventure to childhood strange and daring.
"It is a beautiful day," he said involuntarily.
"Yes," Mrs. Herman answered. "It is almost a pity to spend it indoors. But here we are."
They had come into Mt. Vernon Street, and now turned in at a fine old house of gray stone.
"Is there any discussion at these meetings?" he asked, as they waited for the door to be opened.
"Oh, yes; often there is a good deal. You'll have ample opportunity to protest against the heresies of the heathen."
"I do not come here to speak," he replied, rather stiffly. "I only come to get some idea of how the oriental mind works."
He felt her smile to be that of one amused at him, but he could not see why she should be.
"I must give you one caution," she went on, as they entered the house. "It's the same that the magicians give to those who are present at their incantations. Be careful not to pronounce sacred words."
"But don't they use them?"
"Oh, abundantly; but they know how to use them in a fashion understood only by the initiated, so that they are harmless."
They passed up the wide staircase of Mrs. Gore's handsome, if over- furnished house. They were shown into the drawing-room, where they were met by the hostess, a tall, superb woman of commanding presence, her head crowned with masses of snow-white hair. Coming in from the brilliant winter sunlight, Philip could not at first distinguish anything clearly. He went mechanically through his presentation to the hostess and to the Persian who was to address the meeting, and then sank into a seat. He looked curiously at the Persian, struck by the picturesque appearance of the long snow-white beard, fine as silk, which flowed down over the rich robe of the seer. The face was to Philip an enigma. To understand a foreign face it is necessary to have learned the physiognomy of the people to which it belongs, as to comprehend their speech it is necessary to have mastered their language. As he knew not whether the countenance of the old man attracted or repelled him more, and could only decide that at least it had a strange fascination.
Suddenly Ashe felt his glance called up by a familiar presence, and to his surprise saw his friend, Maurice