The Puritans | Page 8

"that I refused to go with you?"
"But you won't," returned she, with that curious smile which always
teased him with its suggestion of irony. "In the first place you couldn't
be so impolite as to refuse me. A woman may always lead a man into
questionable paths if she puts it to his sense of chivalry not to desert her.
In the second, the spirit of the age is a good deal stronger in you than
you realize, and the truth is that you wouldn't be left behind for
anything. In the third, you could hardly be so cowardly as to run away
from the temptation that is to prove whether you were really born to be
a priest."
"That was decided when I entered the Clergy House."
"Nonsense; nothing of the sort, my dear boy. The only thing that was
decided then was that you thought you were. Wait and see our ethical
and religious raree-shows. We had the Persian to-day; to-morrow I'm to
take you to a spiritualist sitting at Mrs. Rangely's. She hates to have me
come, so I mustn't miss that. Then there are the mind-cure, Theosophy,
and a dozen other things; not to mention the semi- irreligions, like
Nationalism. You will be as the gods, knowing good and evil, by the
time we are half way round the circle,--though it is perhaps somewhat
doubtful if you know them apart."
She spoke in her light, railing way, as if the matter were one of the
smallest possible consequence, and yet Wynne grew every moment
more and more uncomfortable. He had never seen his cousin in just this
mood, and could not tell whether she were mocking him or warning
him. He seized upon the first pretext which presented itself to his mind,
and endeavored to change the subject.

"Who is Mrs. Rangely?" he asked. "A medium?"
"Oh, bless you, no. She is not so bad as a medium; she is only a New
Yorker. Do you think we'd go to real mediums? Although," she added,
"there are plenty who do go. I think that it is shocking bad form."
"But you speak as if"--
"As if spiritualism were one of the recognized ethical games, that's all.
It is played pretty well at Mrs. Rangely's, I'm told. They say that the
little Mrs. Singleton she's got hold of is very clever."
"Mrs. Singleton," Maurice repeated, "why, it can't be Alice, brother
John's widow, can it? She married a Singleton for a second husband,
and she claimed to be a medium."
"Did she really? It will be amusing if you find your relatives in the
business."
"She wasn't a very close relative. John was only my half-brother, you
know, and he lived but six months after he married her. She is clever
enough and tricky enough to be capable of anything."
"Well," Mrs. Staggchase said, as they turned in at her door, "if it is she
it will give you an excellent chance to do missionary work."
They entered the wide, handsome hall, and with an abrupt movement
the hostess turned toward her cousin.
"I assure you," she said, "that I am in earnest about your temptation. I
want to see what sort of stuff you are made of, and I give you fair
warning. Now go and read your breviary, or whatever it is that you
sham monks read, while I have tea and then rest before I dress."
Maurice had no reply to offer. He watched in silence as she passed up
the broad stairway, smiling to herself as she went. He followed slowly
a moment later, and seeking his room remained plunged in a reverie at
which the severe walls of the Clergy House might have been startled; a

reverie disquieted, changing, half-fearful; and yet through which with
strange fascination came a longing to see more of the surprising world
into which chance had introduced him, and above all to meet again the
dark, glowing girl with whom he had that afternoon walked.

III
AS FALSE AS STAIRS OF SAND Merchant of Venice, v. 2.
It was cold and gray next morning when Maurice took his way toward a
Catholic church in the North End. He had been there before for
confession, and had been not a little elated in his secret heart that he
had been able to go through the act of confession and to receive
absolution without betraying the fact that he was not a Romanist. He
had studied the forms of confession, the acts of contrition, and
whatever was necessary to the part, and for some months had gone on
in this singular course. To his Superior at the Clergy House he
confessed the same sins, but Maurice had a feeling that the absolution
of the Roman priest was more effective