The Damnation of Theron Ware

entering the church and taking a seat. Theron happened to know who he was; even if he had not known, the suppressed excitement visible in the congregation, the way the sisters turned round to look, the way the more important brethren put their heads together and exchanged furtive whispers⁠—would have warned him that big game was in view. He recalled afterward with something like self-disgust the eager, almost tremulous pains he himself took to please this banker. There was a part of the sermon, as it had been written out, which might easily give offence to a single man of wealth and free notions of life. With the alertness of a mental gymnast, Theron ran ahead, excised this portion, and had ready when the gap was reached some very pretty general remarks, all the more effective and eloquent, he felt, for having been extemporized. People said it was a good sermon; and after the benediction and dispersion some of the officials and principal pewholders remained to talk over the likelihood of a capture having been effected. Theron did not get away without having this mentioned to him, and he was conscious of sharing deeply the hope of the brethren⁠—with the added reflection that it would be a personal triumph for himself into the bargain. He was ashamed of this feeling a little later, and of his trick with the sermon. But this chastening product of introspection was all the fruit which the incident bore. The banker never came again.

Theron returned one afternoon, a little earlier than usual, from a group of pastoral calls. Alice, who was plucking weeds in a border at the shady side of the house, heard his step, and rose from her labors. He was walking slowly, and seemed weary. He took off his high hat, as he saw her, and wiped his brow. The broiling June sun was still high overhead. Doubtless it was its insufferable heat which was accountable for the worn lines in his face and the spiritless air which the wife’s eye detected. She went to the gate, and kissed him as he entered.

“I believe if I were you,” she said, “I’d carry an umbrella such scorching days as this. Nobody’d think anything of it. I don’t see why a minister shouldn’t carry one as much as a woman carries a parasol.”

Theron gave her a rueful, meditative sort of smile. “I suppose people really do think of us as a kind of hybrid female,” he remarked. Then, holding his hat in his hand, he drew a long breath of relief at finding himself in the shade, and looked about him.

“Why, you’ve got more posies here, on this one side of the house alone, than mother had in her whole yard,” he said, after a little. “Let’s see⁠—I know that one: that’s columbine, isn’t it? And that’s London pride, and that’s ragged robin. I don’t know any of the others.”

Alice recited various unfamiliar names, as she pointed out the several plants which bore them, and he listened with a kindly semblance of interest.

They strolled thus to the rear of the house, where thick clumps of fragrant pinks lined both sides of the path. She picked some of these for him, and gave him more names with which to label the considerable number of other plants he saw about him.

“I had no idea we were so well provided as all this,” he commented at last. “Those Van Sizers must have been tremendous hands for flowers. You were lucky in following such people.”

“Van Sizers!” echoed Alice, with contempt. “All they left was old tomato cans and clamshells. Why, I’ve put in every blessed one of these myself, all except those peonies, there, and one brier on the side wall.”

“Good for you!” exclaimed Theron, approvingly. Then it occurred to him to ask, “But where did you get them all? Around among our friends?”

“Some few,” responded Alice, with a note of hesitation in her voice. “Sister Bult gave me the verbenas, there, and the white pinks were a present from Miss Stevens. But most of them Levi Gorringe was good enough to send me⁠—from his garden.”

“I didn’t know that Gorringe had a garden,” said Theron. “I thought he lived over his law-office, in the brick block, there.”

“Well, I don’t know that it’s exactly his,” explained Alice; “but it’s a big garden somewhere outside, where he can have anything he likes.” She went on with a little laugh: “I didn’t like to question him too closely, for fear he’d think I was looking a gift horse in the mouth⁠—or else hinting for more. It was quite his own offer, you know. He picked them all out for me, and brought them here, and lent me a book telling me just what to do with each one. And in a few days, now, I am to have another big batch of plants⁠—dahlias and zinnias and asters and so on; I’m almost ashamed to take them. But it’s such a change to find someone in this Octavius who isn’t all self!”

“Yes, Gorringe is a good fellow,” said Theron. “I wish he was a professing member.” Then some new thought struck him. “Alice,” he exclaimed, “I believe I’ll go and see him this very afternoon. I don’t know why it hasn’t occurred to me before: he’s just the man whose advice I need most. He knows these people here; he can tell me what to do.”

“Aren’t you too tired now?” suggested Alice, as Theron put on his hat.

“No, the sooner the better,” he replied, moving now toward the gate.

“Well,” she began, “if I were you, I wouldn’t say too much about⁠—that is, I⁠—but never mind.”

“What is it?” asked her husband.

“Nothing whatever,” replied Alice, positively. “It was only some nonsense of mine;” and Theron, placidly accepting the feminine whim, went off down the street again.

XII

The Rev. Mr. Ware found Levi Gorringe’s law-office readily enough, but its owner was not in. He probably would be back again, though, in