Miriam wondered why she felt no desire to open the subject of religion and science; or any other subject. It was so extraordinary to find herself sitting tête-à-tête with a clergyman, and still more strange to find him communicatively trying to show her his life from the inside. He went on talking, not looking at her but gazing into the fire. She tried in vain to tether her attention. It was straining away to work upon something, upon some curious evidence it had collected since she came into the room; and even with her eyes fixed upon his person and her mind noting the strange contradiction between the thin rippling many-buttoned cassock and the stout square-toed boots protruding beneath it, she could not completely convince herself that he was there.
“… novels; my friends to recommend any that might be helpful.”
He had looked up towards her with this phrase.
“Oh yes, Red Pottage,” she said grasping hurriedly and looking attentive.
“Have you read that novel?”
“No. I imagined that you had because you lent it to Miss Dear.”
“Miss Dear has spoken to you of me.”
“Oh yes.”
“Of you she has spoken a great deal. You know her very well. It is because of your long friendship with her that I have taken courage to ask you to come here and discuss with me about her affairs.”
“I have known Miss Dear only a very short time,” said Miriam, sternly gazing into the fire. Nothing should persuade her to become the caretaker of the future Mrs. Taunton.
“That surprises me very much indeed,” he said propping his head upon his hand by one finger held against a tooth. He sat brooding.
“She is very much in need of friends just now,” he said suddenly and evenly towards the fire without removing his finger from his tooth.
“Yes,” said Miriam gravely.
“You are, nevertheless, the only intimate woman friend to whom just now she has access.”
“I’ve done little things for her. I couldn’t do much.”
“You were sorry for her.” Mr. Taunton was studying her face and waiting.
“Well—I don’t know—she,” she consulted the fire intensely, looking for the truth; “she seems to me too strong for that.” Light! Women have no pity on women … they know how strong women are; a sick man is more helpless and pitiful than a sick woman; almost as helpless as a child. People in order of strength … women, men, children. This man without his worldly props, his money and his job and his health had not a hundredth part of the strength of a woman … nor had Dr. Densley. …
“I think she fascinated me.”
Mr. Taunton gathered himself together in his chair and sat very upright.
“She has an exceptional power of inspiring affection—affection and the desire to give her the help she so sorely needs.”
“Perhaps that is it,” said Miriam judicially. But you are very much mistaken in calling on me for help … “domestic work and the care of the aged and the sick,”—very convenient—all the stuffy nerve-racking never-ending things to be dumped on to women—who are to be openly praised and secretly despised for their unselfishness—I’ve got twice the brain power you have. You are something of a scholar; but there is a way in which my time is more valuable than yours. There is a way in which it is more right for you to be tied to this woman than for me. Your reading is a habit, like most men’s reading, not a quest. You don’t want it disturbed. But you are kinder than I am. You are splendid. It will be awful—you don’t know how awful yet—poor little man.
“I think it has been so in my case, if you will allow me to tell you.”
“Oh yes do,” said Miriam a little archly—“of course—I know—I mean to say Miss Dear has told me.”
“Yes,” he said eagerly.
“How things are,” she finished looking shyly into the fire.
“Nevertheless, if you will allow me, I should like to tell you exactly what has occurred and to ask your advice as to the future. My mother and sisters are in the Midlands.”
“Yes,” said Miriam in a carefully sombre noncommittal tone; waiting for the revelation of some of the things men expect from mothers and sisters and wondering whether he was beginning to see her unsuitability for the role of convenient sister.
“When my rector sent me to look up Miss Dear,” he began heavily “I thought it was an ordinary parish case, and I was shocked beyond measure to find a delicately nurtured ladylike girl in such a situation. I came back here to my rooms and found myself unable to enter into my usual employments. I was haunted by the thought of what that lonely girl who might have been one of my own sisters—must be suffering and enduring and I returned to give what relief I could without waiting to report the case to my rector for ordinary parish relief. I am not dependent on my stipend and I felt that I could not withhold the help she ought to have. I saw her landlady and made arrangements as to her feeding and called each day myself to take little things to cheer her—as a rule when my day’s work was done. I have never come in contact with a more pathetic case. It did not occur to me for … a moment that she viewed my visits and the help I was so glad to be able to give … in … in any other light … that she viewed me as other than her parish priest.”
“Of course not,” said Miriam violently.
“She is a singularly attractive and lovable nature. That to my mind makes her helplessness and resourcelessness all the more painfully pathetic. Her very name—” he paused gazing into the fire. “I told her lately in one of her moments of deep depression that she would never want for friends, that she would always inspire affection wherever she
