IV
The morrow was a blank. Gonfallon attended to his duties with the air of a somnambulist. In the morning at the meeting of the Church-Workers, in the afternoon at the Friendly Aid, the echo of Claire’s laughter rippled through the tidings which it was his office to proclaim; and when the last rite had been performed he shook from him a young licentiate who fain would have passed a moment in Christian converse, and strode out into the gathering dusk and on to the outlying regions of the Park.
Above him was a sky of zinc. Beyond, to the west, the sun had slashed the horizon with belts of amber and agonizing green. The air was chill: he raised the collar of his coat, and as he hurried on unimpressed, unobservant even of the salutations of acquaintances whom he chanced to encounter, never yet had he felt more averse to his cloth. Yet did he relinquish it, what was there left? He was too old to begin life afresh: he lacked that energy which permits and even forces some men to turn from one calling to another; he had a wife to support, and down in a Massachusettsian village was his mother dependent on his wage. Truly it was easier to keep up a brave face and draw ten thousand per annum than to pull a wry one and advertise in the papers for an occupation suited to a man of scholarly attainments. If Bucholz had not gone under, there, indeed, would be a different guitar: he could have leaned on him, he could have entered, if need were, into his employ. As it was, instead of the opulence which Ruth might one day have inherited, it seemed not improbable that he would be called upon to contribute to Bucholz’ support. Not later than the previous day a whisper, a breeze that loiters, had told him that his father-in-law passed his hours in extracting, and not painlessly, either, small loans from former companions of his banditti-days.
No, that dream had gone. There was no one to whom he could turn. However unfitted he might be, the pastorate was a refuge still. Yet, even supposing, for argument’s sake, he relinquished it and another cleric mounted the pulpit in his stead, would the congregation be bettered by the change? He knew his parishioners through and through. Half of them were superstitious as ballads, the other half sceptical as himself. There were those who sat very erect and said “Amen” to impress their neighbors, and there were those who allowed themselves to be impressed thereby; there was a collection of boys and girls to whom the church was indeed a meetinghouse, there was also an assortment of neurosthenes; and did he leave these people, in what manner would their salvation be affected?
The mere query was puerile. He shrugged his shoulders in annoyance at himself. Eastward, a splatter of stars, some livid, some as lights seen through canvas slit, betokened the advance of night. He turned, and, musing still, retraced his steps. When he reached the rectory his eyes were eager and his face was flushed.
The hall was silent, the sitting-room untenanted. He put his hat and coat aside, and ascended the stair. To the left was Claire’s room, the door ajar. At the threshold he lingered a moment and listened. Then, hearing no sound, he pushed the door and entered in.
On the sofa some raiment was strewn—a gown, a petticoat, a corset; from the latter a white string hung pendent, the steel tip idling on the floor. At his feet a rose had fallen. On a table beneath the gas-jets utensils were scattered, instruments for the hands in stained ivory, brushes with silver backs, quaint little boxes, curious of form, a rumpled sachet, stamped Cordova leather, four bonnet-pins, a curling-iron, and a collar. In the air was the aroma which women exhale.
Beyond was a bed, the coverlet smooth as an anapest, surmounted by monogrammed pillows. It was white, virginal as its owner, alluring as spring; and as Gonfallon gazed at it the flush on his face increased. “What am I doing here?” he mused, and held his head as one who listens, fearful of surprise. From afar came the rumble of the Elevated, but the house itself was dumb. For a moment he loitered, his eyes fumbling the counterpane, his pulse fluttering like a bird ensnared, and presently, as he stole from the room, he was conscious of that elation of spirit which had visited him in his youth when on the Beverly sands he had crouched close, yet never close enough, to the swoon and the surge of the sea.
That evening Gonfallon broke bread in solitude. Claire had been bidden somewhere—to Miss Pickett’s, the housemaid thought; and Ruth, whom neuralgia had seized again, was lying in darkness, waiting the release of sleep. By his plate was a telegram, which he pushed aside, his thoughts occupied with other things; but when the maid removed the dishes he opened it and read the message it contained:
“We are sorely visited,” it ran. “The Bishop entered into rest this noon. Your brother in Christ,
The yellow slip fell from him undetained. It was so pregnant with intimations that the restless current of his thought was changed. For the time being he forgot all things, even to Claire, and sat, one
