Medoline Selwyn's Work Part 44

"That one that's such a stunner?" he said, coolly, going to a shelf near where he had water and gla.s.ses.

"I presume it is the same," I said, seizing the gla.s.s, while wondering at his indifference.

"You'd best not get too frightened, Miss Selwyn. I've heard of that one afore, and she knows what she's about."

I hastened back to my charge, leaving him to follow at his leisure. I found her on the floor, apparently unconscious. Forgetful of the dainty Paris bonnet, I began applying the water vigorously, when she opened her eyes, and said:

"That will do."

I dried her face, whisking away a few bountiful drops that were clinging to her garments. She arose directly. Several persons who had been late in leaving the church had collected around us. She glanced at them, a look of keen disappointment pa.s.sing over her face. With an amazing return of vitality, she pa.s.sed quickly out of the pew, saying, lightly:

"Your church was uncomfortably hot, and the air was very impure; it seems a necessity to absorb one's religion and a vitiated atmosphere at the same time."

She turned to me presently, saying:

"You get very easily alarmed, Miss Selwyn. Are you always so impetuous in your deeds of mercy?"

"Oh, no, indeed. I never had such cause for alarm but once before, and that was a poor widow who was utterly overcome by some good news I was bringing her. My friends usually have sufficient nerve to endure heavy shocks," I said, very sweetly.

Her eyes flashed, but she allowed no further sign of annoyance to escape her. When we reached the door, she turned to me and said, very cordially:

"I shall look for you to-morrow, according to promise. Forgive me for having kept you so long from your escort. I fear a scolding awaits you.

Mr. Winthrop I used to find very impatient, if kept waiting."

I left her standing on the church steps, and turned my face homeward.

When I reached the street I found Mr. Winthrop had got some distance ahead; but he was walking slowly, and I soon overtook him.

"Is it your custom to remain chatting with your friends after the sermon?" he asked, carelessly.

"Oh, no; but a lady who sat near us fainted just as I was standing by her."

"And, of course, as a sort of mother-general of the sorrowing, you stopped to comfort her?"

"Yes; but a few drops of water sufficed. She knew all the time I was in danger of spoiling her bonnet."

"I am glad she snubbed you. You are too innocent to be matched against so perfect an actress."

Then he changed the conversation, and Mrs. Le Grande was not mentioned again that day. I noticed, however, that he partook very sparingly of dinner; and, in the hour or two which he usually spent on the Sabbath with us in the drawing-room, he was unusually silent. I went to the library for a book, leaving him and Mrs. Flaxman alone, and returned just in time to interrupt, a second time, a conversation clearly not intended for my ears.

"Yes. She was at church this morning, looking as wickedly beautiful as ever," he was saying, as if in answer to Mrs. Flaxman's question.

When the church bells began ringing that evening, a strong desire seized me to claim the fulfillment of his promise to accompany me to the Beech Street Church. He may have read it in my face.

"Are you going to take me out again to-night?"

"Do you wish to go?" I asked, with girlish eagerness.

"I have told you before it is not polite to reply to a question by asking another."

"Then I would like very much indeed to go to Mr. Lathrop's church to-night, if you are willing."

Mrs. Flaxman looked up from her book with amazement.

"You were never at their church before. What will those people think?"

"There must always be a first time, and probably you are aware I am not in bondage to other people's thoughts," he said, with calm indifference.

"Won't you come, too, Mrs. Flaxman?" I urged.

"With pleasure," was the smiling response.

"What will your Dr. Hill think if he hears you have been to hear Lathrop?"

"I must endeavor to live above public opinion, as well as you."

"I am afraid such elevation would chill you."

"Don't you want Mrs. Flaxman to go?"

"I have nothing to say against it, if she has courage to brave public opinion."

"I did not think you reckoned me such a coward."

"That shows how little we know what our intimate friends think of us; if there was a general laying bare of hearts, methinks there would be lively times for a while."

I stood thinking his words over very seriously, and then turning to him said, gravely:--

"I would be willing for nearly all my friends to see my thoughts respecting them."

"There would be some exceptions, then. You said nearly all, remember. The few might be the ones most anxious to know, and upon whom the restriction would bear most heavily."

"They might not care what I thought," I said with a hot flush; something in his look making me tremble.

"If we are to be in time for church we should leave very shortly," he said, looking at his watch.

"And we are really going to Beech Street Church this evening?"

"Yes, really," he said, with that genial smile I was beginning to regard like a caress.

Mrs. Flaxman and I hastened to our rooms; she nearly as well pleased as I. It seemed quite too good to be true that we three were to go in company to those meetings where men and women talked to each other, and to G.o.d, of all the great things He was doing for them. I was very speedily robed and back in the drawing-room, where Mr. Winthrop was still sitting gazing into the fire with that indrawn, abstracted expression on his face which was habitual to it in repose. I waited silently near until Mrs. Flaxman should come in and interrupt his reverie. I liked to watch his face in those rare moments, and used to speculate on what he might be thinking, and wis.h.i.+ng my own thoughts were high and strong enough to follow his on their long upward flight.

He looked at me suddenly.

"What, if I could read your thoughts now, Medoline? From your intent look I think I was the subject of your meditations." I smiled calmly.

"You would have been flattered, as you were this morning, perhaps. I was just wis.h.i.+ng I was capable of going with you along those high paths where, by your face, I knew you were straying."

"Was that what you were thinking about, and that only?"