Fran Part 21

"Still, you see she can't stay."

"No, I don't see. You and Miss Grace must be reconciled."

"Oh, Abbott, can't you understand, or is it that you just _won't?_ It isn't on _my_ account that Miss Noir must leave this house. She's going to bring trouble--she's already done it. I've had lots of experience, and when I see people hurrying down hill, I expect to find them at the bottom, not because it's in the people, but because it's in the direction. I don't care how no-account folks are, if they keep doggedly climbing up out of the valley, just give 'em time, and they'll reach the mountain-top. I believe some mighty good-intentioned men are stumbling down hill, carrying their religion right into h.e.l.l."

"Hush, little friend! You don't understand what religion is."

"If I can't find out from its fruits, I don't want to know."

"Of course. But consider how Miss Grace's labors are blessing the helpless."

"Abbott, unless the fruits of religion are flavored by love, they're no more account than apples taken with bitter-rot--not worth fifty cents a barrel. The trouble with a good deal of the church-fruit to- day is bitter-rot."

Abbott asked slyly, "What about your fruit, out there in the world?"

"Oh," Fran confessed, with a gleam, "we're not in the orchard-business at all, out here."

Abbott laid his hand earnestly upon her arm. "Fran! Come in and help us spray."

"You dear old prosy, preachy professor!" she exclaimed affectionately, "I have been thinking of it. I've half a mind to try, really. Wouldn't Grace Noir just die?...O Lord, there she comes, now!"

Fran left the disconsolate young man in wild precipitation, and flew into the house. He wondered if she had been seen standing there, and he realized that, if so, the purest motives could not outweigh appearances. He turned off in another direction, and Gregory and Grace came slowly toward the house, having, without much difficulty, eliminated Simon Jefferson from their company.

In truth, Simon, rather than be improved by their conversation, had dived down a back alley, and found entrance through the side door.

When Hamilton Gregory and his secretary came into the reception hall, the old bachelor lay upon a divan thinking of his weak heart--Fran's flight from the choir loft had reminded him of it--and Mrs. Jefferson was fanning him, as if he were never to be a grown man. Mrs. Gregory sat near the group, silently embroidering in white silk. Fran had hastily thrown herself upon the stairway, and, with half-closed eyes, looked as if she had been there a long time.

"Fran," said Mr. Gregory coldly, "you left the choir practice before we were two-thirds done. Of course I could hardly expect you--" he looked at his wife--"to stay, although your presence would certainly have kept Fran there; and it does look as if we should be willing to resort to any expedient to keep her there!"

"How would a lock and chain do?" Fran inquired meekly.

"I don't think she came straight home, either," remarked Grace Noir significantly. "Did you, Fran?"

"Miss Noir," said Fran, smiling at her through the banister-slats, "you are so satisfactory; you always say just about what I expect.

Yes, I came straight home. I'm glad it's your business, so you could ask."

Hamilton Gregory turned to his wife again, with restraint more marked.

"Next Sunday is roll-call day, Mrs. Gregory. The board has decided to revise the lists. We've been carrying so many names that it's a burden to the church. The world reproaches us, saying, 'Isn't So-and-so a member? He never attends, does he?' I do hope you will go next Sunday!" Mrs. Gregory looked down at her work thoughtfully, then said, "Mother would be left--"

"It's just this way," her husband interposed abruptly: "If no excuses, such as sickness, are sent, and if the people haven't been coming for months, and _don't_ intend coming, we are simply determined to drop the names--strike 'em out. _We_ believe church members should show where they stand. And--and if you--"

Mrs. Gregory looked up quietly. Her voice seemed woven of the silk threads she was st.i.tching in the white pattern. "If I am not a member of the church, sitting an hour in the building couldn't make me one."

Simon Jefferson cried out, "Is that my sister Lucy? Blessed if I thought she had so much spirit!"

"Do you call _that_ spirit?" returned Gregory, with displeasure.

"Well!" snorted Simon, "what do _you_ call it, then?"

"Perhaps," responded Gregory, with marked disapprobation, "perhaps it _was_ spirit."

Grace, still attired for the street, looked down upon Mrs. Gregory as if turned to stone. Her beautiful face expressed something like horror at the other's irreverence.

Fran shook back her hair, and watched with gleaming eyes from behind the slats, not unlike a small wild creature peering from its cage.

"Oh," cried Fran, "Miss Noir feels _so_ bad!"

Grace swept from the hall, her rounded figure instinct with the sufferings of a martyr.

Fran murmured, "That killed her!"

"And _you!_" cried Gregory, turning suddenly in blind anger upon the other--"you don't care whose heart you break."

"_I_ haven't any power over hearts," retorted Fran, gripping her fingers till her hands were little white b.a.l.l.s. "Oh, if I only had!

I'd get at 'em, if I could--like this..."

She leaped to her feet.

"Am I always to be defied by you?" he exclaimed; "is there to be _no_ end to it? But suppose I put an end to it, myself--tell you that this is no place for you--"

"You shall never say that!" Mrs. Gregory spoke up, distinctly, but not in his loud tones. She dropped her work in some agitation, and drew Fran to her heart. "I have a friend here, Hamilton--_one friend_--and she must stay."

"Don't you be uneasy, dear one," Fran looked up lovingly into the frightened face. "He won't tell me to go. He won't put an end to it.

He won't tell me _anything!_"

"Listen to me, Lucy," said Gregory, his tone altering, "yes, she must stay--that's settled--she must stay. Of course. But you--why will you refuse what I ask, when for years you were one of the most faithful attendants at the Walnut Street church? I am asking you to go next Sunday because--well, you know how people judge by appearances. I'm not asking it for my sake--of course _I_ know your real character--but go for Miss Grace's sake--go to show _her_ where you stand. Lucy, I told her on the way from choir practice--I promised her that you should be there."

"How is it about church attendance, anyway?" asked Fran, with the air of one who seeks after knowledge. "I thought you went to church for the Lord's sake, and not for Miss Noir's."

"I have given you my answer, Mr. Gregory," said his wife faintly, "but I am sorry that it should make me seem obstinate--"

He uttered a groan, and left the hall in despair. His gesture said that he must give it up.

Mrs. Gregory folded her work, her face pale and drawn, her lips tremulous. She looked at Fran, and tried to smile. "We must go to rest, now," she said--"if we can."

CHAPTER XIV

FIGHTING FOR HER LIFE

The next day found Fran the bluest of the blue. No laughing now, as she sat alone, half-way up the ladder leading to Gregory's barn-loft.

She meant to be just as miserable as she pleased, since there was no observer to be deceived by sowing cheat-seed of merriment.

"The battle's on now, to a finish," muttered Fran despondently, "yet here I sit, and here I scrooch." With her skirts gathered up in a listless arm till they were unbecomingly abridged, with every muscle and fiber seeming to sag like an ill-supported fence, Fran's thoughts were at the abysmal stage of discouragement. For a time, there seemed in her heart not the tiniest taper alight, and in this blackness, both hope and failure were alike indistinguishable.