five miles from saltire hall stood gabingly castle, a modern “medi?val” structure, devoted to the fortunes of lord gerald gusset, a georgian peer. the gussets of gabingly were the social autocrats of the neighborhood, dispensing fame from their crested card-cases. it had been a great day for john strong of saltire when the honorable misses gusset had partaken of tea in the “red drawing-room” of the hall. mincing lane and the city had faded into an irreferable past.
at saltire that night the panelled dining-room was lit by lamps hung with crimson lace. the table was scintillant with silver, decorated with luxurious flowers and broad-leafed palms.
dinner-tables often resemble a suburban street where every person prays to be preserved from his neighbor. and gabriel strong was in no mood for word-fencing that evening. preoccupied with his own thoughts, he surveyed his partner with a melancholy reserve that was eminently byronic.
“sherry, please,” said the honorable miss gusset, crumbling bread with her plump pink fingers and casting an amused smile at the reticent being at her elbow. “i had always heard, mr. strong, that you were such a garrulous and enlightened person!”
gabriel looked into the woman’s brown eyes.
“apparently my reputation has been assailed,” he said; “consider me a dullard; i deserve the taunt.”
miss blanche gusset reprimanded him with playful scorn.
“young man,” she said, “have you reflected that it is rude to seem bored over the soup? i must ask you to consider my reputation.”
the rebuked one smiled.
“who could imperil the treasure?” he asked.
“you forget, sir, that mrs. marjoy, with her quince-jelly eyes and her peony complexion, considers herself the one fascinating woman in saltire. when i tell you that she has been squinting at us venomously through her spectacles you should be able to foresee the future.”
“need you dread the lady?”
“my dear gabriel, mrs. marjoy will relate to all her friends how bored you were by me at your father’s dinner-table. remember that i am still in the marriage market and must defend myself against the calumnies of my fellow-shes.”
“hence my responsibility.”
“to aid me in maintaining an eligible exterior.”
blanche gusset, gabriel’s neighbor, was a pert, plump, and slangy young person, very rubicund and very pushful. her vitality was phenomenal, her vigor amazonian. she feared neither sun nor freckles, frumps nor fashions. moreover, she was the one woman in the neighborhood who could attack and rout the redoubtable mrs. marjoy, that most christian medusa, who attended the eucharist fasting and concocted malignities an hour later over the breakfast-table.
her sister ophelia, who faced her over the silver and the flowers, proffered a contrast that was peculiar and piquant. the elder sister, a tall and supersensuous blonde, listened with languid frigidity to the banalities of the reverend jacob mince. she was a large woman with eyes of a brilliant blue, supercilious yet pleasurable lips, and a circassian countenance. a chain of amethysts glittered over the fulness of her broad bosom. her fair hair was coiled in masses above her forehead, overshadowing her eyes and throwing into evidence the somewhat heavy sensuousness of her face. she talked little, and with an air of luxurious slothfulness that seemed in keeping with her expression of delectable and lilith-like torpor.
above the blaze of hot-house flowers the eyes of this complacent beauty met those of gabriel strong. the pair had seen much of each other that winter in an incidental and desultory fashion. castle gabingly had been something of a hermitage, and a greek-faced youth such as gabriel had more vivid interest for the lady ophelia than monotonous novels and the society of lord gerald her father. gabriel strong had fine eyes, a quick tongue, and a certain cynical quaintness in his attitude towards women.
miss blanche gusset reverted to the silent being at her elbow.
“are you asleep yet, moses?”
“why a semitic title?”
“i often call people by the name that slips first off my tongue.”
“a dangerous habit.”
“explain.”
“for instance, you might greet mr. mince as beelzebub.”
“and not a bad thrust either. gabriel, you are waking up. please continue to preserve me from mrs. marjoy.”
“ophelia is looking well to-night,” said the man.
miss blanche gusset’s brown eyes sparkled. she popped an olive between her lips and descended once more to personal topics.
“what an arrant humbug you are,” she said. “if i had mrs. marjoy’s temper i should conceive some diabolical revenge. must i apologize for not being my sister?”
“on the contrary, i am excellently placed.”
“an ambiguous compliment, my dear archangel.”
“flattery is always ambiguous, miss gusset. i feel in a sympathetic mood. please tell me how those fox cubs of yours are progressing.”
his neighbor retorted with an ironical twinkle.
“you may continue your meditations,” she said; “i shall reserve my remarks on cubs till mrs. marjoy begins gabbling in the drawing-room about that dear child of hers.”
when the more spiritual element had departed gabriel discovered himself partnered by that inestimable worthy jacob mince. the churchman, unctuously freighted, smacked his lips over a fat havana. mr. mince was a tall and complacent person, with a bald pate, a watery eye, and a receding chin. he was a species of petty pope in his own parish, dogmatizing over pond and pigsty, ploughed fields, and the village pump. there was no imaginative or expansive breadth in mr. mince’s opinions. yet he was nothing of an ascetic, and was wholly christian towards his own stomach.
gabriel, by way of bestirring the churchman’s ardor, referred to certain political questions that were agitating the country. sectarian squabbles amused gabriel as a philosopher; they did not inspire him as a partisan. dissent was an infallible red rag wherewith to inspire mr. mince’s temper. like many sectarians, he was utterly intolerant of adverse criticism.
“my dear sir,” he said, in his consequential and litanical tenor, “you will hardly credit it, but i am being bothered most abominably in my own village by a certain vagrant tub-thumper, who has had the insolence to hold open-air services under my very nose.”
gabriel professed a somewhat cynical sympathy.
“such a reflection on your ministrations,” he observed; “as though you neglected your parish! i suppose the man is an agnostic.”
mr. mince frowned and puffed irritably at his cigar. he did not appreciate such suggestive sympathy.
“not a bit of it,” he retorted; “the fellow is a mere ignorant mechanic who comes over every sunday from rilchester to instruct ignorant people in christian ethics. the fellow has even had the insolence to choose the very hour of even-song for his bawling. i was discussing the matter with your father before dinner.”
apparently mr. mince would have preferred rank infidelity in such a rival to the honest profession of christian principles. in such competition a fellow-believer was more nauseous to him than the blackest atheist who ever blasphemed the trinity. there was a certain element of personal glory in combating the malignities of a spiritual opponent. mr. mince desired to propound the bible to his own credit.
“i suppose it does not matter vastly,” said gabriel, with tactless magnanimity, “what a man is so long as he preaches christ in the right spirit.”
mr. mince elevated his eyebrows.
“not matter?”
“no.”
“my dear fellow, you do not realize the pressing peril of this astounding phenomenon of dissent. it is the most calamitous development arising from the abuse of this modern spirit of socialism.”
the topic interested gabriel enough to inspire in him a mild antagonism.
“the very movement would suggest to me,” he said, “that the laboring classes need a living exposition of the creed and that the church has proved inadequate to the occasion. am i to understand that you consider a university education essential to those who desire to be the religious instructors of others?”
“most certainly education is essential.”
“that depends, sir, does it not, upon what people call education. classics and theology are out of date; science and the study of human nature are to the fore.”
mr. mince knocked the ash from his cigar and seemed displeased.
“what is science, sir,” he said, “but a blind man grubbing in a ditch. there is no hope in science. you must really rely on me as an expert in these matters. more experience is granted to those whose studies have extended through many years. we churchmen are specialists on religious education.”
gabriel, like many enlightened mortals, demurred at subjecting reason to the dogmas of a clique. he preferred to drink of the cup of spirituality without receiving it from the hands of another. he did not believe that the light of the world descended only upon those who knelt in a particular pew.
“i have a shrewd notion,” he said to mr. mince, “that these poor, as we call them, often come nearer the elemental truth than wiseacres steeped in theological learning. the nursing of a sick neighbor is a better thing than the discovering of twenty metaphorical meanings in a single text. a man is wise in proportion to the breadth and sincerity of his beliefs. nor can i see that it requires much erudition to expound faithfully the philosophy contained in the sermon on the mount.”
“that does not satisfy the question,” retorted the clergyman. “ask dr. marjoy what he thinks of quacks who profess to practise medicine. the analogy is admirable.”
“there—i cannot agree with you.”
mr. mince withdrew behind his ecclesiastical dignity.
“you are young yet, mr. strong,” he said, “and young men are zealots, youth itself too utopian. let me advise you not to take your notions from silly novels and superficial magazines. at all events, sir, i caught william blunt, my gardener, attending one of these outdoor meetings. the man had been my gardener ten years.”
“i suppose you reprimanded him.”
mr. mince’s righteous anger kindled.
“reprimand him, by jove! i pointed out to the fellow the outrageous ingratitude of his conduct, and discharged him promptly from my service.”
“a decisive protest!”
“a well-merited lesson.”
gabriel smiled at the blooms of a pink azalea.
“possibly this apostle preaches powerfully,” he said.
“the usual jargon, i believe.”
“i feel inspired to hear him myself.”
mr. mince removed his cigar from between his lips, and stared open-mouthed.
“my dear sir, as a gentleman, and as a member of my congregation, you will not countenance such an impostor within the bounds of my parish.”
gabriel laughed good-naturedly.
“it would be a great breach of etiquette, i suppose,” he said. “hallo, i see the others are rising. i think it is time we joined the ladies.”
in the drawing-room judith was at the piano, accompanying herself to the quaint measure of an old song. after the gentleman had entered her place was usurped by miss blanche gusset, who dashed volubly into the strenuous sentiment of a plantation ditty. in a panelled “cosey corner” mrs. marjoy and mrs. mince sat in neighborly isolation, comparing feminine criticisms. mrs. marjoy was a lady who possessed no single talent herself and always sneered at the accomplishments of others.
gabriel surrendered himself to ophelia gusset. she was seated alone on a sofa to the left of the fire. ophelia was not a woman’s woman in the social sense; her virtues were egotistical and unexpansive. she found men more appreciative, less critical, more sympathetic.
“what selfish beings you men are,” she observed.
“why such cynicism?”
“you abandon us for tobacco. i am sure you have been talking for forty minutes.”
“politics proved powerful.”
“i did not know you were a politician.”
“no, i am not patriotic with my tongue. mr. mince and i had an argument on street-preaching. how easy it is to offend some people.”
gabriel seated himself on the sofa beside ophelia gusset.
she was shading her face from the fire with her fan, her shoulders gleaming white through a web of lace. the red flowers at her breast shone like stars to pilot desire. a mesmeric atmosphere seemed to encircle her; her large eyes were languorous and alluring.
“you seem in queenly isolation,” said the man, noting almost unconsciously the white sweep of her shoulders. she smiled at him, and seemed none too sorry to surrender her solitude into his keeping.
“elderly ladies are really too trying,” she said to him. “i never met such extraordinary rustics as saltire produces.”
“mrs. mince and mrs. marjoy have been conversing for your benefit? a lecture on infant underclothing or the darning of stockings?”
“far worse, i assure you. missionary incidents from the reaper; a dissertation on pickling onions; certain remarks from mr. mince’s last sermon.”
“and mrs. marjoy?”
“what does mrs. marjoy usually talk about?”
“herself and her children and the vices of her friends.”
“dear creature! blanche had a thrust at her before you joined us.”
“your sister is a brave woman.”
“it was really quite epigrammatic. blanche declared that a spoiled child was like a spinster’s poodle—an animal that always had the best chair, clawed the visitor’s clothes, and yelped eternally for cake.”
“excellent! excellent!”
“mrs. marjoy glared.”
“heaven be thanked! i am not the doctor.”
they wandered out into the conservatory together, where tulips, red, purple, and gold, blazoned the benches. azaleas stood starred with color amid the ascetic snow of lilies. bowls of mignonette and violet dowered the air with odors. many rich plants were brilliant with bloom.
the girl drew her bare arm gently from gabriel’s. her movements were sinuous and graceful, mesmeric as a circe’s. he marked the rare curves of her neck and shoulders, her delicate coloring, the golden profusion of her luxurious hair. the vision of the girl bathing in the pool still burned and glimmered in his brain. he was susceptible to sensations for the moment, too prone to pander to the sensuous in art.
“mrs. marjoy is a great gardener,” he said, reverting to mundane malice to restrain his thoughts.
“if i were hamlet’s ophelia,” she answered him, “i should give her a posy of nettles.”
the man laughed and touched her hand.
“and to me?”
she pouted out her lips with a mischievous stare.
“laurel leaves, perhaps, to wear when you are laureate.”
“sarcasm.”
“retort at your leisure.”
the sound of music came to them, for judith was playing one of schubert’s songs. gabriel thrust his hand into a bowl of violets and proffered them in his palm.
“to be sure, i am modest enough,” she said, setting several in her bosom.