The First Soprano Part 16

The Spirit said amen; and Winifred remembered how all her interviews with George Frothingham had left her not helped at all in the way of the spirit, but rather hindered. What would be a lifelong fellows.h.i.+p?

She cast to the winds all thought of inaugurating a dubious mission for the young man's salvation through means of a forbidden fellows.h.i.+p, and so the Soul, led by the Spirit, took wood and fire and repaired to the mount of sacrifice.

The decisive evening came, and Frothingham, never more elegant nor more winning, appeared. He was not dismayed by Winifred's unusual constraint, for he had noticed a growing shyness and drew his own happy conclusion from it. He had brought a roll of music--a new love song, into which he poured the richness of his mellow voice while Winifred accompanied him. But her fingers trembled over the keys and she struck a false note occasionally.

Later they were standing beneath the chandelier, the light falling upon Winifred's pale face, as she answered words he had been speaking.

"No, I cannot marry you," she said, and her voice shrank from the words as ranch for the pain they must cause him as for her own. "It is impossible."

His handsome face clouded with surprise and alarm. He pleaded, expostulated, reasoned, but in vain. Winifred was firm, and a certain womanly dignity hid the grief that she felt, lest its display should afterward bring humiliating regret. She told him as clearly as she could the reason why she could not become his wife, and to his unspiritual judgment it seemed a petty cause. He was accustomed to seeing a type of religion that could exist in harmony with the world, and he did not see why the fact that Winifred was a Christian and had become uncommonly interested in that sort of thing should hinder her being the best of wives to a worldly man like himself. They need not quarrel about it. As to any scruples that might be entertained in her conscientious little head about all the gaiety he cared for, he inwardly credited himself with skill to overcome them when once she should be his. But Winifred made it clear to him at last that the matter was unmistakably and finally settled, and deep was his chagrin.

Wounded pride rose with a sense of his rejection, and he straightened his fine figure in haughty coldness.

"Very well," he said. "I must abide by your decision, and we will part."

"We shall still be friends?" she asked timidly.

He did not look at the little hand she outstretched. "If we cannot be more than friends, we must be less now," he answered coldly.

He bade her an abrupt good-night and she watched him depart. Still standing where he had left her she looked through the graceful palms that from their setting of marble partially veiled the drawing-room from the hall and saw him standing, never so handsome as now in his pale sternness, fastidiously drawing on his gloves according to his wont.

Her heart made a final appeal. Was she mad, that she should drive him away when _she loved him_? Let her call him back! Love is sovereign.

Let it rule.

As a very tiny object may blot out the widest view if it be near enough to the vision, so this glittering treasure of an earthly love swung before her eyes, and it hid the broader prospect of fair and eternal joys in Christ. "Command that these stones be made bread," one had said to her Lord when he hungered, and the same strong and subtle one counseled now: "Take the joy that is offered! Your heart will be starved and desolate if you let it go. Call him back!"

Almost her weak heart a.s.sented.

"George!" the cry rose, but it died, mercifully, in a whisper upon her dry lips.

Frothingham had quite prepared himself to emerge from the house--for the last time, probably--and he pa.s.sed out, giving no backward glance at the figure that stood beneath the light in the drawing-room.

Winifred roused from her statue-like stillness as the door closed behind him. The heavy breath of odorous flowers stole in through an open window and sickened her. For years after she could not dissociate their fragrance from the sorrow of that hour. She turned to the piano.

He had left his music--and he would never come back for it! She turned away and climbed the stairs with heavy steps to her own room. And there we will leave her, where, after the battle, a heavenly Visitor was to come forth with bread and wine for her refres.h.i.+ng.

CHAPTER XIII

EXPERIENCE

Winifred's heart did not break. Or, if it broke, it was quickly healed, for there dwelt in the house One whose office it is to bind up the broken-hearted. It was not that she did not grieve, or that no void cried out again and again to be filled. But she learned a paradox as the days went on: of an inexplicable peace beneath the sharpest pain, and of a buoyant joy that would not be held down by sorrow.

Hubert looked on, making mental notes as to what had happened, but asking no questions.

Our trio of young people who had entered a life of wors.h.i.+p found their hearts impelling them toward fields of service also. Winifred sought in many quiet ways to make known to others Him whom she had come to know with such delight, and a casual visit from Adele one day threw light upon the occupation of the others.

"By the way, Winifred," Miss Forrester said, apropos of some topic discussed, "your brother gave a splendid talk at the Cleary Street Mission last night. Oh, you ought to have heard him! It was fine!"

Winifred opened her eyes widely. "Hubert at the Mission last night?

He never told me."

"I suspect he doesn't let his left hand know what his right hand is doing," suggested Adele. "But he certainly was there. And when Mr.

McBride asked him to speak he promptly did so. It was splendid! Not simply what he said, you know, but the fact that he said it--a business man talking in a matter-of-fact, business way to other men of something he evidently thought the most important matter in the world. Of course most of the people were of a far different cla.s.s from his, but you would never guess it from his words. He didn't patronize them a bit.

I liked that so much. And you should have seen how those men fastened their eyes on him and listened to what he said."

"How lovely!" cried Winifred. "I wish I had been there. But pray tell me, Adele, how happens it that you were there?"

"Oh, I am a regular attendant in Cleary Street," said Adele laughing.

"At least I go regularly on certain nights in the week and play the organ--a wretched, squeaky, little thing--and raise my voice on Sankey hymns also."

"You do!" cried Winifred with a mixture of amus.e.m.e.nt, dismay and admiration in her voice. "Well, I declare!"

"I don't see why you should be so shocked," said Adele, enjoying her friend's astonishment. "Pray, why shouldn't I go? Do you doubt my qualifications? I am not the musician you are, dear, but my skill is quite up to those tunes, I a.s.sure you."

"I hope you don't wear that red hat of yours and your usual stunning costumes, Adele?"

"It occurred to me after I had gone a few times," said Adele quietly, "that it might be well to modify my gear. I think you would approve of my revised toilet. It is very simple."

"Adele, I know you can't help looking well, whatever you wear," said Winifred, who suddenly observed a somewhat altered "gear" in evidence.

"If you should put on a Salvation Army bonnet it would look stylish.

It couldn't help itself. But please tell me more about the Mission.

How happened you to go at all?"

"I heard Mr. McBride speak at a meeting. He told of the work of the Mission, and of the need of helpers--especially of somebody to help in the music. It occurred to me that that was the kind of a.s.sistance I might give, and that it would be very nice to contribute in some small way, at least, to the work of the Mission. And," she continued very gravely, "I volunteered and was gladly accepted."

"That is very n.o.ble, I think," said Winifred. "But what did your friends think?"

"I did not ask them," Adele answered coolly. "I have fallen from caste, anyhow, and it doesn't matter much. You know since I have seen the Lord"--it was Adele's way of putting it--"I have tried to--to witness to Him in some way or other to my old friends; and the result has been a pretty liberal letting alone from them. His name does not seem a very welcome one--outside of a church!" Then she went on with a gleam of indignant sorrow in her bright eyes: "That is what breaks one's heart! That these very people may kneel beside you in church and recite His holy name as glibly as possible; but outside--it is unwelcome! Winifred, can it be a Christian life at all into any avenue of which Christ is an intrusion? Oh, if they loved Him--if they had ever seen Him at all!--they would be so glad of any mention of Him!"

After a moment a gleam of amused memory succeeded Adele's pained outburst. She went on:

"The other night I think I reached the climax of my fall into disfavor.

You know these summer evenings at the Mission we take the organ and hymn books and go out before the door and have a street meeting. Well, on this occasion our open-air meeting was in full swing and our usual score of auditors were lined up in the gutters and everywhere to hear.

Mr. McBride had announced 'The best Friend to have is Jesus,' and was himself swinging his arms and singing l.u.s.tily, while I played and pumped the panting little instrument and sang as loudly as I could, too. Suddenly there turned down the street a handsome automobile (I don't know why, for they never go down that street) and in it the Misses Steele and Miss Proudfeather from Baltimore. To crown it all, with them was seated my precious Cousin d.i.c.k! Our poor little crowd huddled aside to let them pa.s.s. They all saw me and d.i.c.k took off his hat with great ceremony; but the ladies evidently thought they would spare me the mortification of a recognition under the circ.u.mstances. I couldn't help laughing within myself, though it was a bit embarra.s.sing.

d.i.c.k was hilarious over it. He evidently sees nothing improper in it, but a very good joke. He says he expects to hear me preaching there yet. I told him it might be to his benefit if he did."

Both laughed. "But just think, Adele," said Winifred, "how infinitely better to be in that little street crowd _with the Lord_, than driving about in the finest motor car without Him!"

"Yes!" cried Adele, "I wouldn't trade places for worlds!"

"I should think not," said Winifred, with scorn of the idea.

Adele was finding out, like her friend, that the way of the cross brings separation, and she had her own peculiar tests as to faithful witnessing. Her merry-hearted cousin drew her out in words more frequently than any other, and plied her with questions concerning this new type of religion.

"It's no new sort of religion at all," she insisted. "It's just the old sort you read of in the New Testament--and the prayer-book! Only I am afraid I never really had it before--or it had not really got me.

If people would only be sincere, d.i.c.k, you would find it is the same sort."

"I do not think the ordinary sort is much good," said d.i.c.k, with the air of a connoisseur in religions.