Puritanism, you say? But, no; the thing had no concern with Puritanism, for it lacked the discipline, the self-restraint that made Cromwell's men invincible. There was no Puritanism in the influence which could make women indifferent to the earthly ties of love and sentiment, to children, to the home and domesticity, while at the same time implanting in them an almost feverish appreciation of incense, rich vestments, gorgeous decorations, and the whole paraphernalia of such a service as that of St. Jude's, Weybridge. This religion, or, as I think it would be more just to say, Sylvia's conception of this religion, did not say:
"Deny yourself this or that."
It said:
"Deny yourself to the rest of your kind. Deny all other mortals. Wrap yourself in yourself, thinking only of your own soul and its relation to its Maker and Saviour."
This was how I saw Sylvia's religion, and, though she was sweetly kind and sympathetic to me, Dick Mordan, I was strangely chilled and perturbed by realization of the fact that nothing human really weighed with her, unless her own soul was human; that the people, our fellow men and women, of whose situation and welfare I thought so much, were far less to Sylvia than the Early Fathers and the Saints; that humanity had even less import for her, was less real, than to me, was the fascination of St. Jude's incense-laden atmosphere.
Sylvia's dainty person had an infinite charm for me; the personality which animated and informed it chilled and repelled me as it might have been a thing uncanny. When I insisted upon the dear importance of some one of humanity's claims, the faraway gaze of her beautiful eyes, with their light that never was on sea or land, her faintly superior smile—all this thrust me back, as might a blow, and with more baffling effect.
And then the accidental touch of her little hand would bring me back, with pulses fluttering, and the warm blood in my veins insisting that sweet Sylvia was adorable; that everything would be well lost in payment for the touch of her lips. So, moth-like, I spent that pleasant Sabbath day, attached to Sylvia by ties over which my mind had small control; by bonds which, if the truth were known, were not wholly dissimilar, I believe, from the ties which drew her daily to the heavy atmosphere of the sanctuary rails of St. Jude's.
In the evening Mr. Wheeler asked me to come and smoke a cigar with him in his private room, and the invitation was not one to be evaded. I was subconsciously aware that it elicited a meaning exchange of glances between Marjory and her mother.
"Well, Mordan, I hope things go well with you in Fleet Street," said Mr. Wheeler, when his cigar was alight and we were both seated in his luxurious little den.
"Oh, tolerably," I said. "Of course, I am quite an obscure person there as yet; quite on the lowest rungs, you know."