"The pleasure has been mine," he responded.
They both bowed, and Rangely followed the footman.
XVII
A BOND OF AIR
Troilus and Cressida, i. 3.
"You have made a new man of me," Maurice Wynne had said to Mrs. Morison in bidding her good-by; and the words repeated themselves in his mind as he came back to Boston, and as he once more took up for a few days his home with Mrs. Staggchase.
There is nothing more inflammable than the punk left by the decay of a religion, and any theology may be said to be doomed from the moment when men begin to ask themselves whether they believe it. Maurice had been so strenuously questioning his belief that it is small wonder that he found his heart full of fire. In the days of his stay at Brookfield, moreover, he had been rapidly journeying on the road toward a new view of life; and the idea of returning to the Clergy House became to him well-nigh intolerable. It seemed like taking upon himself once more the swaddling-clothes of infancy.
On the afternoon of his return, he hurried to see Ashe, and found himself obliged to wait some time for his friend's return from a committee meeting. Mr. Herman chanced to be at home alone, and Maurice sat with him in the library. Wynne had come to know the sculptor fairly well, and had been warmly drawn toward him. He was to-day struck more than ever by the strength and self-poise which Herman showed. The young man was seized with a desire to appeal to the sanity and the kindliness of one who seemed to possess both so aboundingly.
"Have you ever found yourself all at sea, Mr. Herman?" he asked abruptly.
"Of course. I fancy every man has had that experience."
"But," Maurice hurried on, more impulsively yet, "you can never have felt that you were a renegade and a hypocrite. That's where I am now."