“My religion, child? I’ll gladly teach if you—if you care to learn,” he responded, drawing her to him in a close and closer embrace.
“It means safety to me—everything. You won’t find me dull. I believe I shall learn readily from you.”
“I believe—you could.” The palm over the ball of her shoulder pressed harder; moved faster. “But, dear daughter, don’t place me or any man upon too high a pedestal, lest we fall—lest we fall.”
“I am sure——” To avoid contradicting her mentor, the pupil altered the form of her statement. “I hope that you never will fall.”
“And I hope—you don’t get—that hope!”
With the hoarse exclamation, Dr. Willard rose to his feet, drew the girl after him and clutched her with a vehemence that made them stand as one. Before she could draw away her face or realize that suddenly she was again afraid, she felt his mustache against her cheek.
“We’ll seal the bargain, my child. Just the kiss of a father—the kiss of a father,” he rasped close to her ear.
The insult crushed upon her mouth was not, however, fatherly. The unequal struggle started by it was of no spiritual excitation. How she wrenched herself away from him; how he headed off her rush toward the door; how she eluded his clutching pursuit in and out among the other young animals he had trapped; how she escaped from their stumble over the couchant lynx, left him panting on the floor, ran screaming like the hunted thing he had made of her into the corridor and up the first flight of stairs——
The full horror of what had happened did not come to her until she stood before the astonished music committee. Her hair dishevelled, her waist torn open down the front, her discretion in shreds, she flamed upon them.
“When even a minister of the gospel can’t be trusted, where—where am I to go?”