"It takes a great deal of time, Mr. Millard. I don't think society any harm as a recreation, but as a pursuit—" Here she checked herself.
"It gives a great deal of happiness, though."
"Yes; but only to those whose lot is fortunate enough anyhow. It seems to me that we have something else to do in the world than just to amuse ourselves." At this point it occurred to Phillida that in defending her own view of life she was reflecting on her companion's. "I don't mean to find fault with anybody else's pursuits, Mr. Millard, but rather to defend my own."
The last remark, by focusing what she had said before upon Millard, only made the matter worse. But the talk was interrupted at this point by Mrs. Gouverneur, who came to inquire if her younger companions were ready to go. Millard was a little sorry for the interruption. He could not but feel that he was in some sort under condemnation by Miss Callender, and there was something about Miss Callender which made one respect her moral judgment and desire to stand well in her estimation. But the conversation in the carriage took another turn, and as she approached her own home it occurred to Phillida that Millard's remark at the time of his call implied that his acquaintance with the family might depend on her inviting him. She felt grateful to him for his graceful attentions during the evening, and when he left her at the door she extended her hand and said:
"We shall be glad to see you, Mr. Millard."
When Millard had landed Mrs. Gouverneur in Washington Square, with many polite speeches on both sides, and had reached his bachelor apartment, he sat down in front of the grate with a comfortable feeling of complacency. He had helped Mrs. Hilbrough to launch her little bark without any untoward accident; he had secured for the Baron an honor which the latter would certainly not underestimate. Then, too, he had obliged Mrs. Gouverneur while he gratified his own inclinations in escorting Miss Callender to the reception. Whenever he came around to Phillida he found the only uncomfortable spot in his meditations. He had never dreamed that anybody could think the life of a consummate gentleman like himself deserving of anything but commendation. The rector of St. Mathias, who was a genial man of the world himself, with just the amount of devoutness admixed that was indispensable to his professional character, had never for a moment found fault with Millard, who was liberal in parish affairs and an ornament to the church. Here was a young lady with a very different standard, who thought it a Christian duty to be useful not so much to the church as to people less fortunate than herself. Millard tried to dismiss the matter from his mind by reflecting that Miss Callender's father must have been a peculiar man. But there was an elevation about Phillida's nature that made him feel his own to be something less than was desirable. Yet it was clear to him that Miss Callender misjudged society people from ignorance of them. He would call some day and set her right. Then he laughed at the notion. What did it matter to him whether this young woman judged rightly or wrongly of people in society generally, and of himself in particular. He dismissed the matter from his mind. But by the time he had taken off his ties, which were a trifle too narrow in the toes to be comfortable, he had somehow returned to his first resolution to set Miss Callender right in the matter if he should have opportunity.
VIII.
IN AVENUE C.
If Phillida could have known the thoughts that occupied the mind of Millard on Sunday afternoon, two or three weeks later, as he started for his monthly visit in Avenue C, she would not have judged his purposes in life severely. His walk lay through a cross-street which steadily deteriorated as he journeyed eastward, condescendingly assimilating itself to the character of each avenue in turn. Beer saloons, cheap grocery stores, carts against the curbstones with their shafts pointing skyward, and troops of children on the sidewalk, marked the increasing poverty and density of the population. Millard wondered at the display of trinkets and confectionery in the shop-windows, not knowing that those whose backs are cheaply clad crave ornaments, and those whose bellies lack bread are ravenous for luxuries.
Being a fastidious man and for years accustomed to the refinements of life, he exaggerated the discomforts of tenement-house living. How people endured such misery and yet seemed so cheerful he could not imagine. And though he did not feel that diffusive benevolence which prompted Phillida to try to ameliorate the moral condition of such of this mass as she could reach, he had a strong desire to lift his aunt and her children to a little higher plane. To this, hitherto, he had found an obstacle in the pride of her husband. Henry Martin was a tinsmith who had come to the city to work in a great factory for a little higher wages than he could get as a journeyman tinker in a country town. He did not refuse to let the children accept presents from "Cousin Charley," but he was not willing "to be beholden to any of his wife's folks," as he expressed it. He resented the fact that even in Cappadocia he had been somewhat outstripped by his brother-in-law, Charles Millard's father, and when the "Millard boys" had inherited money from their father's brother, and Martin saw their mother, his wife's sister, living in a style to which he could never hope to lift his own family, it weighed on his mind, and this offense to his pride had helped to fix his resolution in favor of a removal to New York.