"I was too interested," explained Mrs. Channing. "I've never seen a clergyman fight before." She added, with an impartiality unusual in a bride of several weeks, "You're not much of a man, are you, Percival dear?"
Out in the street Philip strode along buoyantly, his clerical collar somewhat awry, a black eye making itself rapidly apparent, indifferent to the curious glances of the people who passed. Now and then he stood still and laughed aloud, while Paris gazed at him indulgently, always sympathetic with madness.
To think that he had imagined Jacqueline capable of leaving him for a creature like Channing, flabby, wordy, feebly vicious! Somewhere at home she was waiting for him; lonely, perhaps, wondering why her husband did not come to her, but safe and unashamed. Possibly her mother and Jemima had already found her.
The thought reminded him of certain letters in his pocket, given him that morning at the American Express, and unopened in the excitement of at last running Channing to cover. He drew them out, hoping to find among them one from Storm.
The first was from his bishop, pooh-poohing his offer to resign from the ministry, and suggesting a long vacation. It ended with a sentence that touched Philip deeply: "Assure your brave little wife of the lasting friendship of an old man who collects rare virtues (other people's virtues) as certain connoisseurs collect etchings, and who considers moral courage the rarest of the lot."
Philip turned to his other letter. At sight of the hand-writing he started, and looked quickly at the postmark. It was that of a little town in the Kentucky mountains.
Lately he had thought very often of his father, as he always thought in all the critical moments of his life. At such times the man whose face he had forgotten seemed very near to him. The feeling of nearness deepened as he opened his letter, the first from Jacques Benoix since he had left prison. It was almost as if his father stood there beside him, with a hand on his shoulder.
When he had finished reading, he turned blindly into a church he was passing (it happened to be the cathedral of Notre Dame) and knelt with hidden face before the statue of that coquettish, charming, typically Parisienne madonna, who is not unaccustomed to the sight of men praying with tears.