It was a field-day with Mrs. Luttrell. All the Cave-dwellers and all of the smart set seemed to be in evidence at one time or another during the afternoon. The street was blocked with carriages, lackeys stood ten deep around the handsome doors, and the air fluttered with the tissue paper from the many cards that were left. The splendid and unique drawing-rooms were at their best, and Mrs. Luttrell, arrayed in the immortal black-velvet gown, was standing in the centre of the middle drawing-room, dispensing flatteries to the men and civilities to the women with great gusto. Baskerville was present, doing his part as host, helping out the shy people like Eleanor Baldwin’s mother, the handsome, silent Mrs. Brentwood-Baldwin, who was known to be cruelly dragooned by her up-to-date daughter. But there are not many shy people to be found in Washington. Mrs. James Van Cortlandt Skinner was not at all shy when she came sailing in, toward six o’clock, with a very handsome young man, dressed in the height of ecclesiastical elegance. The private chaplain was, at last, an attained luxury.
“My dear Mrs. Luttrell,” she said cooingly, “may I introduce to you the Reverend Father Milward of the Order of St. Hereward?”
Mrs. Luttrell’s handsome mouth widened in a smile which was subject to many interpretations, and she shook hands cordially with Mrs. James Van Cortlandt Skinner’s protégé. Father Milward himself gave Mrs. Luttrell a far-away, ascetic bow, and then, turning to Baskerville, began discussing with him the status of the English education bill. Father Milward gave it as his solemn opinion that the bill did not go far enough in opposing secular education, and thought that the Dissenters had been dealt with too favorably by it and under it.
Mrs. Van Cortlandt Skinner had felt a little nervous at the way her newest acquisition might be received by Mrs. Luttrell, but had determined to put a bold face upon it. And why should anybody be ashamed of achieving one’s heart’s desire, so long as it is respectable? And what is more respectable and likewise more recherché, than a domestic chaplain? And the Reverend Father Milward had been domestic chaplain to an English duke. Nor had his severance with the ducal household been anything but creditable to Father Milward, for the duke, a very unspiritual person, who kept a domestic chaplain on the same principle as he subscribed to the county hunt, had said that he “wouldn’t stand any more of Milward’s religious fallals, by gad.” The chaplain had therefore discharged the duke, for the young clergyman’s fallals were honest fallals, and he was prepared to go to the stake for them. Instead of the crown of martyrdom, however, he had fallen into Mrs. James Van Cortlandt Skinner’s arms, so to speak; and he found it an ecclesiastical paradise of luxury and asceticism, God and mammon, full of the saintliness of the world.
Before Mrs. Van Cortlandt Skinner had a chance to tell what position the Reverend Father Milward held in her family, Mrs. Luttrell said to her, aside: “So you’ve got him! I thought you’d get the upper hand of the bishop. The fact is you’re cleverer than any of the Newport people I’ve heard of yet. They’ve got their tiaras and their sea-going yachts and they have the Emperor to dinner, but not one of them has a private acolyte, much less a full-grown chaplain. You’ve done something really original this time, my dear.”
Mrs. Van Cortlandt Skinner did not know exactly how Mrs. Luttrell meant to be taken, but smiled faintly and said: “You can’t imagine, my dear Mrs. Luttrell, the blessed privilege of having Father Milward under my roof. He has been with me a week, and every day we have had matins, compline, and evensong. I have had the billiard room turned into a chapel temporarily, and it is really sweet; but of course I shall have an early English chapel built at each of my houses. I have plenty of ground for a chapel at my Washington house. My servants have been most attentive at the services, and when Lionel or Harold is absent my butler, a very high churchman, acts as clerk. It is really edifying to see and hear him. You know persons in very humble walks of life sometimes possess great graces and virtues.”
“So I have heard,” replied Mrs. Luttrell, earnestly.
“I am determined to take Father Milward everywhere with me. I want his holy influence to be shed in the best society. It is beautiful to see him with Lionel and Harold. I hope that one or both of them will develop a vocation for the priesthood. I could do so much for them—build them beautiful parish houses and everything. If one of them should wish to organize a brotherhood, in America, as you once suggested, I would build a beautiful brotherhood house at my place on the Hudson. To give to the Church is such a privilege, and to give to these beautiful and poetic orders which our beloved Mother Church in England is organizing has a peculiar charm for me.”
“I see it has,” answered Mrs. Luttrell; “and if you have everything else you want, why not get a domestic chaplain, or a couple if you like, just as the Empress Elizabeth of Russia used to get her a new lover whenever she wanted one?”
Mrs. Skinner gave a little start at this. She was a guileless woman and never knew when people were joking unless they told her so. She had never heard of the Empress Elizabeth, and moreover she was sincerely afraid of Mrs. Luttrell.