She did think of it, and tears struggled to come with the thought.
"I am not going," she said, without looking in his eyes. "Don't ask me, George."
"And you have no pity on poor me, going without you?"
"No," she answered, smiling. "You will survive it."
"Cruel lady!" he said dramatically, and bore her slender fingers to his lips.
She withdrew her hand with a slight flush, and he bethought him to look at his watch.
"Oh," he exclaimed, "it's late. Mercer will think he has lost me, too."
He made hasty adieux and was off, his light, swinging step sounding pleasantly down the walk.
Winifred stood where he had left her, with a conflict of emotions in her heart. She still felt the tingle of his lips upon her hand, and still smiled at the airy nothings he said. But there was pain in the compound of her thoughts; pain at a difference between them that proclaimed its power to grow wider; pain at defeat in making a principle understood and appreciated; pain most of all from the subtle sense of something pure and sweet now sullied, as though too rude a breath had blown upon a sensitive flower, or as though pearls had been ignorantly trodden upon.
Meanwhile Frothingham, on his way to the handsome church, indulged in characteristic meditations of his own regarding Winifred's strange freak. He heartily hoped she would get over it. It was a stupid turn for affairs to take as regarded himself; for perpetual meetings at the choir, with the pleasant walks attached, and frequent private rehearsals in the Gray drawing-room had furnished admirable facilities for the courtship of whose issue he had not a doubt. But it was far from a misfortune that could not be mended. He should miss her immensely, of course, but there were other pleasant people in the choir and he held an easy popularity among them. Then he was too well ingratiated in her favor and as a frequent guest at her house to be displaced by this matter. He should still do the attentive in every available way. But he hoped she was not getting fanatical. It would be inexpressibly stupid to have a wife over pious, with extreme views about things. He should like her to be religious up to a certain point. He thought women ought to be that. It was a good thing to have somebody in a house who knew something about those things in case of trouble. Mr. Frothingham was himself in the insurance business—at the head of a prominent company's office for that city—and he was accustomed to take business-like account of life risks, and to recognize death as a hard factor to be dealt with. Just now he unconsciously erected a kind of spiritual lightning rod against his future house in the piety of its expected mistress. But he hoped she would not get too religious—not enough so to interfere with the life of gayety which he expected to continue for many a year. But it did not occur to him to relinquish her even if she should begin to show symptoms of extreme views. He was rather fond of Winifred—quite so, in fact; and he was not indifferent to "the old man's ducats," as he had confided to himself and to one or two most intimate friends. On the whole he congratulated himself on pleasant prospects ahead, and was not too much disconcerted by his own appearance alone at the rehearsal.