"Why, pray, should we not be invited? It is not necessary for you to dance, of course. We shall be obliged to go, for I have accepted the invitation," Mrs. Eldred replied, with a nothing-further-to-be-said air.
"I am sorry you accepted an invitation for me, without consulting me, but I cannot go," her husband answered gravely.
"Oh fie! How old and strait-laced you are for a young man; why Dr. Henry often went and looked on, and his daughter danced, and people liked him all the better for it. You will be immensely unpopular if you pursue that course. Don't you think," she continued, encouraged by his silence, "that it savours a little of bigotry and egotism to set one's self up to condemn an amusement that many other Christians approve? What is your ground of objection? One would suppose that you had received a direct revelation on the subject."
"I have," he said, and his clear eyes looked full into hers, "directly from the Master himself. Don't you know that a person who is absorbed in Christian work, a consecrated Christian, is not absorbed in all these amusements, and one who is, has no room in his heart for Christ. There is a law of Natural Philosophy, you know, which says that 'Two bodies cannot occupy the same place at the same time', and there is a somewhat similar law in regard to a soul, stated by the Lord himself. 'Ye cannot serve two masters.' It is the world or Christ with every soul, and I have chosen Christ."
"I know this much," she said, coldly, "that fanatics are the most intolerable of all people. I have danced all my life, and since I became a church-member, and never had it hinted to me before that I was not a Christian because I loved it. You need not go; John can take me and call for me, and I will make excuses for you."
"My dear wife! would you do that? Surely you did not yourself intend to dance; the most liberal would be shocked, I fancy, were a minister's wife to dance."
"And why? I am not the minister. I recognise no restraints that do not apply as well to every Christian woman. You told me yourself that Mrs. Graham is an excellent lady; she is a member of your church, and dances, I am told. Why should not one professor of religion have the same privileges as another?"
"Vida," he said, in a tone of mingled pain and tenderness, "it is only a short time since we were pronounced 'no more twain hut one;' you said then the thought made you glad. How can you separate your interests from mine now? Will you do what would dishonour my calling were I to do it? The world counts us one, your action is mine, and just or unjust, they do not accord to you the right to wade quite so far into the sea of worldly pleasures as they themselves feel privileged to do. They would point the finger of ridicule at both of us, and charge us with inconsistency. We will not stop to argue the right and wrong of the subject now, supposing your conscience does not shut you out from the dance, let worldly prudence and a desire to keep our names from common gossip, influence you, I pray you, if indeed my wishes and opinion are of no value."
But the young wife was in no frame for recollecting tender vows, nor listening to reason. She threw off his arm with an impatient gesture, and glancing at her watch, said:—
"I have not only accepted an invitation to this party, but promised to dance. It is getting late and I must go."