“But I love the dear children, and I like to go to the institution to see them in their nice white pinafores making their curtsies. But what you say is real true, Mr. Storm; and since I came from Sent Louis I've seen considerable people who are that silly about cats——” and then a long story of the folly of a lady friend who once had a pet Persian, but it died, and she wore crape for it, and you could never mention a cat in her hearing afterward.
At that moment the poodle came back from its walk, and the lady called it to her, fondled it affectionately, said it was a present from her poor dear husband, and launched into an account of her anxieties respecting it, being delicate and liable to colds, notwithstanding the trousseau (it was a lady poodle) which the fashionable dog tailor in Regent Street had provided for it.
John got up to take his leave. “May I then count on your kind support on behalf of our poor women and children of Soho?”
“Ah, of course, that matter—well, you see the Archdeacon kindly comes to talk 'City' with me—in fact, I'm expecting him to-day—and I never do anything without asking his advice, never, in my present state of health—I have a weak heart, you know,” with her head aside and her saturated pocket-handkerchief at her nose. “But has the Prime Minister done anything?”
“He has advanced me two thousand pounds.”
“Really?” rising and kicking back her train. “Well, as I say, we ought to fix it right away. Why not hold a meeting in my drawing-room? All denominations, you say? I don't mind—not in a cause like that,” and she glanced round her room as if thinking it was always possible to disinfect it afterward.
Somebody was coughing loudly in the hall as John stepped downstairs. It was the Archdeacon coming in. “Ah,” he exclaimed, with a flourish of the hand, greeting John as if they had parted yesterday and on the best of terms. Yes, there had been changes, and he was promoted to a sphere of higher usefulness. True, his good friends had looked for something still higher, but it was the premier archdeaconry at all events, and in the Church, as in life generally, the spirit of compromise ruled everything. He asked what John was doing, and on being told he said, with a somewhat more worldly air, “Be careful, my dear Storm, don't encourage vice. For my part, I am tired of the 'fallen sister.' To tell you the truth, I deny the name. The painted Jezebel of the Piccadilly pavement is no sister of mine.”
“We don't choose our relations, Archdeacon,” said John. “If God is our Father, then all men are our brothers, and all women are our sisters whether we like it or not.”
“Ah! The same man still, I see. But we will not quarrel about words. Seen the dear Prime Minister lately? Not very lately? Ah, well”—with a superior smile—“the air of Downing Street—it's so bad for the memory, they say,” and coughing loudly again, he stepped upstairs.
John Storm went home that day light-handed but with a heavy heart.