Miss Pembroke looked a little disappointed. She had expected sympathy and reassurance, and had received instead a warning. “I hope, mother, you do not think me bold in speaking on such a subject,” she said, dropping her eyes; and then Mother Chevreuse knew that she had better have spoken lightly.
“Certainly not!” she answered, laughing. “Do you think I fear you are going to lecture on woman’s rights?”
And so the little cloud passed over; and, when her visitor went away, Honora had quite dismissed the subject from her mind. There were her simple household duties to perform; then Lawrence came home to take an early luncheon and dress to go to Annette Ferrier’s, where there was to be a musical rehearsal; and, as soon as lunch was over, who should come in but F. Chevreuse!
Lawrence had a mind to escape unseen; but the priest greeted him so cordially, pointing to a chair close beside his own, that it would have been rude to go. And having overcome the first shyness that a careless Catholic naturally feels in the presence of a clergyman, he found it agreeable to remain; for nobody could be pleasanter company than F. Chevreuse.
“I beg unblushingly,” he owned with perfect frankness, when they inquired how his collecting prospered. “To-day, I asked Dan McCabe for a hundred dollars, and got it. He looked astonished, and so does Miss Honora; but he showed no reluctance. At first blush, it may seem strange that I should take money that comes from gambling and rumselling. My idea is this: Dan is almost an outlaw; no decent person likes to speak to him, and he has got to look on society and religion as utterly antagonistic to him. He is on the other side of the fence, and the only feeling he has for decency is hatred and defiance. He takes pride in mocking, and pretending that he doesn’t care what people think of him. But it is a pretence, and his very defiance shows that he does care. It is my opinion that to-day Dan would give every dollar he has in the world, and go to work as a poor man, if he could be treated as a respectable one. He is proud of my having spoken to him, and taken his money, though I dare say he will pretend to sneer and laugh about it. You may depend he will tell of it on every opportunity. Better than that, he will feel that he has a right to come to the church. Before this, he had not, or at least people would have said he had not, and would have stared at him if he had come. Now, if he should come in next Sunday, and march up to a front seat, nobody could complain. If they should, he would have the best of the argument, and he knows that. Then, once in the church, we have a chance to influence him, and he a chance to win respectability. He isn’t one to be driven, nor, indeed, to be clumsily coaxed. The way is to assume that he wishes to do right, then act as if he had done right. He never will let slip a bait like that. He will hold on to that if he should have to let everything else go, as he must, of course. I knew, when I saw him look ashamed to meet me, that he wasn’t lost. While there’s shame, there’s hope. So much for Dan McCabe. Am I not right, Larry?”
Lawrence stooped to pick up F. Chevreuse’s hat, which had fallen, and by so doing escaped the necessity of answering. One glance of the priest’s quick eyes read his embarrassment, and saw the deepening color in Honora’s face.
“I am sure you are quite right, father,” Mrs. Gerald said hastily, with a tremor in her voice. “Perhaps Dan would never have been so bad if too much severity had not been used toward his early faults. And so your collecting goes on successfully. I am so glad.”
The priest, who perceived that he had, without meaning it, stirred deep waters, resumed the former subject briskly:
“Yes, thank God! my affairs are looking up. But there was a time when they were dark enough. I have been anxious about Mr. Sawyer’s mortgage. He is not so friendly to us as he was, or else he needs the money; for he would grant no extension. Well, I raked and scraped every dollar I could get, and I knew that, before next week, I couldn’t hope to collect above one or two hundreds in addition; and still it did not amount to more than half of the two thousand due. So I wrote off to a friend in New York who I thought might help me, and set my mother praying to all the saints for my success. For me, I don’t know what came over me. Perhaps I was tired, or nervous, or dyspeptic. At all events, when the time came for me to receive an answer to my letter, all my courage failed. I was ashamed of myself, but that didn’t help me. While Andy was gone to the post-office, I could do nothing but walk to and fro, and shake at every sound, and watch the clock to see when he would be back. I always give the old fellow half an hour. I wasn’t strong when he went. In ten minutes I was weak, in fifteen minutes I was silly, in twenty minutes I was a fool. ‘I can’t wait here in the house for him,’ I said; ‘I’ll take to the sanctuary, and, whatever comes to me there, it can’t kill me.’ So I left word for Andy to bring my letters to the church, and lay them down on the altar steps, and go away again without speaking a word; and out I went, and knelt down by the altar, like an urchin who catches hold of his mother’s gown when somebody says bo! to him. By-and-by, I heard Andy coming. I knew the squeak of his boots, and the double way he has of putting his feet down—first the heel, then the toe, making a sound as though he were a quadruped. Never had he walked so slowly, yet never had I so dreaded his coming. I counted the stairs as he came up, and found out that there were fifteen. For some reason, I liked the number; perhaps because it is the number of decades in the rosary. I promised in that instant that, if he brought me good news, I would climb those stairs on my knees, saying a decade on every stair in thanksgiving. Then I put my hand over my face, and waited. He lumbered in, panting for breath, laid something down before me, and went out again. I counted the fifteen steps till he was at the bottom of them, then snatched up my letter, and broke the seal; and there was my thousand dollars! When I saw the draft, I involuntarily jumped up, and flung my barrette as high as I could fling it, and it came down to me with a mash that it will never get over. But, my boy,” he said, turning quickly, and laying his hand on Lawrence Gerald’s knee, “that your hat may never be mashed in a worse cause!”