"Brother!" exclaimed F. Chevreuse, and grasped the hand the other extended to him, and for a moment seemed to be on the point of yielding to an emotion natural to one who, having long borne without human help his own burdens and the burdens of others, sees at length a friend on whom he can lean in turn, and to whom he can venture to confess his human weakness. "I thought you were at home, swathed in flannels," he added, recovering himself.
F. O'Donovan shrugged his shoulders. He had been a good deal in France, and had, moreover, as all graceful and vivacious persons have, a natural inclination to use a good deal of gesture. "Rheumatism, my friend, is not invincible. Yesterday I was helpless; this morning at seven o'clock I was helpless. At ten minutes past seven I heard news which made me wish to see you; and here I am—sound, too. It was only to say, Get thee behind me, Satan! and I could walk as well as you. From which I conclude that my rheumatism, if it had existence outside my own imagination, was Satan in disguise."
F. Chevreuse pressed the arm he had taken, and they walked on together a little way in silence. The news his brother priest had heard need not be spoken of. His silent sympathy and companionship were enough.
"Has it ever occurred to you that the saints must have been considered in their day rather disreputable people?" the elder priest asked presently. "Leaving violent persecution out of the question, what a raising of eyebrows, and shrugging of shoulders, and how many indulgent smiles, and looks of mild surprise, and cold surprise, and gentle dismay, and polite disapprobation, and all that they must have occasioned!"
"By which I understand," remarked the other, "that somebody has refused to fly in the face of society at your request."
"Taken with the usual allowance required by your interpretations of me, that is true," F. Chevreuse admitted.
His friend smiled. There was always this little pretence of feud between them, and each admired the other heartily, though the Frenchman was unconventional to a fault, and the Irishman scrupulously polished. A fastidious taste and a cautious self-control, learned in a large and varied experience of life, stood in constant ward over F. O'Donovan's warm heart and high spirit. F. Chevreuse, in his trustful ardor, was constantly bruising himself on the rocks; his friend looked out for and steered clear of them, yet not with a selfish nor ungenerous caution.
"Brother Chevreuse," he said in a voice to which he could impart an almost irresistible persuasiveness, "you are older and wiser than I am, and I only remind you of what you know when I say that conventionality is not to be reprobated. It is on the side of law and order. It is the friend of propriety and decency. It is the rule, to which, indeed, exceptions are allowed, but not too readily. You speak of the saints as though they were all persons who have lived before the world peculiar and exceptional lives. Of course, even while I speak, you remember that the church does not pretend to have canonized all her holy children, and that she has appointed a day to commemorate those who have won the heavenly crown without drawing upon themselves the attention of mankind. I do not believe that any breath of slander or of injurious criticism ever touched Our Blessed Lady. She used every care to preserve herself from them. Why should not women be as careful now, even at the risk of seeming to be selfishly cautious? Is the high reputation which they have labored to acquire to be lightly perilled, even for an apparently good end? Besides, in performing that one good act, they may, by drawing criticism on themselves, have lost the power to perform another effectually. You defend an accused person, never having done so before, and you may save him. Do it a second time, and people will say, 'Oh! he is always defending criminals'; and your power is gone."
"It is hard to see a person wrongly accused, and not protest against the wrong," F. Chevreuse said gravely.