They were right. George Holland knew that it was a troublesome process becoming a good clergyman, so he determined to become a good preacher instead. In the course of a year he had become probably the best-known preacher (legitimate, not Dissenting) in London, and that, too, without annoying the church-wardens of St. Chad's by drawing crowds of undesirable listeners to crush their way into the proprietary sittings, and to join in the singing and responses, and to do other undesirable acts. No, he only drew to the church the friends of the said holders, whose contributions to the offertory were exemplary.
His popularity within a certain circle was great; but, as Lord Earlscourt was heard to say, "He never played to the pit."
He was invited to speak to a resolution at a Mansion House meeting to express indignation at the maintenance of the opium traffic in China.
He was also invited by the Countess of Earlscourt to appear on the platform to meet the deputation of Chinese who represented the city meeting held at Pekin in favor of local option in England; for the great national voice of China had pronounced in favor of local option in England.
Shortly afterward he met Phyllis Ayrton, and had asked her to marry him, and she had consented.
And now Phyllis was awaiting his coming to her, in order that he might learn from her own lips what he had already learned from the letter which he had received from her the day before; namely, that she found it necessary for her own peace of mind to break off her engagement with him.
Phyllis Ayrton had felt for some months that it would be a great privilege for any woman to become the wife of a clergyman. Like many other girls who have a good deal of time for thought,--thought about themselves, their surroundings, and the world in general,--she had certain yearnings after a career. But she had lived all her life in Philistia, and considered it to be very well adapted as a place of abode for a proper-minded young woman; in fact, she could not imagine any proper-minded young woman living under any other form of government than that which found acceptance in Philistia. She had no yearning to startle her neighbors. With a large number of young women, the idea that startling one's neighbors is a career by itself seems to prevail just at present; but Phyllis had no taste in this direction.
Writing a book and riding a bicycle were alike outside her calculations of a scheme of life. Hospital nursing was nothing that she would shrink from; at the same time, it did not attract her; she felt that she could dress quite as becomingly as a hospital nurse in another way.
She wondered, if it should come to the knowledge of the heads of the government of Philistia that she had a yearning to become the wife of a clergyman, would they regard her as worthy to be conducted across the frontier, and doomed to perpetual expatriation. When she began to think out this point, she could not but feel that if she were deserving of punishment,--she looked on expulsion from Philistia as the severest punishment that could be dealt out to her, for she was extremely patriotic,--there were a good many other young women, and women who were no longer young, who were equally culpable. She had watched the faces of quite a number of the women who crowded St.
Chad's at every service, and she had long ago come to the conclusion that the desire to become the wife of a clergyman was an aspiration which was universally distributed among the unmarried women of the congregation.
She knew so much, but she was not clever enough to know that it was her observance of this fact that confirmed her in her belief that it would be a blessed privilege for such a woman as she to become the wife of such a clergyman as George Holland. She was not wise enough to be able to perceive that a woman marries a man not so much because she things highly of marriage--although she does think highly of it; not so much because she thinks highly of the man--though she may think highly of him, but simply because she sees that other women want to marry him.
In three months she considered herself blessed among women. She was the one chosen out of all the flock. She did not look around her in church in pride of conquest; but she looked demurely down to her sacred books, feeling that all the other women were gazing at her in envy; and she felt that there was no pride in the thought that the humility of her attitude--downcast eyes, with long lashes shading half her cheeks, meekly folded hands--was the right one to adopt under the circumstances.
And then she saw several of the young women who had been wearing sober shades of dresses for some years,--though in their hearts (and she knew it) they were passionately attached to colors,--appearing like poppies once more, and looking very much the better for the change, too; and she felt that it was truly sad for young women to--well, to show their hands, so to speak. They might have waited for some weeks before returning to the colors of the secular.
She did not know that they felt that they had wasted too much time in sober shades already. The days are precious in a world in which no really trustworthy hair dye may be bought for money.
And then there came to her a month of coldly inquisitive doubt. (This was when people had ceased to congratulate her and to talk, the nice ones, of the great cleverness of George Holland; the nasty ones, of the great pity that so delightful a man did not come of a better family.)
Why should she begin to ask herself if she really loved George Holland; if the feeling she had for him should be called by the name of love, or by some other name that did not mean just the same thing?
