Contrary Mary

She moved the jar of lilies aside, so that there might be nothing

between them. "If I am your friend, I must help you," she said, "or

what would my friendship be worth?"

"There is no help," he said, hurriedly, "not in the sense that I think

you mean it. My past has made my future. I cannot throw myself into

the fight again. I know that I have been called all sorts of a coward

for not facing life. But I could face armies, if it were anything

tangible. I could do battle with a sword or a gun or my fists, if

there were a visible adversary. But whispers--you can't kill them; and

at last they--kill you."

"I don't want you to fight," she said, and now behind the whiteness of

her skin there was a radiance. "I don't want you to fight. I want you

to deliver your message."

"What message?"

"The message that every man who stands in the pulpit must have for the

world, else he has no right to stand there."

"You think then that I had no message?"

"I think," and now her hand went out to him across the table, as if she

would soften the words, "I think that if you had felt yourself called

to do that one thing, that nothing would have swayed you from it--there

are people not in the churches, who never go to church, who want what

you have to give--there are the highways and hedges. Oh, surely, not

all of the people worth preaching to are the ones in the pews."

She flung the challenge at him directly.

And he flung it back to her, "If I had had such a woman as you in my

life----"

"Oh, don't, don't." The radiance died. "What has any woman to do

with it? It is you--yourself, who must stand the test."

After the ringing words there was dead silence. Roger sat leaning

forward, his eyes not upon her, but upon the fire. In his white face

there was no hint of weakness; there was, rather, pride, obstinacy, the

ruggedness of inflexible purpose.

"I am afraid," he said at last, "that I have not stood the test."

Her clear eyes met his squarely. "Then meet it now."

For a moment he blazed. "I know now what you think of me, that I am a

man who has shirked."

"You know I do not think that."