And having comfortably shifted the entire trend of the
conversation from his parishioner to himself and found nothing
insurmountable in his own problem, the good bishop would chuckle
mischievously at finding his eminent self quite human after all,
and would suggest their going in to find Mrs. Bishop, and having a
cup of tea. These women, always restless and dissatisfied, were a
part of his work; he prided himself upon the swiftness and tact
with which he disposed of them.
Rachael's mouth twisted wryly at the thought of him. No, she could
not bare her soul to the bishop.
Nor could she approach Father Graves with any real hope of a
helping word. To seek him out in his study--that esthetically bare
and yet beautiful room, with its tobacco-brown hangings and
monastic furnishing in black oak--would be to invite mischief. To
sit there, with her eloquent eyes fixed upon his, her haunting
voice wrapping itself about his senses, would be a genuine cruelty
toward a harmless, well-intentioned youth whose heroism in
abjuring the world, the flesh, and the devil had not yet been
great enough to combat his superb and dignified egotism. At best,
he would be won by Rachael's revelation of her soul to a long and
frankly indiscreet talk of his own; at worst, he would construe
her confidences in an entirely personal sense, and feel that she
came not at all to the priest and all to the man.
Dismissing him from her councils, Rachael thought of Florence
Haviland, the good and kind-hearted and capable matron who was
Clarence's sister and only near relative. She and Florence had
always been good friends, had often discussed Clarence of late.
What sort of advice would Florence's forty-five years be apt to
give to Rachael's twenty-eight? "Don't be so absurd, Rachael, half
the men in our set drink as much as Clarence does. Don't jump from
the frying-pan into the fire. Remember Elsie Rowland and Marian
Cowles when you talk so lightly of divorce!"
That would be Florence's probable attitude. Still, it was a
bracing attitude, heartily positive, like everything Florence did
and said. And Florence was above everything else a church member,
a prominent Christian in her self-sacrificing wifehood and
motherhood, her social and charitable and civic work. She might be
unflattering, but she would be right. Rachael's last conscious
thought, as she went off to sleep, was that she would take the
earliest possible moment to extract a verdict from Florence, She went into her husband's room at ten o'clock the next morning
to find Billy radiantly presiding over a loaded breakfast tray,
and the invalid, pale and pasty, and with no particular interest
in food evinced by the twitching muscles of his face, nevertheless
neatly brushed and shaved, propped up in pillows, and making a
visible effort to appear convalescent.