These seekers went with smiling faces and hastening feet, but they came away laggardly, reproaching the master of the temple for a selfish brute. Some few were admitted, stayed, and met the girl and Clarke--for Clarke fairly divided the honors, so vivid, so picturesque was he. He did not hesitate to speak of his great work, a work which would astound the world, and to announce the title of his great oration which Simeon had engaged for the temple. This was the first big gun of his campaign, this compelling oration; but he must have Viola's consent to the use of her name--her consent also to sit with a group of chosen great men of the city in order to issue a defiant challenge to science. From these special sittings he expected to deduce the final and greatest chapter of his book.
From this public test of her power Viola still shrank, but Pratt's wealth and power, which Clarke continually emphasized, fairly stunned her into acquiescence. So far from being a faith of the poor, the obscure, a faith that lurked in dark corners, avoiding the direct gaze of men, spiritualism from the portals of a resplendent temple appeared to be not merely respectable but triumphant. From this sacred meeting-place of the angelic forces, from the windows of Pratt's palatial home, she looked out upon the city with more of content with her mission than she had ever known before--troubled only by a deeply hidden wish to see again the man whose buoyant health and smiling eyes had so strongly impressed her on their ride into the Marshal Basin.
But this sense of security of power did not last. As the novelty of her position in Pratt's household wore away she found her duties irksome. She resented the flocks of curious or melancholy visitors and began to perceive the bitter truth--that she was only a servant, after all, ministering to the pleasures of Pratt and his friends. She had very little time to herself, and could not escape her masters even for a drive in the Park--one or the other of them was always at her side.
She attempted to withdraw her consent to the use of her name, but Clarke, the guides, even her mother, insisted on the test. Britt alone of all her friends took the side of her fears. They were in correspondence of a formal sort, and when he reached the city he went straight to her, anxious to know what Clarke's plans actually were. To him she spoke more freely than ever before, expressing her dread of the flaring light which Clarke was about to turn upon her.