"I confess it is new to me. I shall think it over."

The Mayor beamed with gratification.

"No one denies," struck in Mr. Vialls, "that to a pure mind all things are pure. Shakespeare is undoubtedly a great poet, and a soul bent on edification can extract much good from him. But for people in general, especially young people, a.s.suredly he cannot be recommended, even in the study. I confess I have neither time nor much inclination for poetry--except that of the sacred volume, which is poetry indeed. I have occasionally found pleasure in Longfellow"----

"Pardon me," interrupted the Mayor--"Longfellow?--the author of that poem called 'Excelsior'?"

"Yes."

"Now, really--I am surprised--I should have thought--the fact is, when Raglan was at school, he had to learn 'Excelsior,' and I happened to glance over it. I was slightly acquainted with the piece, but I had quite forgotten that it contained what seems to me very gross indelicacy--very gross indeed. Do you remember a verse beginning (I must ask your pardon for quoting it, Mr. Vialls)--

'Oh stay, the maiden cried, and rest Thy weary head upon this breast.'

Surely, that is all but indecency.

In fact, I wrote at once to the master and drew his attention to the pa.s.sage, requesting that my boy might never be asked to repeat such a poem. The force of my objection was not at once admitted, strange to say; but in the end I gained my point."

Mr. Vialls screwed up his lips and frowned at the table-cloth, but said nothing.

"Our task nowadays," pursued the Mayor, with confidence, "is to preserve the purity of home. Our homes are being invaded by dangerous influences we must resist. The family should be a bulwark of virtue--of all the virtues--holiness, charity, peace."

He lingered on the last word, and his gaze became abstracted.

"Very true, very true indeed!" cried the clergyman. "For one thing, how careful a parent should be with regard to the periodical literature which is allowed to enter his house, This morning, in a home I will not mention, my eye fell upon a weekly paper which I should have thought perfectly sound in its teaching; yet, behold, there was an article of which the whole purport was to _excuse_ the vices of the lower cla.s.ses on the ground of their poverty and their temptations. Could anything be more immoral, more rotten in principle? _There_ is the spirit we have to contend against--a spirit of accursed lenity in morals, often originating in so-called scientific considerations! Evil is evil--vice, vice--the devil is the devil--be circ.u.mstances what they may. I do not care to make mention of such monstrous aberrations as, for instance, the attacks we are occasionally forced to hear on the law of marriage.

That is the mere reek of the bottomless pit, palpable to all. But I speak of subtler disguises of evil, such as may recommend themselves to persons well-intentioned but of weak understanding. Happily, I persuaded my friends to discontinue their countenance of that weekly paper, and I shall exert myself everywhere to the same end."

They rose at length, and went to the drawing-room. There Glazzard succeeding in seating himself by Miss Mumbray, and for a quarter of an hour he talked with her about art and literature. The girl's face brightened; she said little, but that little with very gracious smiles.

Then Mr. Vialls approached, and the _tete-a-tete_ was necessarily at an end.

When he was at length alone with his wife, the Mayor saw what was in store for him; in fact, he had foreseen it throughout the evening.

"Yes," began the lady, with flashing eyes, "this is your Mr. Glazzard!

He encourages Serena in her shameful behaviour! I overheard him talking to her."

"You are altogether wrong, as usual," replied Mr. Mumbray, with his wonted attempt at dignified self-a.s.sertion. "Glazzard distinctly disapproves of Bawlzac, and everything of that kind. His influence is as irreproachable as that of Mr. Vialls."

"Of course! You are determined to overthrow my plans at whatever cost to your daughter's happiness here and hereafter."

"I don't think Vialls a suitable husband for her, and I am not sorry she won't listen to him. He's all very well as a man and a clergyman, but--pshaw! what's the good of arguing with a pig-headed woman?"

This emphatic epithet had the result which was to be expected. The debate became a scolding match, lasting well into the night. These two persons were not only on ill-terms, they disliked each other with the intensity which can only be engendered by thirty years of a marriage such as, but for public opinion, would not have lasted thirty weeks.

Their reciprocal disgust was physical, mental, moral. It could not be concealed from their friends; all Polterham smiled over it; yet the Mumbrays were regarded as a centre of moral and religious influence, a power against the encroaches of rationalism and its attendant depravity. Neither of them could point to dignified ancestry; by steady persistence in cant and sn.o.bbishness--the genuine expression of their natures--they had pushed to a prominent place, and feared nothing so much as depreciation in the eyes of the townsfolk. Raglan and Serena were causing them no little anxiety; both, though in different ways, might prove an occasion of scandal. When Eustace Glazzard began to present himself at the house, Mr. Mumbray welcomed the significant calls. From his point of view, Serena could not do better than marry a man of honourable name, who would remove her to London. Out of mere contrariety, Mrs. Mumbray thereupon began to encourage the slow advances of her Rector, who thought of Serena's fortune as a means to the wider activity, the greater distinction, for which he was hungering.

Glazzard's self-contempt as he went home this evening was not unmingled with pleasanter thoughts. For a man in his position, Serena Mumbray and her thousands did not represent a future of despair. He had always aimed much higher, but defeat after defeat left him with shaken nerves, and gloomy dialogues with his brother had impressed upon him the necessity of guarding against darkest possibilities. His state of mind was singularly morbid; he could not trust the fixity of his purposes for more than a day or two together; but just at present he thought without distaste of Serena herself, and was soothed by the contemplation of her (to him modest) fortune. During the past month he had been several times to and from London; to-morrow he would return to town again, and view his progress from a distance.

On reaching his brother's house, he found a letter waiting for him; it bore the Paris postmark. The contents were brief.

"DEAR GLAZZARD:

"I announce to you the fact of our marriage. The L.s will hear of it simultaneously. We are enjoying ourselves.

"Ever yours, "D.Q."

He went at once to the room where William was sitting, and said, in a quiet voice:

"Quarrier has just got married--in Paris."

"Oh? To whom?"

"An English girl who has been a governess at Stockholm. I knew it was impending."

"Has he made a fool of himself?" asked William, dispa.s.sionately.

"I think not; she seems to be well educated, and good-looking--according to his report."

"Why didn't you mention it before?"

"Oh, his wish. We talked it all over when he was here. He has an idea that a man about to be married always cuts a ridiculous figure."

The elder man looked puzzled.

"No mysteries--eh?"

"None whatever, I believe. A decent girl without fortune, that's all. I suppose we shall see them before long."

The subject was shortly dismissed, and Eustace fell to reporting the remarkable conversation in which he had taken part at the Mayor's table. His brother was moved to no little mirth, but did not indulge in such savage contemptuousness as distinguished the narrator. William Glazzard viewed the world from a standpoint of philosophic calm; he expected so little of men in general, that disappointment or vexation could rarely befall him.

"These people," he observed, "think themselves pillars of society, and the best of the joke is, that they really _are_ what they imagine.

Without tolerably honest fools, we should fare badly at the hands of those who hate neither wits nor honesty. Let us encourage them, by all means. I see no dawn as yet of the millennium of brains."

CHAPTER XI

The weather, for this time of year, was unusually bright in Paris. Each morning glistened with h.o.a.r-frost; by noon the sky shone blue over clean, dry streets, and gardens which made a season for themselves, leafless, yet defiant of winter's melancholy. Lilian saw it all with the eyes of a stranger, and often was able to forget her anxiety in the joy of wonderful, new impressions.

One afternoon she was resting in the room at the hotel, whilst Quarrier went about the town on some business or other. A long morning at the Louvre had tired her, and her spirits drooped. In imagination she went back to the days of silence and solitude in London; the memory affected her with something of homesickness, a wish that the past could be restored. The little house by Clapham Common had grown dear to her; in its shelter she had shed many tears, but also had known much happiness: that sense of security which was now lost, the hope that there she might live always, hidden from the world's inquisitive gaze, justified to her own conscience by love and calm. What now was before her? Not only the elaborate deceit, the perpetual risk, weighed upon her heart; she was summoned to a position such as she had never foreseen, for which she had received no training. When Denzil revealed to her his real standing in the world, spoke laughingly of the wealth he had inherited, and of his political ambitions, her courage failed before the prospect. She had not dared to let him see all her despondency, for his impatient and sanguine temper would have resented it. To please him and satisfy his utmost demands was the one purpose of her life. But the task he had imposed seemed to her, in these hours of faintness, no less than terrible.

He entered, gay as usual, ready with tender words, pet names and diminutives, the "little language" of one who was still a lover. Seeing how things were with her, he sat down to look over an English newspaper. Presently his attention strayed, he fell into reverie.

"Well," he exclaimed at length, rousing himself, "they have the news by now."

She gave no answer.

"I can imagine how Mary will talk. 'Oh, nothing that Denzil does can surprise me! Whoever expected him to marry in the ordinary way?' And then they'll laugh, and shrug their shoulders, and hope I mayn't have played the fool--good, charitable folks!"