Selma managed to seat herself on the one straight-backed chair in the room. From this she was promptly driven by Mrs. Taylor and established in one corner of a lounge with a soft silk cushion behind her, and further propitiated by the proffer of a cup of tea in a dainty cup and saucer. All this, including Mrs. Taylor's musical voice, easy speech, and ingratiating friendliness, alternately thrilled and irritated her.

She would have liked to discard her hostess from her thought as a light creature unworthy of intellectual seriousness, but she found herself fascinated and even thawed in spite of herself.

"I'm glad to have the opportunity really to talk to you," said Mrs.

Taylor. "At the church reunions one is so liable to interruptions. If I'm not mistaken, you taught school before you were married?"

"For a short time."

"That must have been interesting. It is so practical and definite. My life," she added deprecatingly, "has been a thing of threads and patches--a bit here and a bit there."

She paused, but without forcing a response, proceeded blithely to touch on her past by way of ill.u.s.tration. The war had come just when she was grown up, and her kin in Maryland were divided on the issue. Her father had taken his family abroad, but her heart was in the keeping of a young officer on the Northern side--now her husband. Loss of property and bitterness of spirit had kept her parents expatriated, and she, with them, had journeyed from place to place in Europe. She had seen many beautiful places and beautiful things. At last Major Taylor had come for her and carried her off as his bride to take up again her life as an American.

"I am interested in Benham," she continued, "and I count on you, Mrs.

Babc.o.c.k, to help make the new church what it ought to be artistically--worthy of all the energy and independence there is in this place."

Selma's eye kindled. The allusion to foreign lands had aroused her distrust, but this patriotic avowal warmed her pulses.

"Every one is so busy with private affairs here, owing to the rapid growth of the city," pursued Mrs. Taylor, "that there is danger of our doing inconsiderately things which cannot easily be set right hereafter.

An ugly or tawdry-looking building may be an eyesore for a generation. I know that we have honest and skilful mechanics in Benham, but as trustees of the church funds, shouldn't we at least make the effort to get the best talent there is? If we have the cleverest architect here, so much the better. An open compet.i.tion will enable us to find out.

After all Benham is only one city among many, and a very new city. Why shouldn't we take advantage of the ideas of the rest of the country--the older portion of the country?"

"Mr. Pierce built our house, and we think it very satisfactory and pretty."

Selma's tone was firm, but she eyed her hostess narrowly. She had begun of late to distrust the aesthetic worth of the colored gla.s.s and metal stag, and, though she was on her guard against effrontery, she wished to know the truth. She knew that Mr. Pierce, with fine business instinct, had already conveyed to her husband the promise that he should furnish the varnish for the new church in case of his own selection, which, as Babc.o.c.k had remarked, would be a nice thing all round.

Mrs. Taylor underwent the scrutiny without flinching. "I have nothing to say against Mr. Pierce. He is capable within his lights. Indeed I think it quite possible that we shall get nothing more satisfactory elsewhere.

Mr. Flagg's grim pile is anything but encouraging. That may sound like an argument against my plan, but in the case of the Flagg house there was no compet.i.tion; merely unenlightened choice on the one side and ignorant experimenting on the other."

"You don't seem to think very highly of the appearance of Benham," said Selma. The remark was slightly interrogative, but was combative withal.

She wished to know if everything, from the Flagg mansion down, was open to criticism, but she would fain question the authority of the censor--this glib, graceful woman whose white, starched cuffs seemed to make light of her own sober, unadorned wrists.

This time Mrs. Taylor flushed faintly. She realized that their relations had reached a critical point, and that the next step might be fatal. She put down her teacup, and leaning forward, said with smiling confidential eagerness, "I don't. I wouldn't admit it to anyone else. But what's the use of mincing matters with an intelligent woman like you? I might put you off now, and declare that Benham is well enough. But you would soon divine what I really think, and that would be the end of confidence between us. I like honesty and frankness, and I can see that you do. My opinion of Benham architecture is that it is slip-shod and mongrel.

There! You see I put myself in your hands, but I do so because I feel sure you nearly agree with me already. You know it's so, but you hate to acknowledge it."

Selma's eyes were bright with interest. She felt flattered by the appeal, and there was a righteous a.s.surance in Mrs. Taylor's manner which was convincing. She opened her mouth to say something--what she did not quite know--but Mrs. Taylor raised her hand by way of interdiction.

"Don't answer yet. Let me show you what I mean. I'm as proud of Benham as anyone. I am absorbed by the place, I look to see it fifty years hence--perhaps less--a great city, and a beautiful city too. Just at present everything is commercial and--and ethical; yes, ethical. We wish to do and dare, but we haven't time to adorn as we construct. That is, most of us haven't. But if a few determined spirits--women though they be--cry 'halt,' art may get a chance here and there to a.s.sert herself.

Look at this," she said, gliding across the room and holding up a small vase of exquisite shape and coloring, "I picked it up on the other side and it stands almost for a lost art. The hands and taste which wrought it represent the transmitted patience and skill of hundreds of years. We like to rush things through in a few weeks on a design hastily conceived by a Mr. Pierce because we are so earnest. Now, we won't do it this time, will we?"

"No, we won't," said Selma. "I see what you mean. I was afraid at first that you didn't give us credit for the earnestness--for the ethical part. That's the first thing, the great thing according to my idea, and it's what distinguishes us from foreigners,--the foreigners who made that vase, for instance. But I agree with you that there's such a thing as going too fast, and very likely some of the buildings here aren't all they might be. We don't need to model them on foreign patterns, but we must have them pretty and right."

"Certainly, certainly, my dear. What we should strive for is originality--American originality; but soberly, slowly. Art is evolved painfully, little by little; it can't be bought ready-made at shops for the asking like tea and sugar. If we invite designs for the new church, we shall give the youths of the country who have ideas seething in their heads a chance to express themselves. Who knows but we may unearth a genius?"

"Who knows?" echoed Selma, with her spiritual look. "Yes, you are right, Mrs. Taylor. I will help you. As you say, there must be hundreds of young men who would like to do just that sort of thing. I know myself what it is to have lived in a small place without the opportunity to show what one could do; to feel the capacity, but to be without the means and occasion to reveal what is in one. And now that I understand we really look at things the same way, I'm glad to join with you in making Benham beautiful. As you say, we women can do much if we only will. I've the greatest faith in woman's mission in this new, interesting nation of ours. Haven't you, Mrs. Taylor? Don't you believe that she, in her new sphere of usefulness, is one of the great moving forces of the Republic?" Selma was talking rapidly, and had lost every trace of suspicious restraint. She spoke as one transfigured.

"Yes, indeed," answered Mrs. Taylor, checking any disposition she may have felt to interpose qualifications. She could acquiesce generally without violence to her convictions, and she could not afford to imperil the safety of the immediate issue--her church. "I felt sure you would feel so if you only had time to reflect," she added. "If you vote with us, you will have the pleasant consciousness of knowing that you have advanced woman's cause just so much."

"You may count on my vote."

Selma stopped on her way home, although it was late, to purchase some white cuffs. As she approached, her husband stood on the gra.s.s-plot in his shirt sleeves with a garden-hose. He was whistling, and when he saw her he kissed his hand at her jubilantly,

"Well, sweetheart, where you been?"

"Visiting. Taking tea with Mrs. Taylor. I've promised her to vote to invite bids for the church plans."

Babc.o.c.k looked surprised. "That'll throw Pierce out, won't it?"

"Not unless some one else submits a better design than he."

Lewis scratched his head. "I considered that order for varnish as good as booked."

"I'm not sure Mr. Pierce knows as much as he thinks he does," said Selma oracularly. "We shall get plans from New York and Boston. If we don't like them we needn't take them. But that's the way to get an artistic thing. And we're going to have the most artistic church in Benham. I'm sorry about the varnish, but a principle is involved."

Babc.o.c.k was puzzled but content. He cared far more for the disappointment to Pierce than for the loss of the order. But apart from the business side of the question, he never doubted that his wife must be right, nor did he feel obliged to inquire what principle was involved. He was pleased to have her a.s.sociate with Mrs. Taylor, and was satisfied that she would be a credit to him in any situation where occult questions of art or learning were mooted. He dropped his hose and pulled her down beside him on the porch settee. There was a beautiful sunset, and the atmosphere was soft and refreshing. Selma felt satisfied with herself. As Mrs. Taylor had said, it was her vote which would turn the scale on behalf of progress. Other things, too, were in her mind.

She was not ready to admit that she had been instructed, but she was already planning changes in her own domestic interior, suggested by what she had seen.

She let her husband squeeze her hand, but her thoughts were wandering from his blandishments. Presently she said: "Lewis, I've begun lately to doubt if that stag is really pretty."

"The stag? Well, now, I've always thought it tasty--one of the features of our little place."

"No one would mistake it for a real deer. It looks to me almost comical."

Babc.o.c.k turned to regard judicially the object of her criticism.

"I like it," he said somewhat mournfully, as though he were puzzled.

"But if you don't, we'll change the stag for something else. I wish you to be pleased first of all. Instead we might have a fountain; two children under an umbrella I saw the other day. It was cute. How does that strike you?"

"I can't tell without seeing it. And, Lewis, promise me that you won't select anything new of that sort until I have looked at it."

"Very well," Babc.o.c.k answered submissively. But he continued to look puzzled. In his estimate of his wife's superiority to himself in the subtleties of life, it had never occurred to him to include the choice of every-day objects of art. He had eyes and could judge for himself like any other American citizen. Still, he was only too glad to humor Selma in such an unimportant matter, especially as he was eager for her happiness.

CHAPTER IV.

Seven designs for the new church were submitted, including three from Benham architects. The leaven of influence exercised by spirits like Mrs. Taylor was only just beginning to work, and the now common custom of competing outside one's own bailiwick was still in embryo. Mr.

Pierce's design was bold and sumptuous. His brother-in-law stated oracularly not long before the day when the plans were to be opened: "Pierce is not a man to be frightened out of a job by frills. Mark my words; he will give us an elegant thing." Mr. Pierce had conceived the happy thought of combining a Moorish mosque and New England meeting-house in a conservative and equitable medley, evidently hoping thereby to be both picturesque and traditional. The result, even on paper, was too bold for some of his admirers. The chairman was heard to remark: "I shouldn't feel as though I was in church. That dome set among spires is close to making a theatre of the house of G.o.d."

The discomfiture of the first architect of Benham cleared the way for the triumph of Mrs. Taylor's taste. The design submitted by Wilbur Littleton of New York, seemed to her decidedly the most meritorious. It was graceful, appropriate, and artistic; entirely in harmony with religious a.s.sociations, yet agreeably different from every day sanctuaries. The choice lay between his and that presented by Mr. Ca.s.s, a Benham builder--a matter-of-fact, serviceable, but very conventional edifice. The hard-headed stove dealer on the committee declared in favor of the native design, as simpler and more solid.

"It'll be a ma.s.sive structure" he said, "and when it's finished no one will have to ask what it is. It'll speak for itself. Mr. Ca.s.s is a solid business man, and we know what we'll get. The other plan is what I call dandified."

It was evident to the committee that the stove dealer's final criticism comprehended the architect as well as his design. Several compet.i.tors--Littleton among them--had come in person to explain the merits of their respective drawings, and by the side of solid, red-bearded, undecorative Mr. Ca.s.s, Littleton may well have seemed a dandy. He was a slim young man with a delicate, sensitive face and intelligent brown eyes. He looked eager and interesting. In his case the almost gaunt American physiognomy was softened by a suggestion of poetic impulses. Yet the heritage of nervous energy was apparent. His appearance conveyed the impression of quiet trigness and gentility. His figure lent itself to his clothes, which were utterly inconspicuous, judged by metropolitan standards, but flawless in the face of hard-headed theories of life, and aroused suspicion. He spoke in a gentle but earnest manner, pointing out clearly, yet modestly, the merits of his composition.

Selma had never seen a man just like him before, and she noticed that from the outset his eyes seemed to be fastened on her as though his words were intended for her special benefit. She had never read the lines--indeed they had not been written--

"I think I could be happy with a gentleman like you."

Nor did the precise sentiment contained in them shape itself in her thought. Yet she was suddenly conscious that she had been starving for lack of intellectual companionship, and that he was the sort of man she had hoped to meet--the sort of man who could appreciate her and whom she could appreciate.