He tried to imagine himself lecturing, canvassing for books or insurance policies, writing for newspapers--and remained frightened.But suddenly one day it occurred to him that these qualms and forebodings were sheer folly.
Was not Celia rich? Would she not with lightning swiftness draw forth that check-book, like the flashing sword of a champion from its scabbard, and run to his relief? Why, of course.
It was absurd not to have thought of that before.
He recalled her momentary anger with him, that afternoon in the woods, when he had cried out that discovery would mean ruin to him.He saw clearly enough now that she had been grieved at his want of faith in her protection.
In his flurry of fright, he had lost sight of the fact that, if exposure and trouble came to him, she would naturally feel that she had been the cause of his martyrdom.
It was plain enough now.If he got into hot water, it would be solely on account of his having been seen with her.He had walked into the woods with her--"the further the better" had been her own words--out of pure kindliness, and the desire to lead her away from the scene of her brother's and her own humiliation.
But why amplify arguments? Her own warm heart would tell her, on the instant, how he had been sacrificed for her sake, and would bring her, eager and devoted, to his succor.
That was all right, then.Slowly, from this point, suggestions expanded themselves.The future could be, if he willed it, one long serene triumph of love, and lofty intellectual companionship, and existence softened and enriched at every point by all that wealth could command, and the most exquisite tastes suggest.
Should he will it! Ah! the question answered itself.
But he could not enter upon this beckoning heaven of a future until he had freed himself.When Celia said to him, "Come!" he must not be in the position to reply, "I should like to, but unfortunately I am tied by the leg."He should have to leave Octavius, leave the ministry, leave everything.He could not begin too soon to face these contingencies.
Very likely Celia had not thought it out as far as this.
With her, it was a mere vague "sometime I may."But the harder masculine sense, Theron felt, existed for the very purpose of correcting and giving point to these loose feminine notions of time and space.
It was for him to clear away the obstacles, and map the plans out with definite decision.
One warm afternoon, as he lolled in his easy-chair under the open window of his study, musing upon the ever-shifting phases of this vast, complicated, urgent problem, some chance words from the sidewalk in front came to his ears, and, coming, remained to clarify his thoughts.
Two ladies whose voices were strange to him had stopped--as so many people almost daily stopped--to admire the garden of the parsonage.One of them expressed her pleasure in general terms.Said the other--"My husband declares those dahlias alone couldn't be matched for thirty dollars, and that some of those gladiolus must have cost three or four dollars apiece.
I know we've spent simply oceans of money on our garden, and it doesn't begin to compare with this.""It seems like a sinful waste to me," said her companion.
"No-o," the other hesitated."No, I don't think quite that--if you can afford it just as well as not.But it does seem to me that I'd rather live in a little better house, and not spend it ALL on flowers.Just LOOK at that cactus!"The voices died away.Theron sat up, with a look of arrested thought upon his face, then sprang to his feet and moved hurriedly through the parlor to an open front window.
Peering out with caution he saw that the two women receding from view were fashionably dressed and evidently came from homes of means.He stared after them in a blank way until they turned a corner.
He went into the hall then, put on his frock-coat and hat, and stepped out into the garden.He was conscious of having rather avoided it heretofore--not altogether without reasons of his own, lying unexamined somewhere in the recesses of his mind.Now he walked slowly about, and examined the flowers with great attentiveness.
The season was advancing, and he saw that many plants had gone out of bloom.But what a magnificent plenitude of blossoms still remained!
Thirty dollars' worth of dahlias--that was what the stranger had said.Theron hardly brought himself to credit the statement;but all the same it was apparent to even his uninformed eye that these huge, imbricated, flowering masses, with their extraordinary half-colors, must be unusual.
He remembered that the boy in Gorringe's office had spoken of just one lot of plants costing thirty-one dollars and sixty cents, and there had been two other lots as well.
The figures remained surprisingly distinct in his memory.
It was no good deceiving himself any longer: of course these were the plants that Gorringe had spent his money upon, here all about him.
As he surveyed them with a sour regard, a cool breeze stirred across the garden.The tall, over-laden flower-spikes of gladioli bent and nodded at him; the hollyhocks and flaming alvias, the clustered blossoms on the standard roses, the delicately painted lilies on their stilt-like stems, fluttered in the wind, and seemed all bowing satirically to him."Yes, Levi Gorringe paid for us!" He almost heard their mocking declaration.
Out in the back-yard, where a longer day of sunshine dwelt, there were many other flowers, and notably a bed of geraniums which literally made the eye ache.Standing at this rear corner of the house, he caught the droning sound of Alice's voice, humming a hymn to herself as she went about her kitchen work.He saw her through the open window.
She was sweeping, and had a sort of cap on her head which did not add to the graces of her appearance.
