The Dweller on the Threshold Part 3

But now the situation was becoming painful, almost unbearable.

With every sentence the rector became more involved, more hesitating, more impotent. The sweat ran down his face. Even his fine voice was affected. It grew husky. It seemed to be failing. Yet he would not cease. To Malling he gave the impression of a man governed by a secret obstinacy, fighting on though he knew it was no use, that he had lost the combat. Malling longed to cry out to him, "Give it up!"

The congregation coughed more persistently, and the lady with the fan began to ply her instrument of torture almost hysterically.

Suddenly Malling felt obliged to look toward the left of the crowded church. Sitting up very straight, and almost craning his neck, he stared over the heads of the fidgeting people and met the eyes of a woman, the lady with the streak of white hair against whom he had pushed when coming in.

There was a look almost of anguish on her face. She turned her eyes toward Mr. Harding. At the same instant the rector saw Mailing in the congregation. He stopped short, muttered an uneven sentence, then, forcing his voice, uttered in unnaturally loud tones the "Now to G.o.d the Father," et cetera.

Henry Chichester rose in his stall with an expression of intense thankfulness, which yet seemed somehow combined with a sneer.

The collection was made.

Before the celebration some of the choir and two of the clergy, of whom Mr. Harding was one, left the church. Henry Chichester and the fair, athletic-looking curate remained. Mailing took his hat and made his way slowly to the door. As he emerged a young man stopped him and said:

"If you please, sir, the rector would like to speak to you if you could wait just a moment. You are Mr. Malling, I believe."

"Yes. How could you know?"

"Mr. Harding told me what you were like, sir, and that you were wearing a tie with a large green stone in it. Begging your pardon, sir."

"I will wait," said Malling, marveling at the rector's rapid and accurate powers of observation.

Those of the congregation who had not remained for the celebration were quickly dispersing, but Malling now noticed that the lady with the white lock was, like himself, waiting for some one. She stood not far from him.

She was holding a parasol, and looking down; she moved its point to and fro on the ground. Several people greeted her. Almost as if startled she glanced up quickly, smiled, replied. Then, as they went on, she again looked down. There was a pucker in her brow. Her lips twitched now and then.

Suddenly she lifted her head, turned and forced her quivering mouth to smile. Mr. Harding had come into sight round the corner of the church.

"Ah, Mr. Malling," he said, "so you have stayed. Very good of you.

Sophia, let me introduce Mr. Malling to you--my wife, Lady Sophia."

The lady with the white lock held out her hand.

"You have heard Professor Stepton speak of Mr. Malling, haven't you?"

added the rector to his wife.

"Indeed I have," she answered.

She smiled again kindly, and as if resolved to throw off her depression began to talk with some animation as they all walked together toward the street. Directly they reached it the rector said:

"Are you engaged to lunch to-day, Mr. Malling?"

"No," answered Malling.

Lady Sophia turned to him and said:

"Then I shall be informal and beg you to lunch with us, if you don't mind our being alone. We lunch early, at one, as my husband is tired after his morning's work and eats virtually nothing at breakfast."

"I shall be delighted," said Malling. "It's very kind of you."

"We always walk home," said the rector.

He sighed. It was obvious that he was in low spirits after the failure of the morning, but he tried to conceal the fact, and his wife tactfully helped him. Malling praised the music warmly, and remarked on the huge congregation.

"I scarcely thought I should find a seat," he added.

"It is always full to the doors in the morning," said Lady Sophia, with a cheerfulness that was slightly forced.

She glanced at her husband, and suddenly added, not without a decided touch of feminine spite:

"Unless Mr. Chichester, the senior curate, is preaching."

"My dear Sophy!" exclaimed Mr. Harding.

"Well, it is so!" she said, with a sort of petulance.

"Perhaps Mr. Chichester is not gifted as a preacher," said Malling.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said the rector.

"My husband never criticizes his--swans," said Lady Sophia, with delicate malice, and a glance full of meaning at Malling. "But I'm a woman, and my principles are not so high as his."

"You do yourself an injustice," said the rector. "Here we are."

He drew out his latch-key.

Before lunch Malling was left alone for a few minutes in the drawing-room with Lady Sophia. The rector had to see a paris.h.i.+oner who had called and was waiting for him in his study. Directly her husband had left the room Lady Sophia turned to Malling and said:

"Had you ever heard my husband preach till this morning?"

"No, never," Mailing answered. "I'm afraid I'm not a very regular church-goer. I must congratulate you again on the music at St. Joseph's.

It is exceptional. Even at St. Anne's Soho--"

Almost brusquely she interrupted him. She was obviously in a highly nervous condition; and scarcely able to control herself.

"Yes, yes, our music is always good, of course. So glad you liked it.

But what I want to say is that you haven't heard my husband preach this morning."

Malling looked at her with curiosity, but without astonishment. He might have acted a part with her as he had the previous day with her husband.

But, as he looked, he came to a rapid decision, to be more frank with the woman than he had been with the man.

"You mean, of course, that your husband was not in his best vein," he said. "I won't pretend that I didn't realize that."

"You didn't hear him at all. He wasn't himself--simply."

She sat down on a sofa and clasped her hands together.

"I cannot tell you what I was feeling," she added. "And he used to be so full of self-confidence. It was his great gift. His self-confidence carried him through everything. Nothing could have kept him back if--"