The First Soprano Part 8

"Then it was not upon Doctor Schoolman's invitation?" queried Hubert.

"Oh, he invited him, of course, but it was at Mr. Selton's wish. He is very influential, you know. He heard Mr. Bond when he was in New York last winter and was much interested in his teaching. So he suggested having him here for a Sunday, and himself undertook the expense."

Fortunately for this instance Mr. Selton possessed the two qualifications, so often united in church life, of influence and wealth.

"Later," went on Mr. Gray, "he spoke with several men, including myself, about the advisability of the Bible Lectures, having secured Mr. Bond's consent before he left on Monday. We saw no objection. I think, myself, that we need a little stirring up now and then."

"And the lectures are to be in the Y.M.C.A. Hall?" asked Hubert, with interest.

"Yes, that is a central point, and we wish to make them union meetings."

"I am very glad to hear about it," said Hubert.

The rainy day pa.s.sed, its somberness meanwhile lightened by a greater glow than that of Winifred's flame-colored flowers, and Friday came, radiant with suns.h.i.+ne. It was pa.s.sed without special incident until evening, which was the time of the weekly choir rehearsal. Then Mr.

George Frothingham called, as had become his wont, to escort Winifred to the church. That had once been Hubert's task, and bitterly he had resented it when gradually the change came about. Now he need have no fear, for his sister was not going. She had not seen Frothingham since Sunday, and during the day had looked forward with a little unpleasant dread to the interview that must be. She imagined various ways in which she should break to him the news that she had left the choir, but none seemed satisfactory. All her little speeches left her as the time drew near.

He found her at the piano, where improvised melodies had been working off her nervous apprehension.

"Not ready?" he asked, after the usual salutations.

"I am not going."

"Really? You are not ill, I hope?"

"Oh, no! I never was better," confessed Winifred.

"You should go above all things to-night," he said. "Mr. Mercer is going to give us parts of the Redemption."

The music was certainly alluring.

"I have left the choir," said Winifred faintly.

Mr. Frothingham never lost his easy self-poise over anything which this jestingly tolerated world offered him, but he allowed himself to be surprised now.

"You are surely not in earnest?" he said. "You of all persons! I thought you were devoted to the choir. You are not going to desert us for some other field of conquest?"

"Oh, no!" said Winifred.

"Have you quarreled with Mercer?" he persisted. "He _is_ cranky sometimes. Shall I fight him?"

Winifred had to laugh at the thought of the handsome, immaculate young man before her in a pugilistic encounter with Mr. Mercer.

"No, you needn't do that," she said; and added, "you would get the worst of it, I think."

"Oh, really! Thanks very much! Perhaps you do not know my prowess in those lines? But on the whole I should prefer a smaller man than Mercer. He shall be spared if you say so."

"You relieve me," said Winifred, laughing.

But how was she to explain the truth to Frothingham? It was easier to jest with him than to speak earnestly, and Winifred had an instinctive feeling, not definitely acknowledged, that to make him understand a spiritual idea would be impossible.

"But really, Winifred," he went on, "if it is not rude to ask, I should like to know what great reason makes you desert us now in the very height of your success, and, I should think, enjoyment?"

Smiles left her face, and a flush of embarra.s.sment deepened in her cheeks. It was very hard to speak to him of these things--harder than it had been to any other.

"That is just it," she said slowly. "It has been a success for me, artistically, and a great enjoyment. But there has been nothing in it for--for--Christ." She hesitated before the sacred name. Why was it so hard to speak it before him?

He was silent. They were already by the simple mention of that name in deeper water, conversationally, than he was accustomed to. She had to go on.

"I have been convinced," she said, "that it has all been very wrong. I have been offering to G.o.d a pretended wors.h.i.+p, when it has really been the wors.h.i.+p of our Art. That must be idolatry, I think. I can't go on with it."

Winifred stopped decisively, and Frothingham found words to reply with just a tinge of irony:

"I am afraid you are a bit too metaphysical for me, Winifred. I don't quite understand you. Do you mean to say singing in the choir is wrong? If it is, it is a pretty common sin and quite generally approved of."

"No, it isn't wrong," said Winifred desperately; "at least, it would be the loveliest thing in the world, I think, if we were all _true wors.h.i.+pers_, and meant what we sang, and sang to G.o.d. But you know it hasn't been anything of the sort. We have sung for our own pleasure and the applause of the people."

"And the money, some of us," a.s.serted Frothingham with indifferent candor. "But I don't see why we should be troubled about it. It's a part of the machine. It goes to make up the church wors.h.i.+p, and a considerable part of it. I suppose they offer it to the Lord--or whatever you call it--whether we individual performers mean anything or not."

Winifred thought of the prayer-wheels. Did the church turn the machine and grind out praises by proxy? How much merit did they acc.u.mulate thereby in the eyes of G.o.d who is a Spirit, and would be wors.h.i.+ped "in spirit and in truth"? It was very perplexing. She could not argue it all out with him, but she said:

"If the individual wors.h.i.+pers are insincere, I should think the total result" (she had a little of her father's business logic) "would be insincerity."

He smiled at her reasoning. "Let the clergy thrash that out," he said.

"When they or the church find fault it will be time enough for my conscience to twinge."

"I think one of the clergy did find fault in the sermon Sunday morning," ventured Winifred.

"Oh, that young fellow?" said Frothingham carelessly. "I didn't find out what he was getting at. Doctor Schoolman always looks beatific when we sing. While he continues to beam I shall still consider that singing in the choir is about the most pious act I do."

Mr. Frothingham was rather vain of the brevity of his list of pious deeds.

"Oh, come on, Winifred," he continued, grasping her hand coaxingly, "don't bother your head about such mystical things. Come on and sing.

Think of the Redemption."

She did think of it, and tears struggled to come with the thought.

"I am not going," she said, without looking in his eyes. "Don't ask me, George."

"And you have no pity on poor me, going without you?"

"No," she answered, smiling. "You will survive it."

"Cruel lady!" he said dramatically, and bore her slender fingers to his lips.

She withdrew her hand with a slight flush, and he bethought him to look at his watch.

"Oh," he exclaimed, "it's late. Mercer will think he has lost me, too."