"It seems to me," pursued Mr. Candish, only half conscious that Mrs.

Fenton had come to his aid, "that Bishop Blougram represents the most dangerous spirit of the age. His paltering with truth is a form of casuistry of which we see altogether too much nowadays."

"Do you think," asked a timid feminine voice, "that Blougram was _quite_ serious? That he really meant all he said, I mean?"

The president looked at the speaker with despair in his glance; but she was adorably pretty and of excellent social position, so that snubbing was not to be thought of. Moreover, he was thoroughly well trained in keeping his temper under the severest provocation, so he expressed his feelings merely by a deprecatory smile.

"We have the poet's authority," he responded, in a softly patient voice, "for saying that he believed only half."

There was a little rustle of leaves, as if people were looking over their books, in order to find the pa.s.sage to which he alluded. Then a young girl in the front row of chairs, a pretty creature, just on the edge of womanhood, looked up earnestly, her finger at a line on the page before her.

"I can't make out what this means," she announced, knitting her girlish brow,--

"'Here, we've got callous to the Virgin's winks That used to puzzle people wholesomely.'"

"Of course he can't mean that the Madonna winks; that would be too irreverent."

There were little murmurs of satisfaction that the question had been asked, confusing explanations which evidently puzzled some who had not thought of being confused before; and then another girl, ignoring the fact that the first difficulty had not been disposed of, propounded another.

"Isn't the phrase rather bold," she asked, "where he speaks of 'blessed evil?'"

"Where is that?" some one asked.

"On page 106, in my edition," was the reply; and a couple of moments were given to finding the place in the various books.

"Oh, I see the line," said an old lady, at last. "It's one--two--three--five lines from the bottom of the page:"

"'And that's what all the blessed evil's for.'"

"You don't think," queried the first speaker, appealing personally to the president, "that Mr. Browning can really have meant that evil is blessed, do you?"

The president regarded her with an affectionate and fatherly smile.

"I think," he said, with an air of settling everything, "that the explanation of his meaning is to be found in the line which follows,--

"'It's use in Time is to environ us.'"

"Heavens!" whispered Fenton to Mrs. Staggchase; "fancy that incarnate respectability environed by 'blessed evil!'"

"For my part," she returned, in the same tone, "I feel as if I were visiting a lunatic asylum." "Yes, that line does make it beautifully clear," observed the voice of Miss Catherine Penwick; "and I think that's so beautiful about the exposed brain, and lidless eyes, and disemprisoned heart. The image is so exquisite when he speaks of their withering up at once."

Fenton made a droll grimace for the benefit of his neighbor, and then observed with great apparent seriousness,--

"The poem is most remarkable for the intimate knowledge it shows of human nature. Take a line like:"

'Men have outgrown the shame of being fools;'

"We can see such striking instances of its truth all about us."

"How can you?" exclaimed Elsie Dimmont, under her breath.

Fenton had not been able wholly to keep out of his tone the mockery which he intended, and several people looked at him askance.

Fortunately for him, a nice old gentleman who, being rather hard of hearing, had not caught what was said, now broke in with the inevitable question, which, sooner or later, was sure to come into every discussion of the club:

"Isn't this poem to be most satisfactorily understood when it is regarded as an allegory?"

The members, however, did not take kindly to this suggestion in the present instance. The question pa.s.sed unnoticed, while a severe-faced woman inquired, with an air of vast superiority,--

"I have understood that Bishop Blougram is intended as a portrait of Cardinal Wiseman; can any one tell me if Gigadibs is also a portrait?"

"Oh, Lord!" muttered Fenton, half audibly. "I can't stand any more of this."

And at that moment a servant came to tell him that his carriage was waiting.

IV

NOW HE IS FOR THE NUMBERS.

Romeo and Juliet; ii.----4.

When Mr. and Mrs. Fenton were in the carriage, driving from Mrs. Gore's to Mrs. Frostwinch's, Arthur broke into a pleasant little laugh, as if a sudden thought had amused him.

"Why in the world, Edith," he asked, "couldn't you let that moon-calf Candish fight his own battle to-night? He would have tied himself all up in two moments, with a little judicious help I should have been glad to give him."

"I knew it," was her answer, "and that is precisely why I wanted to stop things. What possible amus.e.m.e.nt it can be to you to get the better of a man who is so little a match for you in argument, I don't understand."

"I never begin," Fenton responded. "Of course if he starts it I have to defend myself."

The stopping of the carriage prevented further discussion, and the pair were soon involved in the crowd of people struggling toward the hostess across Mrs. Denton Frostwinch's handsome drawing-room. Mrs. Frostwinch belonged, beyond the possibility of any cavilling doubt, to the most exclusive circle of fashionable Boston society. Boston society is a complex and enigmatical thing, full of anomalies, bounded by wavering and uncertain lines, governed by no fixed standards, whether of wealth, birth, or culture, but at times apparently leaning a little toward each of these three great factors of American social standing.

It is seldom wise to be sure that at any given Boston house whatever, one will not find a more or less strong dash of democratic flavor in general company, and there are those who discover in this fact evidences of an agreeable and lofty republicanism. At Mrs. Frostwinch's one was less likely than in most houses to encounter socially doubtful characters, a fact which Arthur Fenton, who was secretly flattered to be invited here, had once remarked to his wife was an explanation of the dulness of these entertainments.

For Mrs. Frostwinch's parties were apt to be anything but lively. One was morally elevated by being able to look on the comely and high-bred face of Mrs. Bodewin Ranger, but that fine old lady had a sort of religious scruple against saying anything in particular in company, a relic of the days of her girlhood, when cleverness was not the fashion in her s.e.x and when she had been obliged to suppress herself lest she outshine the high-minded and courtly but dreadfully dull gentleman she married.

One had here the pleasure of shaking one of the white fingers of Mr.

Plant, the most exquisite _gourmet_ in Boston, whose only daughter had made herself ridiculous by a romantic marriage with a country farmer.

The Stewart Hubbards, who were the finest and fiercest aristocrats in town, and whose ancestors had been possessed not only of influence but of wealth ever since early colonial days, were old and dear friends of Mrs. Frostwinch and always decorated her parlors on gala nights with their benign presence. Mr. Peter Calvin, the leader of art fashions, high priest of Boston conservatism, and author of numerous laboriously worthless books, seldom failed to diffuse the aroma of his patronizing personality through the handsome parlors of this hospitable mansion when there was any reasonable chance of his securing an audience to admire him; and in general terms the company was what the newspapers call select and distinguished.

For Mrs. Frostwinch was ent.i.tled to a leading place in society upon whichever of the three great principles it was based. She was descended from one of the best of American families, while her good-tempered if somewhat shadowy husband was of lineage quite as unexceptional as her own. She was possessed of abundant wealth, while in cleverness and culture she was the peer of any of the brilliant people who frequented her house. She was moderately pretty, dressed beautifully, was sweet tempered, and possessed all good gifts and graces except repose and simplicity. She perhaps worked too hard to keep abreast of the times in too many currents, and her mental weariness instead of showing itself by an irritable temper found a less disagreeable outlet in a certain nervous manner apt to seem artificial to those who did not know her well. She was a clever, even a brilliant woman, who a.s.sembled clever and brilliant people about her, although as has been intimated, the result was by no means what might have been expected from such material and such opportunities. The truth is that there seems to be a fatal connection between exclusiveness and dulness. The people who a.s.sembled in Mrs. Frostwinch's handsome parlors usually seemed to be unconsciously laboring under the burden of their own respectability.

They apparently felt that they had fulfilled their whole duty by simply being there; and while the list of people present at one of Mrs.

Frostwinch's evenings made those who were not there sigh with envy at thought of the delights they had missed, the reality was far from being as charming as their fancy.

"I wish somebody would bring Amanda Welsh Sampson here," murmured Arthur in his wife's ear, as the Fentons made their way toward their hostess. "It would be too delicious to see how she'd stir things up, and how shocked the old tabby dowagers would be."

But there were some social topics which were too serious to Edith to be jested upon.

"Mrs. Sampson!" she returned, with an expression of being really shocked. "That dreadful creature!"