He is telling her that something has gone wrong.”
“Graham, what do you think is the matter with him? Do you think he is—BAD?” She lifted frightened eyes to his as she dropped into her low chair that always stood conveniently near his desk.
A wordless sorrow overspread the minister's face, yet there was something valiant in his eyes.
“No, I can't think that. I must believe in him in spite of everything. It looks to me somehow as if he was trying to be bad and couldn't.”
“Well, but—Graham, isn't that the same thing? If he wants to be?”
The minister shook his head.
“He doesn't want to be. But he has some purpose in it. He is doing it—perhaps—well—it might be for her sake you know.”
The mother looked perplexed, and hesitated, then shook her head.
“That would be—preposterous! How could he hurt her so—if he cared. It must be—he does not care—!”
“He cares!” said the man.
“Then how do you explain it?”
“I don't explain it.”
“Are you going to let it go on?”
“What can be done?”
“I'd do something.”
“No, Mary. That's something he's got to work out himself. If he isn't big enough to get over his pride. His self-consciousness. His—whatever he calls it—If he isn't big enough—Then he isn't big enough—!” The man sighed with a faraway patient look. The woman stirred uneasily.
“Graham,” she said suddenly lifting her eyes in troubled question, “When your cousin Eugenie was here, you remember, she talked about it one day. She said we had no right to let Lynn become so attached to a mere country boy who would grow up a boor. She said he had no education, no breeding, no family, and that Lynn had the right to the best social advantages to be had in the world. She said Lynn was a natural born aristocrat, and that we had a great responsibility bringing up a child with a face like hers, and a mind like hers, and an inheritance like hers, in this little antiquated country place. She said it was one thing for you with your culture and your fine education, and your years of travel and experience, to hide yourself here if you choose for a few years, pleasing yourself at playing with souls and uplifting a little corner of the universe while you were writing a great book; but it was quite another for us to allow our gifted young daughter to know no other life. And especially she harped on Lynn's friendship with Mark. She called him a hobbledehoy, said his mother was 'common', and that coming from a home like that, he would never amount to anything or have an education. He would always be common and loaferish, and it wouldn't make any difference if he did, he would never be cultured no matter how much education he had. He was not in her class. She kept saying that over. She said a lot of things and always ended up with that. And finally she said that we were perfectly crazy, both of us. That she supposed Lynn thought she was christianizing the boy or something, but it was dangerous business, and we ought to be warned. And Graham, I'm afraid Mark heard it! He was just coming up on the porch as she finished and I'm almost sure he heard it!”
The eyes of the minister gave a startled flicker and then grew comprehending. “I wondered why he gave up college after he had worked so hard to get in.”
“But Graham! Surely, if he had heard he would have wanted to show her that she was wrong.”
“No, Mary. He is not built that way. It's his one big fault. Always to be what he thinks people have labeled him, or to seem to be. To be that in defiance, knowing in his heart he really isn't that at all. It's a curious psychological study. It makes me think of nothing else but when the Prince of the Power of the Air wanted to be God. Mark wants to be a young God. When he finds he's not taken that way he makes himself look like the devil in defiance. Don't you remember, Mary, how when Bob Bliss broke that memorial window in the church and said it was Mark did it, how Mark stood looking, defiantly from one to another of us to see if we would believe it, and when he found the elders were all against him and had begun to get ready for punishment, he lifted his fine young shoulders, and folded his arms, and just bowed in acquiescence, as if to say yes, he had done it? Don't you remember, Mary? He nearly broke my heart that day, the hurt look in his eyes; the game, mistaken, little devil! He was only ten, and yet for four long months he bore the blame in the eyes of the whole village for breaking that window, till Bob told the truth and cleared him. Not because he wanted to save Bob Bliss, for everybody knew he was a little scamp, and needed punishment, but because he was hurt—hurt way down into the soul of him to think anybody had thought he would want to break the window we had all worked so hard to buy. And he actually broke three cellar windows in that vacant store by the post office, yes, and paid for them, just to keep up his character and give us some reason for our belief against him.”
The wife with a cloud of anxiety in her eyes, and disapproval in her voice, answered slowly:
“That's a bad trait, Graham. I can't understand it. It is something wrong in his nature.”
“Yes, Mary, it is sin, original sin, but it comes at him from a different direction from most of us, that's all. It comes through sensitiveness. It is his reaction to a deep and mortal hurt. Some men would be stimulated to finer action by criticism, he is stimulated to defy, and he does not know that he is trying to defy God and all the laws of the universe. Some day he will find it out, and know that only through humility can he make good.”
“But he is letting all his opportunities go by.”
“I'm not so sure. You can't tell what he may be doing out in the world where he is gone.”
“But they say he is very wild.”
“They were always saying things about him when he was here, and most of them were not true. You and I knew him, Mary. Was there ever a finer young soul on earth than he with his clear true eyes, his eager tender heart, his brave fearlessness and strength. I can not think he has sold his soul to sin—not yet. It may be. It may be that only in the Far Country will he realize it is God he wants and be ready to say, 'I have sinned' and 'I will arise.'”
“But Graham, I should think that just because you believe in him you could talk to him.”
“No, Mary. I can't probe into the depths of that sensitive soul and dig out his confidence. He would never give it that way. It is a matter between himself and God.”
“But Lynn—”
“Lynn has God too, my dear. We must not forget that. Life is not all for this world, either. Thank God Lynn believes that!”
The mother sighed with troubled eyes, and rose. The purring of the engine was heard. Lynn would be coming in. They watched the young man swing his car out into the road and glide away like a comet with a wild sophisticated snort of his engine that sent him so far away in a flash. They watched the girl standing where he had left her, a stricken look upon her face, and saw her turn slowly back to the house with eyes down—troubled. The mother moved away. The father bent his head upon his hand with closed eyes. The girl came back to her work, but the song on her lips had died. She worked silently with a far look in her eyes, trying to fathom it.
The eyes of her father and mother followed her tenderly all that day, and it was as if the souls of the three had clasped hands, and understood, so mistily they smiled at
