Carnaquay s one redeeming virtue, socially, as she
studied him, was his capacity to recognize the nicer
standards of refined womanhood, when he came into
their presence. Often her instruction of her apt pupil
was conveyed by a slight raising of the eyebrows or an
abrupt silence, which made the shrewd man reconsider
some raw opinion he had expressed, or some rough act
which he had committed. Thus, with considerable rapid
ity, he modified his free and almost swaggering manner,
and recast some of his habitual forms of expression.
The delicate influence of Mrs. Guthrie s mind and taste
was soon apparent in the clergyman s choice of neck
ties and collars, in his freedom from the fumes of
tobacco-smoke (which formerly permeated his clothing),
and in many other matters of minor morals.
It was a surprising change in Carnaquay, this in
his personal dress, especially, for he had always given
COEDUCATION 249
much attention to such matters, and had flattered
himself that he dressed in the most approved and latest
fashion. He had done so, indeed, but he had always
gone to that extreme in each fashion which makes
" loudness." Now, with some slight twinges of chagrin,
he followed her wishes, open or implied, and his clever
young teacher noted, with a smile of satisfaction on her
red, curving lips, his rapid improvement.
There were many sides to Adeline Guthrie s nature,
as indeed is true of most people, and she could show
an unfeigned interest in many fields of thought; but
perhaps as agreeable to her as any themes of conversa
tion were literary and artistic subjects. And she now
took pleasure in reading and discussing with her friend
and pupil the works of the great poets and essayists,
and those of contemporary writers of fiction. She soon
saw that while Carnaquay, if left to himself, would not
open a book like " The Autocrat," or " Sartor Resartus,"
or " Society and Solitude," yet, with another person to
lead, he grasped the best in such books, with evident
pleasure. And he, too, soon made the discovery that
although she gave, most abundantly, intellectual sym
pathy, she promptly drew back at any demand upon her
for a more emotional sympathy. She was ready to talk
on any theme whatever, which he might suggest, socio
logical, aesthetic, or historical, but if he attempted to
push toward any more intimate expression of the ro
mantic sentiments, a chill silence fell on his listener,
and he quickly found, like Orpheus ascending from
the lower world, that his Eurydice had slipped away
behind him, and for the nonce at least was lost to him.
Carnaquay was not of the kind of men who fall blindly
and unconsciously in love. He studied himself, yes, and
he knew himself, rather accurately ; and he recognized
the possibilities of this growing acquaintanceship with
250 RONALD CARNAQUAY
the charming young widow. He studied himself, and
doubly he studied her. He knew, for instance, per
fectly well that, although she was bent on reshaping
his ideas about his personal appearance, she was some
what lax about her own ; but the dark, wavy hair above
her frank, luminous eyes, although those rebelling
locks were evidently rarely subjected to treatment, and
were seemingly shaken into shape by a hasty toss of the
head, and never knew any harsher touch than that of
their owner s slender fingers those mischievous locks
seemed to dance defiantly and to curl in derision, at his
cautious advance.
Thus matters went on, between the two. On the
clergyman s part, he said to himself that he had never
found a person with whom he so much enjoyed talking ;
but he confessed ruefully, at times, that the intellectual
strain was a severe one for him. And once or twice,
after he had been mercilessly snubbed by his young
friend, or had been talked to with a maternal severity,
because of his excessive " self-interest," as Adeline
stated it to him personally, he had gone away, discom
posed and angry, and had accepted the standing invita
tion of Miss Metcalf to dine with her. At the great
baronial mansion of the Metcalfs there was freedom
for him, yes, and many agreeable, soothing words. The
snowy-turreted spinster " adored the smell of tobacco,"
and always expressed her deep joy in recalling his latest
sermon. He could not help reflecting at such times, in
this well-furnished mansion, how comfortable and luxu
rious life might be continuously made for a man, by its
skilful and agreeable owner.
Yet on such reveries the picture of that other snug
little sitting room would intrude, with its better equip
ment in books, its higher tastes in pictures, and its
piquant, bright-eyed occupant, now listening with eager
COEDUCATION 251
face to his opinion of Kipling, or William Watson, or
quirking her well-poised head on one side, as she dis
puted some point of his belief about Lowell or Whittier.
This was essentially the condition into which affairs
had come, at the time when Lawrence had unwittingly
intruded on the conference between his wife and Mrs.
Guthrie.
Although the young widow rebelled at the thought,
she knew that not on intellectual levels did she come
closest to Ronald Carnaquay, but in the emotional realm
of music. He was interested, indeed, when they read
and talked about abstract themes of history or liter
ature; and in the study of German, which they tried
together, he was apt enough ; but, when at times her
own almost inexhaustible zeal in these studies flagged
a trifle, she became painfully suspicious that she was
leading and he was following. On her rested the bur
den of the work. He had ideas, yes, but he had not a
self-feeding fount of interest, in his own heart ; and many
a time, as consciousness of what was the real goal of
his attention and effort came upon her, a wave of color
swept over her face, and she bit her lips with vexation.
Now in musical matters there was a marked differ
ence. She could not deny the fact, subversive as it was,
of her cherished plan of educating and reforming the
reverend gentleman intellectually. Not that he had
any particular skill in playing or singing ; he had not,
and, for a time after their acquaintance was estab
lished, she had not realized how much music meant to
him. He had a baritone voice, however, of fair quality,
rather powerful, and he had a correct musical ear.
This she was quick to detect, when he had yielded to
her suggestion one day to sing " Robin Adair." She
saw at once that he was wholly untrained ; she noted, too,
that he rated his natural musical talent low, which was
252 RONALD CARNAQUAY
a remarkable thing in him. Under a little encourage
ment he unfolded rapidly, and much enjoyed singing,
and even more enjoyed hearing her sing. She had a
good degree of musical technique, but sang in a simple,
unaffected way, which often deceived listeners, who
were themselves untrained and expected more elabora
tion in cultivated singers.
In this realm of music these two people often came
quickly and dangerously near together ; so Adeline
Guthrie perceived, and was constantly on her guard.
She never felt so sure of Ronald Carnaquay s real sin
cere self, however, as when he and she had enjoyed an
hour of music together.
On one rainy, misty, autumn afternoon, in particular,
there almost occurred a denouement which, had it really
culminated as it threatened, would have seriously
affected several events and persons in this narrative.
On this particular afternoon, dreary, dripping, deso
late, Adeline sat at the window in a huge arm-chair, with
a copy of " Anna Karenina " in her lap, and her eyes
gazing idly and forlornly out over the fields and inter
vening street. There was a despondency about nature
that afternoon which permeated her own thought and
feeling. Little pearls of raindrops pattered from the
eaves, and tiny necklaces of drops stretched along the
branches and twigs of the elm trees. Smoke from a
kitchen chimney, opposite, sank heavily almost to the
ground, and there hovered in aimless uncertainty. The
flag on the schoolhouse upon the hill clung discon
solately to its staff ; a few wet, miserable sparrows
shrank under cover of the masses of ivy on the house
across the street, and chattered and scolded so loudly
that they could be heard even with the window
closed.
The young woman who stared absently through the
COEDUCATION 253
window saw none of these objects or actions; but the
general temper and tone of the damp, depressing day
laid hold upon her spirits, which, as a rule, were more
than ordinarily buoyant. Her interest in life was tem
porarily at low ebb. She recalled her past, as one so
often does, in a mood of despondency, and lived over
again her earlier years. She often had boasted to herself
of her independence and had declared that she never
felt lonely ; but to-day, as her soft, round chin sank into
the hollow of her hand, and she leaned heavily upon the
arm of her chair, she presented a really forlorn appear
ance. She hardly knew the name of the emotion which
at times rose in her heart, as water rises in a well fed
by remote, unseen sources. It was, in truth, the longing
of a maiden heart, although the world knew her as a
widow. She had never felt the fire of passionate love
sweep through her soul, burning up all that was trivial
and base, and purifying all that was really true and
eternal. Her affection for her aged guardian and
former husband had been more an emotion of grati
tude or duty than of human sentiment and passion.
For a certain time, after the late Dr. Guthrie s death, she
thought of herself as a woman who had passed through
the stages of maidenly courtship, wifely sympathy, and
widowed desolation ; but gradually, as she matured and
learned to study the people about her, she perceived
more and more clearly that many of them as, for
instance, the Freemans concealed beneath a partially
prosaic exterior intenser mutual sympathies and pas
sions than she herself had ever known. She seemed to
see an unknown, untried country, partly hidden before
her, which was familiar to many persons about her,
a land which she was supposed to have entered, yet
really had never entered. She was hardly more than a
schoolgirl herself in years, but her spirit was so adven-
254 RONALD CARNAQUAY
turous and so self-reliant that she always had seemed a
half dozen years older.
To-day, however, the gloom and depression of the hour
bore heavily upon her, and she sat in the big arm-chair,
sunk in sad re very. Therefore, when she suddenly be
came aware of the tall, erect figure and long, eager step
of Ronald Carnaquay, as he crossed on the flagstones
at the corner, her eyes brightened and her face showed
a genuine pleasure. With a hasty glance around the
somewhat disorderly room, and an instinctive supple
activity of her fingers about her throat and hair, she
went to the door and welcomed her visitor.
Usually Ronald Carnaquay was geniality itself ; he
justified, at least in public, his somewhat elementary law
of life, which was " Cheerfulness conquers sadness."
And most people felt brightened by contact with him.
Adeline, herself, had rarely seen him in any other mood ;
but to-day, going to the door suddenly, without leaving
this duty to the maid-servant, she surprised a very marked
anxiety and gloom on her pupil-clergyman s face.
Leaving the two to their greetings and explanations
and light badinage, let us see what was the cause of this
unusual depression on the clerical countenance.
This it was. A half hour before, Carnaquay had been
walking along a road, just outside the town, after visit
ing a sick man, when he discerned in front of him the
figure of a young woman. His long, firm stride speedily
brought him up with her ; and as he drew near, walking
unperceived on the sward beside the road, he saw that
she was Olive Marshall and that she was reading a book.
The clergyman felt his pulse accelerate pleasurably,
as he traced the sylph-like outlines of the young maiden,
and he slackened his pace and kept a few feet behind
her, for several rods. She was a graceful flower of a
girl, and her free, frank ways were very winsome. He
COEDUCATION 255
wondered what she was reading. At times she stopped
in her sauntering gait, lowered her book, and gazed up
at the lowering skies and on the stricken trees with their
few fugitive leaves. Presently he quickened his pace,
being really eager to have that fresh, pink-and-white
face turned up toward his, and to read her tremulous
admiration in her humid, dancing eyes. " Good after
noon ! " he said, lifting his hat as his nearer step aroused
her from her absorption. And he prepared to receive
from her one of those sunny glances and eager, yet
timid inquiries, which had so often quickened his
vanity.
But such a reception was not to be his. On the con
trary, Ronald Carnaquay here met one of the surprises
of his life ; for Olive Marshall turned, saw who it was,
and her face grew rigid and stern, and in a most distant
manner she responded to his greeting, and straightway
returned to the reading of her book.
Carnaquay s quick eye saw that it was a copy of Omar
Khayyam ; and he understood that it harmonized some
how with the dreary tone of the day, and was an inte
gral part of this fair young creature s mood, as she
walked dejectedly in solitude here in this dull, dismal,
country road. But he could not explain her surprising
attitude toward himself ; he was not quite disconcerted
by her manner ; he was not a man to be easily abashed ;
but she had plainly seen him, and yet had looked at him
with a cool expression of aversion on her fair young
face, which he had never seen there before.
She made a considerable show of indifference, but she
was only a child, and not very clever at acting a part.
Her eyes were glued to her book, but Carnaquay, walking
beside her in puzzled silence for two or three minutes,
noted that she did not turn a leaf. Then, too, as she
stumbled over a rough place in the road, he saw her
256 RONALD CARNAQUAY
cheek redden with vexation, and her rosy under lip was
angrily drawn in between her teeth.
He was amused and yet annoyed, and withal perplexed,
to explain her strange attitude toward him. " Olive," he
began quietly, then recollected himself and amended,
" Miss Olive, may I ask why you act in this singular
way ? "
There was an amused look in his eyes, which she
could not see ; but it faded away, as she stopped short
in the road, closed her book, and turned toward him.
"I do not wish to be disturbed, Dr. Carnaquay," she
said in a determined tone. Then she waited.
He was more puzzled than ever ; his instinct was
more toward an indirect discovery of her strange aliena
tion than toward a direct and candid inquiry. " I see
that you are reading," he remarked casually, reaching
toward the book. " What book is it, may I ask ? "
But she would not meet him on this level. She drew
back the volume and then started to walk on. Carna
quay began to grow anxious ; the situation seemed more
serious than he had supposed. Then he noticed, keep
ing apace with her, that there was a suspicious lump in
her cheek, and he detected a flavor of wintergreen in
the air. His sense of humor drove away for the mo
ment his anxiety. This young person was gloomily
brooding over Omar Khayyam, and communing with
desolate, denuded nature, yet with a piece of candy
comfortably tucked away in her pretty cheek. She
seemed to him more than ever a child a moody, senti
mental child, and a charming one. He could not resist
the temptation, and he remarked mischievously, " I like
candy myself."
He saw at once that he had angered her. She was
vexed at having her childishness thrown at her, at this
particular time, when she was thinking such deep
COEDUCATION 257
thoughts and revelling in such profound though de
pressing emotions. She broke through the barrier
which she had set for herself, and exclaimed, with
youthful impulsiveness : " I will thank you to go on and
leave me; I do not wish to talk with you. I do not
I do not wish to talk with a man with a minister,
I mean, who who preaches " (she stammered worse
and worse, but the blood of the Marshalls was in her,
and she rounded out the sentence with ringing defiance)
" who preaches sermons that that he has st that
belong to some other person. There ! " And, nearly
bursting with rage, the damsel turned abruptly, and set
off down the road at a rapid pace.
Ronald Carnaquay s humorous mood was utterly
banished. He was much shocked ; alas, not as an
innocent person is shocked if charged with a crime, but
shocked and cowed and yet angry at being found
out. Instantly he resolved to hasten after her, and
demand an explanation ; but for two reasons he de
murred : one was that he was disinclined to face the
enraged young beauty, as a suppliant of even the
mildest sort that would be too far from their pre
vious relationship ; and the second reason was that he
knew she was substantially correct in her implied charge.
Palliate and condone plagiarism as he might, and even
rigidly forswear it for the future, yet it hung like a
black cloud over his past and he had hoped it was
behind him forever. " Somehow the young witch has
got hold of that," he muttered ; and he knew how much
narrower and more inexorable is youth than is mature
age. Therefore, he was very doubtful of presenting
adequate excuses to the irate young woman, even if he
were to attempt it.
Thus he walked slowly along, allowing Olive, with
her quick, nervous steps, to pass on out of sight. He
258 RONALD CARNAQUAY
wondered how many people knew about his his "mis
taken method " as he expressed it to himself. Then
his natural buoyancy asserted itself, and he gave an
angry shrug of the shoulders, and a faint smile came to
his face. " Confound it all ! It s none of their business,
anyway," he exclaimed; and then he added, with in
creasing self-confidence, " I don t believe anybody knows
about it outside the Marshalls." Whereupon he felt
more cheerful, and resolved to well, to go where he
had often gone, during the past few months, to
Mrs. Adeline Guthrie. And his pace quickened ; and
pleasurable anticipation alternated, on his dark mobile
countenance, with briefer and briefer periods of depressed
reflection.
In this mood he came to Mrs. Guthrie s door, and was
ushered in as we have seen.
The gloomy look which the young widow noted on
the clergyman s face faded away under her smile, like
mist before the sunrise. She had been dull and bored,
and even gloomy also, and she was genuinely glad to
have him call. And he, for his part, thought he had
never seen her look so beautiful. To be sure her hair
was a bit disarranged, and the high, tortoise-shell comb
at the back of her round head threatened to part com
pany altogether with the insubordinate tresses ; but
Ronald resisted the temptation to push the fragile ob
ject back into its place, or even to mention it he had
vivid memories of such a familiarity on a previous occa
sion, and of its unpleasant, frigid results. However, he
clasped the soft, warm fingers, with his large, damp, firm
hand, and said to himself that this young, rounded,
refined womanhood was incomparably entrancing. At
the sight of her smooth, level brow, and large, dark,
fathomless eyes, the memory of the blue-eyed child, out
in the country road, faded and faded, and her pose of
COEDUCATION 259
" profound grief seeking refuge in the pessimistic phi
losophy of the East" this seemed to him theatrical
and farcical.
The conversation went on easily between the two ;
they had been so much together that a certain amount
of intimacy was inevitable. Yet always this freedom
was maintained on one level only that of the intellect;
and any attempt on the clergyman s part to depart from
this level was promptly checked by Adeline. They
were like workmen in a mine who keep to a certain
vein, although aware that other veins exist above and
below them.
The melancholy of the day, and the previous experi
ence of at least one of them, brought them into sym
pathy; and Adeline unconsciously found herself moving
toward the piano, rather than toward her book-case.
"What shall I sing?" she inquired, being apparently in
an unusually elastic mood.
Usually she was reluctant about beginning to sing
or play, although eager to continue when once started ;
and by this time, in her association with Carnaquay, she
felt sure of his musical sympathy. So, running her
fingers over the keys, in a meditative way, she waited
for his suggestion. " There is the solo that our soprano
sang last Sunday," said he. " What was the name of
it ? She sang it well, I thought."
"Oh, you mean There is a green hill far away, by
Gounod. Yes, she sang it very well. So well, in fact,
that I think I will not venture it myself." And there
was just a slight tinge of color in her cheeks, and of
artistic vanity in her heart, as she laughingly declined,
" Let me try, instead, Nevin s Rosary. " And she
added, as if excusing her touch of vanity to herself,
"That is better suited to my voice."
Ronald sat where he could see her beautiful face
2 6o RONALD CARNAQUAY
normally quiet and even stern, but often transformed
into great vivacity and vitality, when aroused by music,
and there was an eager almost hungry expression on his
own face which did not escape Mrs. Guthrie s notice ;
for she seemed uneasy, and stumbled in her accompani
ment, and broke off in the midst of the second verse.
"I cannot sing I will not sing another verse," she
cried, half laughing, yet with significance, " if you sit
there in that chair. You you stare so. You
She cared not to say all that she meant, and her visitor,
realizing that he had revealed more than he had sup
posed, went obediently over and took a seat almost
behind her. Then the song was begun again, and was
sung with great delicacy and tenderness. It was simply
done, but with a purity of fervor that was captivating.
Afterward she sang one or two other songs; and
presently she began hardly knowing what she sang
that passionate, sensuous, oriental song of Delilah, from
the cantata of that name, by Saint Saens : " Ah, to the
power of love surrender ! Rise with me to its heights
of splendor ! " She gathered interest and force as she
sang; and her great black luminous eyes opened like
starry orbs, as she expressed the fierce savage fervor of
certain lines ; and, at other more repressed passages,
they sympathetically curtained themselves, and the rich
mezzo voice sank into wooing luxurious tones.
She was singing better than on the previous songs,
when she became conscious of a hand on her shoulder ;
it tightened its grasp, and hurt her. She stopped short,
surprised, perplexed, and breathing in short, angry
gasps. " Why why did you
It was Carnaquay whose grasp had aroused and hurt
her. He stepped back, from before her indignant gaze,
as if apologizing for touching her. His face had
an appealing look in it that further surprised her.
COEDUCATION 261
"Please please do not sing that song!" he ex
claimed, throwing out his hand impulsively. "I I
wish you wouldn t sing it. That s all."
Carnaquay had more to say, on the tip of his tongue,
but he could not quite bring himself to utter it. He
could not tell this woman that the song seemed to him
to taint her lips and her soul, as she gave such a full
interpretation of it. He had once heard the entire
cantata, and he was willing to hear any other woman
sing that song, but not this woman. He could not and
would not hear it. And the fierce revolt of his soul
against it told him anew how precious, how holy, she
was in his sight.
As for Adeline, she was puzzled and annoyed. She
had rendered the song, with all the abandonment of an
artistic musical nature, caring far more for the music
itself than for the words, and she could not quite under
stand her visitor s abrupt protest and evident pain.
The maid-like innocence of her great inquiring eyes
reopened conjectures in Carnaquay s mind, which he
never could satisfactorily settle ; and the sombre garb
of widowhood which this woman wore did not help him
to a solution of his problem. At all events she was a
queen, and he was her vassal.
There was a short period of ill-adjustment; and then
Carnaquay, who had gone to the window and was star
ing out into the mist, noticed that she was softly playing
"Strangers Yet" that simple, sentimental little song
which she had told him he should be ashamed of liking so
well ; but he did like it, and she was softly, invitingly play
ing and humming, and he knew that he was free to join.