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Hilbrough's words reminded her again that her sense of duty forced her to bind Charley Millard for the torture. A duty so rude to her feelings as the half-publicity of it made faith-healing, ought to be a duty beyond question, but here was the obligation she owed her lover running adverse to her higher aspirations. The questions for decision became complex, and she wavered.
Warren Hilbrough's family had risen with his bettered circumstances from a two-story brick in Degraw street, Brooklyn, by the usual stages to a brownstone "mansion" above the reservoir in New York. When he came to be vice-president of the Bank of Manhadoes, Hilbrough had in a measure reached the goal of his ambition.
The man who is too much interested in women to be specially interested in a woman is pretty sure not to marry at all, or to marry late. Baron Pohlsen arrived, and was duly installed at Mrs. Hilbrough's. He was greatly pleased with the hospitality shown him by this wealthy household, and fancied that Americans were the most generous of peoples.
It was with a glow of pleasure not wholly unworldly that she found herself one afternoon in Mrs. Hilbrough's reception-room, and noted all about her marks of taste and unstinted expenditure. To a critical spectator the encounter between the two ladies would have afforded material for a curious comparison. The ample figure of Mrs.
She was going to say that it was a pity that Charley had not chosen some one who would not be a source of humiliation to him, but she could not complete the sentence. The vision of Millard married to another was too much even for her self-sacrifice. After a moment's pause she reverted to Mrs. Hilbrough's remark, made at the table, which had penetrated to her conscience.
But at least she was not driven to bay yet; she had not definitely advised Phillida to break with her lover. "No; not that. I only gave her general advice to be faithful to her convictions." Mrs. Frankland's avoidance of the explicit confirmed Mrs. Hilbrough's suspicion as to the tenor of the advice given.
Frankland could be rightly coached and guided, she might by private conversation with Phillida counteract the evil wrought by her public speech. Mrs. Hilbrough's state of antagonism continued to the very close of the address, and then while many were thanking and congratulating the speaker, and receiving the greetings she gave with ever-fresh effusiveness, Mrs. Hilbrough came in her turn, and Mrs.
"I will see if anything can be done, Mr. Millard; but I am afraid not. I'll ask Phillida here to lunch some day this week." The winter sunshine had all gone, the lights in the streets were winning on the fast-fading twilight, and Mrs. Hilbrough's reception-room was growing dusk when Millard slowly, as one whose purposes are benumbed, rose to leave.
Phillida was a little startled at Mrs. Hilbrough's assumption that she knew the exact state of Millard's feelings. "Have you seen him lately?" she asked. "Yes; he called here after four o'clock on Sunday afternoon, and he spoke most affectionately of you. I'm sorry you must go so soon. Come and spend a day with me some time, and I'll have Mr. Millard take dinner with us."
"It is better to give counsel advisedly," was the phrase with which she ticketed this decision and sustained it. The day was fine, and the drive in Mrs. Hilbrough's easy-rolling open carriage was exhilarating, and in that sort of bird-chatter about nothing in particular in which two people enjoying motion are prone to engage Mrs.
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