"Oh, my dear father, it was quite hopeless."
Silvester sighed, and took up his knife and fork. It was a terrible descent from the millennium to mutton; but, after all, he ate but to live.
"I feared it would be so. Well, we have done our best, and that is something. Did he give you any reasons?"
"One tremendous reason—he calls it human nature."
Silvester helped her to a fair cut and himself to two. He was already eating when he took up the subject again.
"This movement will be stronger than his argument," he said. "What people call human nature is often little more than the animal instinct. I can conceive no nobler mission for any man. We cannot expect this particular class of man to see eye to eye with us."
"There was never any chance of it, father. He believes that war is the will of God, and he does not hesitate to say so."
"Would he have us to believe that typhoid fever is the will of God—or smallpox? We are stamping those out. Why not the greater plague?"
Gabrielle sighed.
"I wish you had been there to argue with him, father. A girl is at such a disadvantage."
"Naturally, with such a man. I don't suppose John Faber ever knew one really human weakness since he was a child. Did he say anything about me, by the way?"
"He mentioned you several times. I told him about the call to Yonkers."
The minister's eyes sparkled.
"That is a subject I would gladly take his advice upon. What did he say about it?"
"Very little, I think."
"Was it favourable to my going?"
"I don't think he expressed an opinion either way."
"It would have been a great help to me had he done so. Sometimes I feel that I have a great work to do in America. This Peace Movement is the finest thing in the story of the whole world. Christ Himself has taught us no more beautiful idea—His own, as we must admit. There is a true sentiment in America; but a pretence of it here, I fear."
"Are you quite sure of that, father?"
"Of what, my dear?"
"Of the true sentiment in America. Mr. Faber said on the ship that he hoped to sell five hundred thousand rifles for Mexico before the trouble was over. Is that a true sentiment?"
"I believe it very foreign to the real wishes of the American people."
"He doesn't; neither do the Germans. They say all this talk of arbitration is so much humbug to prevent us adding to our navy, and to allow President Taft to occupy Mexico."
"That is in the yellow press, my dear; you should not listen to it."
"Anyway, Sir Jules Achon thinks it true. May I read Eva's letter? I expect she reminds me of my promise to go there to-day."
"You know that we have a meeting of the Girls' Friendly Committee to-night?"
"Oh, father, can't they do without me for once? I don't often stay away."
He helped himself to an apple tart, and made no reply. Gabrielle read her letter, and her cheeks flamed with excitement.
"What do you think?" she said. "Sir Jules is going on his yacht to Corfu, and he wishes me to go with them."
"To go upon his yacht!" The astonishment was very natural. "That is very kind of him."
"Douglas Renshaw is going, and Dr. Burrall. Eva says they will call at Lisbon and Gibraltar, and perhaps at Genoa. What a splendid trip!"
Her eyes were very bright with the vision, and her lips parted in excitement. Not only was this a respite from the monotonous days, but a respite which she would consider regal. She was going upon a pilgrimage into the old world as she had gone into the new. And with the promise there flashed upon her mind a memory of John Faber's wager. He would meet her in Paris or Berlin!
"It is indeed a very remarkable opportunity," said her father presently. "Sir Jules Achon is a greater man than your American. He has more ballast, and quite as much money."
"And he has not come to Europe to marry an English woman."
The minister looked at her covertly. A secret thought which had sent her to the Savoy Hotel whispered an accusation in his ear, and found him guilty. He would have given much to know just what passed between Gabrielle and John Faber. Perhaps he saw also that his daughter had never looked so well. Undoubtedly she was a beautiful woman.
"Yes," he said at last; "I don't think Sir Jules will marry. You must accept this invitation, Gabrielle."
"But what am I to do for frocks?"
"Can't you wear those you took to America?"
"My dear father, they were mostly summer dresses."
"Well, Corfu is a summer resort. I forget what the winter temperature is—something abnormal. Unfortunately, they have just opened a gambling saloon there. Wherever nature is most beautiful, there men turn their backs upon her."
"Sir Jules is hardly likely to do that. He is going to Corfu to try to meet the German Emperor. You know he has a great idea—the Federation of Europe. He says that commerce is the only key to the peace of the world."
"A faith rather in the Jews than the Divine gospels."
"Oh! I think not—a faith in good common sense, father."
Silvester shook his head.
"He will not associate himself with us," he said, a little sadly. And then, "They tell me he is a very rich man."
"Just the reason why I must have some frocks if I go to Corfu."
II
She was not to leave for Richmond until the end of the week, and when lunch was over she was reminded of Harry Lassett's promise by the advent of that boisterous sportsman and his expressed determination to take her at once to the Vale of Health pond, where the ice was "top-notch." There Gabrielle found herself amid a knot of very suburban but friendly people, whose noisy cordiality forced her to remember that this rather than the other was her true sphere.
Harry Lassett had been down to St. James's Street to get her skates, and they fitted her to perfection. The scene was inspiriting and full of colour. All about them lay the whitened heath; London beneath a veil of sunlit fog in the hollow. So keen was the splendid air that every nerve reverberated at its breath. Such frost had not been known in England since oxen were roasted whole upon the Thames in the early days of the nineteenth century.
She was a good skater, and had often accompanied Eva Achon to Princes during the previous season. Harry Lassett waltzed divinely, and while waltzing upon boards was anathema to Gordon Silvester, waltzing upon the ice seemed to him a harmless diversion. He even came down to the brink of the pond and watched the merry throng at play; but that was before dusk fell and the great bonfire was lighted, and those who had merely clasped hands discovered that a more binding link was necessary. Silvester saw nothing of the outrageous flirtations. He would have been sadly distressed had he known that Gabrielle herself was among the number of the sinners. She was, in fact, one of the ringleaders.
Why should she not have been? What pages of her life written in the dark room of a shabby parsonage forbade that freshet of a young girl's spirit, here gushing from the wells of convention which so long had preserved it? Silvester, all said and done, was just a successful Congregational minister. His sincerity and natural gifts of eloquence had pushed him into the first rank of well-advertised special pleaders. By this cause and that, the doors had been opened to him; and with him went Gabrielle to the ethical fray. If her heart remained with those whom the world would have called "her equals," she was but obeying the fundamental laws of human nature. Millionaires and their palaces; my lord this and my lord