As Philip stood confronted with Mrs. Wilson after Rangely had left the room it seemed to him that he read unspeakable things in her glance. His clerical bias with its unholy blight of asceticism, his ignorance of the world, made him a victim of a misapprehension which brought the blood to his cheeks. His hostess looked at him curiously, and then burst into a laugh.
"Upon my word," she cried, "I believe you are shocked! You are really too delicious!"
He flushed hotter yet, and there came over him a helpless sense of being alike unable to understand this brilliant creature or to cope with her.
"Well?" she demanded, her eyes dancing. "You what? You saw Mr. Rangely kiss my hand. You may kiss it too, if you like; though I doubt if you can do it half so devotedly. He's had a lot of practice with a lot of hands."
"Meaning to remind me that I have a husband?" she gayly returned. "Yes; we are both of us married. To think," she continued, spreading out her hands and appealing to the universe at large, "that such simplicity exists! Where have you been all your life? Did you never kiss a lady's hand--or a lady's lips, for that matter?"
"I think you forget, Mrs. Wilson," Ashe said with real dignity, "that I am a priest."
She regarded him with lifted brows for a moment. Then she moved to a seat.
"Come," said she; "sit down and talk to me. Where have you passed your life? You cannot have been brought up in a monastery, for we don't have them in our church."
"It is a great pity," responded Philip, obeying her command, and seating himself in a large arm-chair near her.
"Do you really mean it?" was her reply. "Yes, I believe you do! You were evidently born to be a monk. Oh, how _triste_ it must be to be made without an appreciation of us!"
He remained silent, his face more grave than ever.
"Well," she went on, settling herself comfortably in the corner of her sofa amid a pile of sumptuous cushions, "tell me something about your life. It may be that you were designed by fate to introduce a new order of monks."
"There is not much to tell," he responded stiffly and almost mechanically. "I was brought up in the country by a widowed mother. I went through Harvard and the Divinity School, and since then I have lived at the Clergy House."
