NINE

The time when Father Dowling went to meet Charlie Stewart’s girl, he found that as soon as he got to the apartment house by the schoolyard he had become shy. As he looked up at the lighted apartment window and saw the shadow of a woman moving on the shade he remembered how he had at first been angry because a woman had become important in his young friend’s life. Now he knew he had dreaded to meet the girl. Walking away a little piece, he turned around and saw her form again passing the lighted window. In his own celibate life he had always been content, but now he wondered if that contentment had made him dry and wooden, so he could not understand Charlie’s longing for happiness with this girl. She was a Catholic. Perhaps it was his duty, he thought suddenly, to go in and tell her that she ought not to marry a man like Charlie who was without faith, no matter how much he loved her. But supposing he went in there and saw that they were both very much in love. “Perhaps through her influence Charlie might learn to think differently,” he thought.

As he looked up at the lighted window, he was afraid it might be better to try and understand the happiness the young man and girl might be seeking so eagerly before he spoke against their marriage. “I won’t say anything to her to-night,” he thought. This was a compromise. He excused himself because he knew the girl would look at him shrewdly, maybe with dislike, and remember that he had advised Charlie not to marry her. In going in to meet them, when they loved each other in a way that he could not comprehend, because for him their marriage could hardly be sanctioned, he felt he might be going where he had no right to go. He felt the girl might look at him and hate him. “I’ll go in very cheerfully and pretend I’ve never thought about the matter at all,” he said.

But when Father Dowling was in the apartment, shaking hands, with his face red and smiling, the girl, Pauline, who understood so well why Father Dowling did not want the marriage, smiled at him warmly as if she had been wanting to meet him for a long time; she could not believe from what she had heard about him that he would say Charlie ought not to marry her. She was a very tall, fair girl with an elegant manner, who wore fine expensive clothes.

Charlie was talking to her now as if Father Dowling was not a priest but an old friend, and she kept turning her head and looking at the priest’s embarrassed face, hardly able to conceal a slight amusement. But as soon as Father Dowling looked at the girl’s blue eyes and saw her smile suddenly, he knew she had wondered maybe many nights whether she could get a priest to marry her to Charlie.

As the priest sat opposite the two of them the girl’s face was radiant. They both seemed very much in love, and she said, “I’ve heard so much about you, Father. Charlie keeps saying he wants you to marry us.” The priest liked her and couldn’t help thinking she would make a fine wife. “If she’s a good Catholic, and if Charlie’s intuitions are so often traditionally Catholic, even if he thinks he’s Communistic, maybe it’s in the hands of God whether he has faith or not. Faith is the gift of God. It is in God’s hands, especially if they are determined to marry,” and after this thought he smiled as though he had suddenly freed himself of the problem.

“I’ve heard so much about your conversation. I’d just love to listen to the two of you talking,” she said.

“No, not to-night,” he said. “I’m happy to be here with you and Charlie. I know you’ll make him a splendid wife.” He blushed, remembering that the last argument had been about celibacy, and Charlie had yelled, “Faith, hope and celibacy, and the greatest of these is celibacy, says St. Paul.” He nodded his head with the diffidence of a man who feels he may be intruding, but who wants to stay. “I’d be very happy to-night if we didn’t become intellectual, but if you’d just let me sit here and listen, and maybe you’d talk about your plans or what you’ve been doing and where you’ve been going, and perhaps what you expect to do when you get married.”

The medical student started to talk solemnly about his plans for the future; he was going away to another city. His thin, clever face lit up as he told how he wanted to specialize in nervous diseases: he would like to go to Vienna, he said, and study in the hospitals there. When he paused, the tall girl who had been listening intently, with her head leaning forward, her face full of sincerity, began to speak rapidly, carrying on just from the point where Charlie had left off, making more plans, telling how they would go to Vienna because they both were saving their money. When she, too, had to stop to get her breath, Charlie went on slowly, explaining that he loved and respected his work, and wanted to keep growing into it, that he would work like a dog and still remain very willing. “Pauline understands the situation perfectly,” he said. “We know just what we want to do. The whole thing is there before us if we’ll only do it,” and they smiled confidently, as if their souls remained open to each other. Father Dowling, watching and listening, did not know why he felt so joyful at one moment, so inexpressibly sad at another. It filled him with joy to be there, close to these two young people who were so much in love, and yet it was a kind of love he would never be able to realize completely, although he assured himself it was just a part of a greater, more comprehensive love that he often felt very deeply. In a moment of wistfulness, he rubbed his plump hand nervously over his face, listening like a child, but he was thinking that this beautiful girl who was so well dressed lived comfortably, while the two girls who most concerned him in the world, and who were now his special care, looked shabby, lived in mean rooms and probably were often hungry.

The student and his girl were still talking, having almost forgotten that he was there. He stole a nervous glance at Pauline’s fine kid shoes, at her black crêpe dress, so rich-looking and probably so expensive, and then, with the color mounting in his smooth cheeks, he glanced quickly at her legs in the sheerest of fine crêpe hose. Sighing, he leaned back and closed his eyes. But they did not notice him. At that moment he was feeling more love for the two girls than he had ever felt before because their lives were so wretched, because their clothes were so shabby, and even when they bought new things they were in poor taste. “Midge bought a new hat but it did not really look like this girl’s hat,” he thought. Suddenly Father Dowling was full of such eagerness that he leaned forward, waiting for Charlie to stop talking. He was moistening his lips, smiling, hardly hearing the conversation at all. “I wonder,” he said. “I wonder if you would do something for me, Pauline?”

“I’d do anything I could, Father.”

“I’m sure you would, but I don’t want to impose on you.”

“I won’t let you do that, Father. I’m pretty ruthless.”

“This is a matter that would only take up a little of your time. It’s like this. I know two girls, sort of nieces, not in very good circumstances. I was wanting them to have new clothes for the spring….”

“Go on, Father.”

“That’s where you come in.”

“You want me to help you with the clothes.”

“Well, as you can see, I can’t very well go and buy them clothes. I’d have no skill in such matters. Besides, they mightn’t want to wear what I’d buy. If you would do this for me….” He began to look terribly embarrassed. He felt his face getting hot while they smiled broadly, and then he, too, began to laugh with great heartiness, his face all red and full of open enthusiasm now, and when he got his breath at last, he said, “It no doubt must seem a bit funny to take advantage of you immediately in this way, Pauline, but that’s the kind of person I am. Ask Charlie. I’ve been taking advantage of him ever since I’ve known him.”

“I don’t believe it, Father,” she said. “I’d be glad to help you if you’d just tell me what sort of thing, what kind of dress, how much you want to pay and so on. Just give me something to go on. What are the girls like?”

“One of them is about your height and she’s fair, too. Her feet look to me to be about your size. Let’s say that for her. You get something like you’d get for yourself. Shoes, stockings, and dress. What do you think?”

“You’ve no idea what color for the dress?”

“I think that black dress you’ve got on looks beautiful on you,” he said honestly. “I like that bit of white at the neck, too.”

“That’s fine. I didn’t think you had noticed it. What’s the other girl like?”

“She’s different. Her feet are smaller for one thing. They are very tiny little feet. I’d say a size and a half smaller than yours. And she’s a good four inches shorter. But mind, she is of a normal build, not fat or awkward nor thin either. And she’s dark with brown eyes. What do you think would look good on her?”

“Gray is being worn a lot now, gray with gray shoes and gray stockings. A gray outfit.”

“Lovely,” he said. “Simply splendid.”

“Do you want to pay much?”

“I don’t want it to be cheap stuff, but not expensive of course. Maybe if you’d look around you’d get a bargain. Then send it up to me and I’ll pay for it.”

“I’ll be downtown to-morrow. I’ll look around in the morning maybe. How’s that?”

“God bless you,” he said. “If I were a young fellow I’d have a girl like you.”

His own thoughts were now so delightful that he got up to go, so he could enjoy them undisturbed. They coaxed him to stay; he pleaded he had work to do. They were both smiling at him warmly, and when he went out to the street his first thought was, “What a remarkable quality that girl has. What a pity they aren’t both more devout Christians. Charlie’s in the Church in heart and he doesn’t really know it.” Then he walked on, still smiling, till he remembered he had said Ronnie and Midge were nieces of his. “That was a lie,” he thought and he was immediately bothered, walking along, staring at the sidewalk. “Of course, I couldn’t have explained who they actually were. But I don’t want to get into the habit of lying about them. That’s inexcusable.” And while he wanted to let his thoughts leap forward with pleasure to images of the girls in new clothes, he resolutely forced himself to go on considering the danger of petty lying.