Chapter 2

“I think it is restricted for me,” said Sylvia, naively. “Some of them
are very nice and some of them are dreadfully stupid.”

“I am going to come over and see you,” declared Armstrong, boldly. “That
is, if you don’t actually forbid me.”

Sylvia went in, feeling as if she had done something very wicked and
very delightful. She thought about Armstrong all the time her father was
having family prayers and by this she knew that she must be a very
sinful girl. Also, she dreamed of him that night.

Armstrong had to go all the way back to the church for his bicycle and
trust to luck to find his way home. He hummed, “There Is Only One Girl
in the World for Me” on the road back until it suddenly struck him that
it was too frivolous to be taken in connection with the minister’s
daughter, so he changed it to “Oh, Promise Me.” That suited better and
lasted until he got back to his hotel.

He called at the Westlands Manse the very next night and thereby created
a commotion in that placid domain. While Sylvia talked to him in the
parlor, the Reverend Elisha Hastings and his wife held a council of two
in the study. If this creature came to see Sylvia what was to be done
with him? The thing was preposterous. Sylvia’s natural destiny was a
minister. There was even one particular minister in distant prospect
already. At all events she must not be allowed to form a friendship with
a worldly young man who rode a bicycle on Sunday. Their one white ewe
lamb must be preserved from such contamination.

The next time Armstrong called, the Reverend Elisha Hastings himself
went into the little rose-scented parlor with Sylvia. Armstrong knew he
was being weighed in the balance and he tried to be very careful. He
flattered himself that he succeeded, but he underrated the minister’s
powers of discernment. Once he incautiously spoke of being “within an
ace” of something, whereby Sylvia’s father knew that he played cards;
another seemingly innocent remark confirmed his theater-going
propensities. Moreover, the Reverend Elisha suspected that a man with
such a pair of legs must be addicted to dancing, and he used
slang—which was next door to swearing.

Sylvia, bless her innocent heart, never guessed all her father
discovered; but she knew by the set of his back when he went out of the
room that Armstrong had been found wanting, and it depressed her
greatly. She didn’t think she ought to like him so well under the
circumstances, but how was she going to help it?

At the end of a fortnight, during which Armstrong had haunted the
Westlands manse, had been devoted to the Westlands prayer meeting, and
had sat devoutly through four of the Westlands sermons, the Reverend
Elisha and his meek, saintly little wife told Sylvia that the young
man’s visits must cease. Sylvia cried her starry gray eyes half out that
night, but she never dreamed of disobeying her parents.

She told Armstrong simply, as they walked home from prayer meeting the
next night, that he must not call upon her again.

They reached the garden gate as she said it, and Armstrong gave a gasp.
He knew that Sylvia’s father and mother disapproved of him, but he had
flattered himself that he could overcome their prejudices. True, he did
not know much about the Telegu mission and was not in sympathy with
revivals; but he held to the reverence for sacred things that had been
inculcated in him in childhood, and he had a natural inclination to all
that was good and true.

Also, he had a five-figure income and he did not believe that even an
unworldly country clergyman and his wife could be altogether blind to
the advantages it was in his power to offer Sylvia.

He could see the minister through the study window, reading calmly and
unconsciously by the table. It would have given Armstrong exquisite
pleasure just then to have thrown at him one of the big white stones
that bordered the garden path.

“Sylvia,” he said, desperately, “I can’t stay away. I shall have to come
to Westlands manse as long as you are here. I love you.”

Sylvia dropped her hymn book. It was the first time that anybody had
ever said those three wonderful words to her—although, to be sure,
there was a certain pale young student, destined to the foreign mission
field, whom her father liked, and whom she herself reverenced because he
was so consecrated and earnest minded, who had shown by his actions that
he wanted to say them if he could ever summon up enough courage. But
Armstrong came out with them plainly and the moonlit landscape whirled
around Sylvia.

“Oh, you mustn’t,” she faltered.

“Why not?” he demanded, masterfully. “Don’t you love me, Sylvia?”

He put his arm around her and drew her to him. She was shaken like a
rose in the wind. But she must not let him—Oh, she must not let him!

[Illustration: He put his arm around her.]

“Don’t you, Sylvia?” he insisted.

What Sylvia would have said, or if she could have said anything, will
never be known, for just at that moment the hall-door opened and Mrs.
Hastings looked out.

Sylvia wrenched herself free and ran up the path, hoping guiltily that
her mother had not seen them. The door closed behind her and Armstrong
was left outside.

He stooped and groped until he found Sylvia’s hymn book. Then he went
moodily home and slept with it under his pillow—if he slept at all.

The next evening he went unblushingly to the manse and asked for the
minister himself. He laid before him a cool, formal proposal for his
daughter’s hand; he stated his social standing and prospects; he gave
city references; and he wound up with the amount of his income.

He thought it all good ammunition, especially the last. But it was
nothing better than blank cartridges as far as the Reverend Elisha
Hastings was concerned. The good Westlands minister was no hypocrite. A
millionaire would not have been a welcome suitor for Sylvia if the
faintest taint of worldliness clung to him. The impecunious
missionary-elect would have stood a far better chance.

He told Armstrong plainly that he could not give his consent and to this
he adhered. Armstrong exhausted his powers of persuasion and argument
fruitlessly. He left the manse, a defeated man, in a most atrocious
temper.

He had not even seen Sylvia. He wondered savagely if they had her locked
up. When he got back to the hotel he wrote her a letter.

It was just such a letter as a desperate lover would write, and, had he
but known it, Sylvia almost broke her heart over it. But when her cool,
calmly worded little note, written at her father’s command, came to him
he concluded in despair that there was no hope for him.

Sylvia wrote that she was very, very sorry but he must not try to see
her or write to her again. Her father and mother knew best and she must
obey them. He must go away and not think about her any more. She would
always be his friend and she was his truly, Sylvia Hastings.