"I have called to talk with you about Miss Lambert. She and her mother having honored me by asking my advice as to her study in New York, I would like to know whether you, as their pastor, counsel this movement on her part?"
The clergyman's sentient fingers sought, found, and closed tightly upon a ruler. "That I cannot answer directly," he said, slowly. "Miss Lambert's case is not simple. She is a very remarkable musician, that you know, and yet her talent is fitful. She sometimes plays very badly. I am not at all sure she has the temperament which will succeed on the music-stage."
"I made a somewhat similar remark to the mother myself."
"Moreover, her interests are not the only factors in the problem. Mrs. Lambert's life is bound up in her daughter, and without her she would suffer. The well-being of the family as a whole is against her going."
"You have your own interests, too, I dare say."
Clarke's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
"It would be difficult to replace her here in your church-work, would it not?"
The clergyman returned to his candid manner. "It would, indeed. She is the only organist in the village, and is invaluable to me, especially in the Sunday-school."
"I am disposed to consider her interests, and not those of the mother and father, or even the church," pursued Serviss. "I am of those who recognize the rights of the young as of chief importance to the race."
Clarke seized upon this as a gage of battle. "The race! Oh, you inexorable men of science! What do we care for the race? We would save individuals. The race can take care of itself. The race is only an abstraction--it cannot suffer. Of what avail to the individual to know that the race is to be perfected a thousand years hence?"
"We wander," interposed Serviss, with decision. "The question is really quite simple. Shall we advise the Lamberts to send their daughter to New York to study music, or shall we counsel her to remain here, and in marriage to some good, honest young miner resign herself to the common lot of women. Her talent should determine."
A dull flush rose to the cheek of the preacher, his eyes fell and his voice unconsciously softened. "Marriage is still a long way off for Viola Lambert; she is but a child, and, besides--" He paused.
Serviss smiled. "They marry young in the West, I believe. Besides, she must be twenty, and quite robust."
"She seems but a child to me," repeated Clarke, returning to his clerical manner, and something in the hypocritical tone of his speech angered and disgusted Serviss, and to himself he said: "He is a fraud. He does not intend to let the girl pass out of his control." Then aloud he reopened the discussion: "It all comes back to a question of the girl's talent. If it is sufficient to enable her to earn a living in some larger community, she has a right to go; if not, she should certainly stay here. I believe in the largest possible life for every human being, and Miss Lambert's ambition is a perfectly legitimate craving. Furthermore, she seems eager to escape from this life. She hints at some sort of mysterious persecution. She has not defined her troubles in detail, but I inferred that some undesirable suitor made life miserable for her." With these words he bent a keen glance at Clarke.