"Very much so, and in about two years St. Marys will loom very large in
Philadelphia. Good night and thank you."
The wind was stinging and they drove home rather silently. Arriving at the big house, Clark went to the piano and played for a moment. The music ceased as suddenly as it began and, warming himself at the great stove in the hall, Belding heard a short laugh and an exclamation. "Too much imagination," exploded Clark. The tone was one of utter incredulity. At that the young man felt curiously truculent. Elsie was only seventeen, while Clark was certainly not less than thirty-five. Then the latter reappeared, rubbing his chilled fingers.
"The piano is too stiff with cold to talk. By the way, Worden was talking about the bishop. What bishop?"
Belding told him what he knew. "He's an Irishman and a fine man. He works this part of his diocese from St. Marys in the summer. One hears all kinds of stories about him from the woods and the islands. He's got a sense of humor and is a good sportsman, but I've only met him once or twice. Just now he's over in England raising money to buy a small yacht to navigate himself when he's traveling on duty, and weather won't stop him if he gets it. You'll see him next spring."
Clark seemed interested. "I don't know many parsons but that doesn't describe them to me. A sportsman and a sense of humor, eh? It sounds like a hunting parson. I thought they were all dead."
"This one isn't."
"St. Marys begins to offer more than I expected," smiled his chief.
"Are you going to bed, or will you sit here and freeze to death?"
Riggs, Stoughton, and Wimperley came up next day. Clark met them at the station, where a bitter wind was droning down from the north, and Belding, by engineering of a high order, made room for them at his quarters. Then they drove out to the canal, and with Clark climbed the icy embankment while the latter expounded the situation.
"There," he said cheerfully, "will be the first power house, and there mill number one."
Riggs, a small thin-blooded man, peered at the glassy landscape. "Splendid," he chattered, while Stoughton pulled his fur collar over his ears and set his back to the wind.