She pushed her chair back a little from the table, and then clasped her hands upon the table's edge. Her attitude betokened her intention of staying there until the matter had been fought out to a finish.
"Not one half so much upon the Bishop as it does upon yourself," she told him firmly. "The Bishop decides things in the end; but he never originates them. Unless you stir yourself a little and show him that you're restless, you'll be welcome to sit for all time to come in one corner of the diocese. In fact, you have been sitting in a corner for two years. It is high time you showed him you were getting cramps in your knees, and needed a higher seat to straighten them out. There is no especial sense in your wasting your time among these people. Any broken-down old hack ought to be all they've any right to look for."
"But not all they need," Brenton interpolated swiftly.
She waved aside the interpolation.
"It's what you need, Scott, I'm talking about," she told him. "You are young, and you need a chance. What's more, the Bishop isn't going to offer it to you, until you give him to understand that you expect it. There are too many hungry mouths open for every bit of advantage to make it worth his while to hunt for any more. As for Saint Peter's, they all say it is an ideal parish: a rich church in a college town, with a large salary and not too much work. In fact," Catia added wisely; "they all say that there never does need to be too much work in a parish where a good share of the congregation are very young, and transients."
Brenton lifted his head. Then he lifted his brows, fine, narrow brows and arching.
"It strikes me that there might be all the more," he said.
Catia's fingers beat a tattoo on the table.
"You're just for all the world like your mother, Scott," she said, with renewed impatience.
"I hope so," Brenton assented gravely, for Mrs. Brenton had died, a year before, and her memory still was sacred in the mind of her son.