Meantime, Peter Grimm's look of questioning, perplexed sympathy toward her tumult ridden self was becoming far too much for Mrs. Batholommey's jellylike self-control. The jelly began to quake—quite visibly.
"I was afraid," Peter went on kindly, "that something unpleasant might have happened. And I hoped perhaps I might be able——"
"Oh, no! No, no, no!" denied the utterly flustered woman. "I—I hope you are feeling well, Mr. Grimm. No—no—I don't mean that. I—I don't mean that I hope you are well. Of course not. I—that is——"
"Of course she hopes it," boomed her husband, coming to the rescue with heavy and uncertain cheeriness that rang as false as the ring of a leaden dollar. "And of course all of us hope it, dear Mr. Grimm. With all our hearts. And we wish you many, many years of life and——"
"Oh, indeed we do," chimed in Mrs. Batholommey. "And, as Dr. McPherson just said, there may perhaps be no reason,—with proper care—why you shouldn't——"
"A blundering rector must be put up with because of his cloth. But when it comes to a blundering rectorette, there ought to be a line drawn!"
It was McPherson who said it. He addressed no one, but seemed to be confining his heretical sentiments to the window seat. Also he spoke in a gruff undertone—that filled the room like far off thunder.
Peter Grimm flung himself into the breach, even before the wave of outraged red could gush to Mrs. Batholommey's shaking visage.
"Will you—will you have a glass of plum brandy?" he asked her, and then caught himself with the scared grin of a very guilty schoolboy.
"I thank you," she retorted, safe for the moment in the full majesty of Temperance. "I do not take such things. Perhaps you forget I am the President of our local W. C. T. U. and the——"