“Why will you grown men act like children sometimes?”
“Miss Fox, please be seated again,” requested the minister, a note of authority in his voice. “I have something important to 199 say to you, and the time may not come again.”
The girl obeyed, taking her place close beside him on the stone.
“I see you do not understand what has brought this trouble between your father and me. Neither do I, but I don’t think that it’s a matter of doctrine. Nor do I believe that it’s the work I’ve been doing down at the Inn with the boys. Some cause strikes deeper than both. They are merely excuses. You remember that he made no objection to me in the beginning along these lines, and I preached no less strenuously then, as you call it, than I do now. In fact, had it not been for your father I doubt very much if the installation had gone through last summer. Behind the scenes there is another man, and he is pulling the strings while he directs the play. When I was ordained to the ministry in the New York Presbytery, that man fought me desperately, while he raised no objections to others who were ordained at the same time, and who held views far more radical than mine. That man was at the installation. 200 When your father told me that he was coming, I made no protest, for I saw that there was a fast friendship between the two. You know what that man tried to do at the installation. You doubtless know, too, that he has been much with your father of late. You also saw him at the meeting last night.
“Miss Fox, if we knew all the facts, we should be able to lay the blame for this trouble and your father’s condition right where it belongs.”
“You refer to Mr. Means?”
“I do. What it is–––”
“Mr. McGowan, if you think any man can influence my father, you do not know him. I dislike Mr. Means, maybe because he is so preachy. But he cannot influence Father.”
“I wish I could believe that!”
“You must believe it. You are letting your imagination color your judgment.”