Her smile was neither disloyal nor cynical; it was merely pitying. She was thinking in her heart of hearts how much this zealous young apostle had yet to learn.
"Do you call it undignified to be a man among men?" she asked; adding quickly: "But I know you don't. And what other way is open to the true brother-helper?"
"There is the church and its ministrations," he began, but she broke in.
"To get the drowning man ashore you have first to go down into the water and lay hold of him, Mr. Morelock. That means personal contact, personal association."
The young man was clearly bewildered. His experience thus far had not been enriched by many intimacies with clear-eyed young women who calmly defined the larger humanities for him.
"I'm afraid I don't quite understand your point of view," he demurred.
"Don't you? I'm not sure that I can explain just what I mean. But it seems to me that really to help any one, you must know that one; not superficially, as people meet in ordinary ways, but intimately. And you can't hope to do that if you hold aloof; if you—if you—pose as a minister all the time." The word was not flattering, but she could lay hold of no other.
"Oh, I hope I don't do that!" he laughed. "But to creep around underground in a sooty coal-mine, a laughing-stock to those who know how to do it—er—professionally—"
"The men have to do it as breadwinners, Mr. Morelock, and the most ribald one of them wouldn't laugh at you. I wouldn't be afraid to promise that you could fill St. John's, forbidding as its atmosphere is to the average working-man, the very next Sunday after such a visitation."
Now this young zealot was a man of imagination, hidebound only in his traditions. Also, he was not above taking ideas where he found them.