“There’s not a person in this town who does so much for others as you do, and who makes so little fuss about it. It’s the force of your example that has led me astray, you see.”
“Hm!” Hepsey replied. “I’m glad you called my attention to it. I shall try to break myself of the habit at once.”
As for Maxwell, his practical helpfulness in forwarding the social life of the place, without in the least applying that phase of his activities as a lever for spiritual upheavals, and his ready sympathy for and interest in the needs and doings of young and old, 202 irrespective of class or caste, gradualy reaped for him the affection and respect of all sorts and conditions. In fact, the year had been a pleasant one for him, and was marred by only one circumstance, the continued and growing hostility of his Senior Warden, Mr. Bascom. From the first, he had been distinctly unfriendly towards his rector; but soon after Maxwell’s marriage, his annoying opposition was quite open and pronounced, and the weight of his personal influence was thrown against every move which Maxwell made towards the development of the parish life and work.
To those more “in the know” than the Maxwells themselves, it was evident that a certain keen aggressiveness evinced by the Senior Warden was foreign to his phlegmatic, brooding character, and it was clear to them that the actively malicious virus was being administered by the disappointed Virginia. That she was plotting punishment, in revenge for wounded amour propre, was clear to the initiated, who were apprehensive of the bomb she was evidently preparing to burst over the unconscious heads of the rector and his wife. But what could her scheme be?
Gradually Mrs. Burke noticed that Betty began to show fatigue and anxiety, and was losing the freshness of her delicate color; while Donald had become silent and reserved, and wore a worried look which 203 was quite unnatural to him. Something was going wrong; of that she felt sure; but observant though she was, she failed to trace the trouble to its source.
Matters came to a crisis one day when Maxwell was informed that some one was waiting to see him in the parlor. The visitor was dressed in very pronounced clothes, and carried himself with a self-assertive swagger. Maxwell had seen him in Bascom’s office, and knew who was waiting for him long before he reached the parlor, by the odor of patchouli which penetrated to the hall.
“Good morning, Mr. Nelson,” said Maxwell. “Did you wish to see me?”
“Yes, I did, Mr. Maxwell, and I am sure it is a great pleasure.”
The man seated himself comfortably in a large chair, put the tips of his fingers together, and gazed about the room with an expression of pleased patronage.
“Very pretty home you have here,” he remarked suavely.