The thinly spun treble note began once more, pulsing its timid way among the high, dim arches, as if seeking a lodgment where it might fasten its tiny thread of harmony, and grow into a masterful composition. A little old lady came slowly down the centre aisle of the nave, in rich but modest black, struggling, against her infirmities, to walk with a trace of the erect gracefulness of her bygone youth. Gail, listening raptly to the delicately increasing throb of the music, followed, in abstraction, the slow progress of the little old lady, who seemed to carry with her, for just a moment, a trace of the solemn hush belonging to that perspective of slender columns which spread their gracefully pointed arches up into the groined twilight, where the music hovered until it could gather strength to burst into full song. The little old lady turned her gaze for an instant to the group in the transept, and subconsciously gave the folds of her veil a touch; then she slipped into her pew, down near the altar, and raised her eyes to the exquisite Henri Dupres crucifix. She knelt, and bowed her forehead on her hands.
“I’ve allowed two million for the profit of Market Square Church in dealing with me,” stated Allison, again proffering the envelope which no one made a move to take. “I will not pay a dollar more.”
W. T. Chisholm was suddenly reminded that the vestry had a moral obligation in the matter under discussion. He was president of the Majestic Trust Company, and never forgot that fact.
“To what use would you devote the property of Market Square Church?” he gravely asked.
“The erection of a terminal station for all the municipal transportation in New York,” answered Allison; “subways, elevateds, surface cars, traction lines! The proposition should have the hearty co-operation of every citizen.”
Simple little idea, wasn’t it? Gail had to think successively to comprehend what a stupendous enterprise this was; and the man talked about it as modestly as if he were planning to sod a lawn; more so! Why, back home, if a man dreamed a dream so vast as that, he just talked about it for the rest of his life; and they put a poet’s wreath on his tombstone.
“Now you’re talking sentiment,” retorted stubby-moustached Jim Sargent. “You said, a while ago, that you came here strictly on business. So did we. This is no place for sentiment.”
Rufus Manning, with the tip of his silvery beard in his fingers, looked up into the delicate groining of the apse, where it curved gracefully forward over the head of the famous Henri Dupres crucifix, and he grinned. Gail Sargent was looking contemplatively from one to the other of the grave vestrymen.
“You’re right,” conceded Allison curtly. “Suppose you fellows talk it over by yourselves, and let me know your best offer.”
“Very well,” assented Jim Sargent, with an indifference which did not seem to be assumed. “We have some other matters to discuss, and we may as well thrash this thing out right now. We’ll let you know to-morrow.”