Gail’s eyelids closed, her lashes curved on her cheeks for an instant, and the corners of her lips twitched.
“And how much a year does Market Square Church take out of Vedder Court?”
“I was waiting for that bit of impertinence,” laughed Manning. “I shall be surprised at nothing you say since that first day when you characterised Market Square Church as a remarkably lucrative enterprise. Have you never felt any compunctions of conscience over that?”
“Not once,” answered Gail promptly. She had started to seat herself on one of the empty benches, but had changed her mind. “If I had been given to any such self-injustice, however, I should reproach myself now. I think Market Square Church not only commercial but criminal.”
“I’ll have to give your soul a chastisement,” smiled Manning. “These people must live somewhere, and because Vedder Court, being church property, is exempt from taxation, they find cheaper rents here than anywhere in the city. If we were to put up improved buildings, I don’t know where they would go, because we would be compelled to charge more rent.”
“In order to make the same rate of profit,” responded Gail. “Out of all this misery, Market Square Church is reaping a harvest rich enough to build a fifty million dollar cathedral, and I have sufficient disregard for the particular Deity under whom you do business, to feel sure that he would not destroy it by lightning. I want out of here.”
“Frankly, so do I,” admitted Manning; “although I’m ashamed of myself. It’s all right for you, who are young, to be fastidious, but your Daddy Manning is coward enough to want to make his peace with Heaven, after a life which put a few blots on the book.”
She looked at him speculatively for a moment, and then she laughed.
“You know, I don’t believe that, Daddy Manning. You’re an old fraud, who does good by stealth, in order to gain the reputation of having been picturesquely wicked. Tell me why you belong to Market Square Church.”
“Because it’s so respectable,” he twinkled down at her. “When an old sinner has lost every other claim to respectability, he has himself put on the vestry.”