Gail’s eyelids dropped and the corners of her lips twitched when the Reverend Smith Boyd’s name was brought up to her, but she did her hair in another way, high on her head instead of low on her neck, and then she went down, bewildering in her simple little dark blue velvet cut round at the neck.
“I am so glad your cold is better,” she greeted him, smiling as pleasantly as if their last meeting had been a most joyous occasion.
“I don’t think I had a cold,” laughed the young rector, also as happily mannered as if their last meeting had been a cheerful one. “I sneezed twice, I believe, and mother immediately gave me a course of doctoring which no cold could resist.”
“I was afraid that your voice was out,” remarked Gail, in a tone suggestive of the fact that that would be a tragedy indeed; and she began hauling forth music. “You haven’t been over for so long.”
The Reverend Smith Boyd coloured. At times the way of spiritual instruction was quite difficult. Nevertheless, he had a duty to perform. Mechanically he had taken his place at the piano, standing straight and tall, and his blue eyes softened as they automatically fell on the piece of music she had opened. Of course it was their favourite, the one in which their voices had soared in the most perfect unison. Gail glanced up at him as she brushed a purely imaginary fleck of dust from the keys. For an instant the brown eyes and the blue ones met. He was a tremendously nice fellow, after all. But what was worrying him?
“Before we sing I should like to take up graver matters,” he began, feeling at a tremendous disadvantage in the presence of the music. To obviate this, he drew up a chair, and sat facing her. “I have called this evening in the capacity of your temporary rector.”
Gail’s eyelids had a tendency to flicker down, but she restrained them. She was adorable when she looked prim that way. Her lips were like a rosebud. The Reverend Smith Boyd himself thought of the simile, and cast it behind him.
“You are most kind,” she told him, suppressing the imps and demons which struggled to pop into her eyes.
“I have been greatly disturbed by the length to which your unbelief has apparently gone,” the young rector went on, and having plunged into this opening he began to breathe more freely. This was familiar ground. “I am willing to admit, to one of your intelligence, that there are certain articles of the creed, and certain tenets of the Church, which humanity has outgrown, as a child outgrows its fear of the dark.”
Gail rested a palm on the edge of the bench behind her, and leaned back facing him, supported on one beautifully modelled arm. Her face had set seriously now.