“Well, I don’t know about that,” he had overheard one man of prominence saying to another in the vestibule. “Strikes me that’s going pretty strong. What’s the use of stirring up trouble? That sort of talk’s going to offend. Pulpit’s not called upon to go into matters of state—particularly now, when public sentiment’s so divided. Somebody better put a flea in his ear, eh?”
The other man nodded. “I believe a good deal as he does myself,” he admitted, cautiously, “but I don’t hold with offending people who have as good a right to their opinions as he has. I saw Johnstone wriggling more than once, toward the last—and he’s about the last man we want to make mad.”
R. P. Burns laid a heavy hand on the speaker’s arm. Turning, the other man looked into a pair of contemptuous hazel eyes, with whose glance, both friendly and fiery, he had been long familiar. “Oh, rot!” said a low voice in his ear.
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. Think it out.” And Burns was gone, in the press, with the quickness now of one accustomed to get where he would go, no matter how many were in the way.
He marched around to the vestry door, where he found Black standing, his gown off, his face gone rather white, though it had been full of colour when Red saw it last.
“Faint?” he asked.
“No—thanks, I’m all right. Just thought I’d like a whiff of fresh air.”
“Take a few deep breaths. I’ll give you a pick-up, if you say so.”
Black shook his head. “I’m all right,” he repeated.