“We feel,” he said, “that those who have not had the advantages of wealth and education and culture are entitled to our first efforts. The Christian message is primarily to the humble and the poor.”
“There you go again,” she responded. “‘The humble and the poor,’ ‘equality in the Church’ and all that. Upon my word, Mr. Farrar, if you and Ruth had your way we should be hobnobbing to-night with the élite of Factory Hill.”
“And why not?” The rector’s voice was gentle enough, but there was not one of the company who did not feel the earnest thrill of it, the ring of determination in it, not one, save Barry. He simply noticed that no one else replied to the rector’s question, and he considered that it was quite his duty to make a response.
“Oh, now, look here, Farrar,” he said. “You don’t mean that. Why should we make companions of the kind of people who live on Factory Hill?”
“Because Jesus Christ did.”
Even Barry could realize, now, that the rector had picked up the gauntlet thrown down to him by his hostess and her fatuous guest, and stood ready to defend his ideal against all the company. The light in his eye, the color in his cheeks, denoted the spirit and the zeal that were blazing within him. For a moment no one spoke. Mrs. Bosworth sent a warning glance across the table to her husband. Mrs. Farrar’s eyes dropped, and her face paled with apprehension. Ruth looked appealingly at her lover, as though to beg him not, at this time, to cross swords with the rector. Even Mrs. Tracy, feeling that the situation was rapidly getting beyond her control, sought some method of gently relieving it. Turning to Barry she said, quietly:
“Now, Barry, don’t you and Mr. Farrar get into any argument. It wouldn’t be a bit interesting to the rest of us. We’re just going to convict Mr. Farrar and Ruth without giving them a chance to make any defense. There, you’re convicted, both of you.”
“Of what?” asked the rector, smiling again.
“Heaven knows!” responded his hostess. “But I turn you over to Judge Bosworth for sentence.”