Westgate made no reply. He had reached a point where he could not share the friendly feeling of the rector. He could not be fond of a man who recklessly and obstinately, however conscientiously, refused to forego his determination to make Christ Church the forfeit in his game of Christian socialism. Moreover—
“There is one other thing I want to speak of at this time,” said Westgate, “a personal matter.”
Both men had risen to their feet and had been moving slowly toward the door of the study. The lawyer stopped and faced the minister. It was evident that the “personal matter” was one which lay near to his heart, for his face had paled and his jaws were set with determination.
“It is this,” he said. “Ruth Tracy has become the chief worker for your cause in the parish. I assume that it has been your direct influence that has produced her present abnormal state of mind. She is under the spell of a powerful personality. She is my fiancée. I have a right to protect her, and to conserve my own happiness. What you have had power to do, you have power to undo. I ask you now to relinquish your control of her conscience and judgment, and to refuse to carry her farther with you in a course which can only lead her into deep sorrow and great humiliation.”
The Reverend Mr. Farrar did not at once reply. A phase of the situation had been presented to him which had not before crossed his mind. He had met, and had solved to his own satisfaction, every problem in the controversy which he could foresee. This one was entirely new. But his clear vision and quick judgment went at once to the heart of it.
“I have used no persuasion on Miss Tracy,” he said at last. “Her absorption in this crusade has been entirely due to her own innate sense of righteousness and of social justice. For me to seek now to dissuade her from any continuance in this work would be to shake her faith, and to discredit my own sincerity of purpose. I cannot do what you ask.”
Westgate was annoyed. For the first time in all this unhappy controversy he felt that forbearance was no longer a virtue.
“Then you insist,” he said, “in making selfish use of her to advance your own peculiar propaganda, regardless of her happiness, or her mother’s peace of mind, or of my rights as her affianced lover?”
“I insist on giving her free rein, so far as I am concerned, to work out the impulses of a noble mind and heart. She has high ideals. I shall assist her, so far as I am able, to attain them.”
“Even though in doing so you blast her happiness and wreck her life?”