“I beg your pardon, I misunderstood,” said the minister.
They were silent for a few minutes, during which the minister digested this, to him, new view of confessing your faith before men.
Although he himself never gave tracts either in busses or anywhere else, he had certainly in a sort of hazy fashion considered that to do so was praiseworthy, if mistaken.
“There’s mother!” announced Wiggins suddenly. “Let’s come and talk to her.”
The minister scrambled to his feet, and in another moment he had shaken hands with Mrs. Burton, and they all sat down on the beach together.
Wiggins did most of the talking, and then it began to rain.
“Will you come in and have a cup of tea with Wiggins and me?” asked Mrs. Burton.
The minister felt that no words at all expressed the rapture with which this proposal filled him.
Mrs. Urquhart’s parlor looked so different that afternoon. Many photographs stood on the mantelpiece, books other than albums or Family Bibles were scattered on the table, papers and magazines strewed the horsehair sofa, while on the mantelpiece among the photographs and the little vases full of roses were the ends of many half-smoked cigarettes. Another shock was in store for the minister.
They had tea; he drank three cups and ate endless scones in order to prolong the meal. To sit opposite to Mary and watch her white, heavily ringed hands flit in and out among the cups as she made tea was a wonderful thing. To listen to her as she praised Elgo, and Scotland generally, in her soft Southern voice was wonderful; but most wonderful of all was to gaze at her unrebuked, to drink in the beauty of her face, to note the gracious line of cheek and chin as she turned her head, and lose himself in the depths of her eyes, brown as the trout stream beyond Glen Dynoch. When at last some small consciousness of material things awoke in him and he rose to go, Mary reached to the chimneypiece for a slim tin box.