And suddenly the rector remembered. He was most uncomfortable, and very flushed.
“Thanks. I can't let you do that, of course.”
“Why not?”
“Because, hang it all, Clayton, I'm not a parasite. I took the car, because it enabled me to do my parish work better. But I'm not going to run off to war and let you keep my family.”
Clayton glanced at him, at his fine erect old figure, his warmly flushed face. War did strange things. There was a new light in the rector's once worldly if kindly eyes. He had the strained look of a man who sees great things, as yet far away, and who would hasten toward them. Insensibly he quickened his pace.
“But I can't go myself, so why can't I send a proxy?”
Clayton asked, smiling. “I've an idea I'd be well represented.”
“That's a fine way to look at it, but I can't do it. I've saved something, not much, but it will do for a year or two. I'm glad you made the offer, though. It was like you, and—it showed me the way. I can't let any man, or any group of men, finance my going.”
And he stuck to it. Clayton, having in mind those careful canvasses of the congregation of Saint Luke's which had every few years resulted in raising the rector's salary, was surprised and touched. After all, war was like any other grief. It brought out the best or the worst in us. It roused or it crushed us.
The rector had been thinking.