“And if a man will go to the dogs,� shouted old Tom, growing more angry every moment, “why, horse racing is a deuced gentlemanly road to ruin.�
“You are at liberty to think as you please, Mr. Shapleigh,� said poor Conyers, his sallow face flushing. “I have done my duty, and I fear no man.�
Sylvia Shapleigh at that moment put her hand in his and gave him one of the kindest looks in the world out of her soft, expressive, grey eyes.
“You always do your duty, and you never fear any man,� she said, and Conyers felt as if he had heard a consoling angel.
The Blairs came along on the heels of the Shapleighs. Mrs. Blair, although usually she bitterly resented any reflection cast on Blair, was yet secretly pleased at the clergyman’s wigging, in the vain hope that it might do some good; so she, too, spoke to Conyers cordially and kindly. Blair passed him with a curt nod. The Blairs proceeded to their rickety carriage—which, however, was drawn by a pair of first-class nags, for Blair could always afford a good horse—and went home. For all their billing and cooing they occasionally differed, and on this occasion they did not bill and coo at all.
Mr. and Mrs. Shapleigh not only did not bill and coo on their way home, but had a very spirited matrimonial skirmish.
“Mr. Shapleigh,� said Mrs. Shapleigh, as soon as she was settled in the coach, “I know what I shall do, after your threat to resign from the vestry. I shall have Mr. Conyers pray for you in church!�
Now, this was the one threat which never failed to infuriate old Tom, because he knew Mrs. Shapleigh was fully capable of asking it, and Conyers was fully capable of doing it. So his reply was a shout of wrath:
“The hell you will! Very well, madam, very well. The day that Conyers has the effrontery to pray for me, that day my subscription to his salary stops. I’ll not be prayed for, madam—I’ll be damned if I will! And I am a very good Churchman, but if I am prayed for in Abingdon church, I’ll turn Baptist, and be baptized in Hunting Creek just as soon as we have a freeze, so I can risk my life and say my wife drove me to it. And I’ll die impenitent—see if I don’t, Mrs. Shapleigh. No, I’ll do worse: I’ll join the Methodists and pray for you, madam, in prayer meeting—damn me, that’s what I’ll do!�
This last terrible threat prevailed; for once, Mrs. Shapleigh was beaten, and she knew it.