XVI
A KNIGHTLY GUEST
"Do you suppose we could afford a carriage for the Ashtons' dinner?" I asked Gordon one evening, the evening before the function in question.
Gordon hesitated. "I'm afraid not, my dear," he said; "surely it isn't very far to walk."
"Everybody else will have one," I remonstrated, a little ruefully.
"Well," he answered cheerfully, "most of them can afford it better than we can. And those who can't," as he smiled, rather disdainfully I thought, "a good many of those who can't, will have one just the same—even if they daren't look the butcher and the baker in the face. There are a good many like that in Hertford, you know—in St. Andrew's Church, for that matter, I'm afraid," he added. "But a minister couldn't afford that any better than the other," he concluded, reaching for the elaborate invitation I held in my hand the while.
"Gordon," I said suddenly, and I fear my face showed what prompted the question, "have you ever thought what a good time we'd have had, if you had been something else—if you had been a doctor, I mean, or a politician, or something of that sort? Or a lawyer," I added; "yes, a lawyer—what a stunning lawyer you'd have made, Gordon. You'd be getting five times your present income, if you'd been a lawyer."
"Nonsense," he said, in his rather blunt Scotch way.
"It's nothing of the sort," I answered. "You know as well as I do there are a dozen lawyers in Hertford who could buy and sell you over and over again, so far as money is concerned—and they haven't got half the brains you have—aren't in the same class with you as public speakers. And yet here you are, the minister of a lot of fashionable people and——"
"We have a good many now that aren't fashionable, thank heaven," he interrupted, as if he were quite proud of it; "you'd be surprised, Helen, if you only knew how many poor people have connected with St. Andrew's since I came. But that doesn't please you much, does it, dear?" a shadow coming over the eager face.