And Missionism, as preached by Henri Dubois, was sweeping the country. Dubois had received more than fifty thousand dollars in spontaneous gifts from the lecture the night before—and before noon that day. Yet he felt unable to spend it in support of his movement lest such spending should lend aid to possible smears of fraud and graft later. And Dubois needed two millions. He wanted the bank to use his huge backlog of contributions as collateral on a loan.
"It will save you many times that sum," he had said, leaning forward and resting a forearm on Justin's desk. "Consider—Missionism's widespread adoption will mean cooperation rather than competition. It will mean that, instead of wasteful conflict between selfishly warring groups—say of contractors versus unions—you'll have voluntary union. It will mean, to take a specific instance...."
Justin had been, was still, of more than half a mind to grant the evangelist what he asked. For Missionism was catching on, would soon be sweeping not the country but the world. Yet Corinne Forrester, Dubois' woman, had come back later to ask Justin to refuse the loan.
Dark, slimly flamboyant, a smoker of dark Cuban cigarettes, Mrs. Forrester was a factor to be reckoned with. She had left her gloves—deliberately, he suspected—had returned for them and said, "Mr. Justin, I have loved Henri Dubois for more years than I intend to admit. Until recently he has loved me as well.
"Now, thanks to Missionism, I am losing him. I gave up a perfectly good family and home and husband for Henri—but I cannot compete with millions of rivals. I'm not an ingenue any longer and I am not the sort of woman who can exist for long without a man."
"This hardly seems to concern—" he had begun.
And, dark eyes disturbingly fixed on his, she had said, "Mr. Justin—you're not the sort of man who should live long without a woman. There are a hundred little signs—restlessness, too-rigid control, vast energy uncompensated." Then, rising, "I shall call you tomorrow at five. And perhaps...."
Justin had been in a foul mood since. He came out of abstraction to realise that Jack Fellowes had repeated his question about the evangelist, said, "What sort of fellow is he? I'd say the oddest thing about him is his very lack of oddities."
"Hmmm." Fellowes was definitely interested. "Did you get much impression of repressive influences, Charley?"
"I'm no psychiatrist, Jack," said Justin, "but I'd say no. He was quiet—yes. But he didn't have any trouble expressing himself. More intellect than emotion-dominated."