The truth of this remark struck him with a force she did not suspect; stung him, as it were, into a sense of reality.
“And now,” she added pathetically, “all t want is a beefsteak! Don't that beat you?”
She appeared so genuinely surprised at this somewhat contemptible trick fate had played her that Hodder smiled in spite of himself.
“I didn't recognize you at first in that get-up,” she observed, looking at his blue serge suit. “So you've dropped the preacher business, have you? You're wise, all right.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
“Didn't I tell you when you came 'round that time that you weren't like the rest of 'em? You're too human.”
Once more the word, and on her lips, startled him.
“Some of the best men I have ever known, the broadest and most understanding men, have been clergymen,” he found himself protesting.
“Well, they haven't dropped in on me. The only one I ever saw that measured up to something like that was you, and now you've chucked it.”
Had he, as she expressed the matter, “chucked it”? Her remark brought him reluctantly, fearfully, remorselessly—agitated and unprepared as he was—face to face with his future.