The other looked at him curiously.
“It's mighty decent of you to take it this way,” he laid. Further speech failed him.
He was a nice-looking young man, with firm white teeth, and honesty was written all over his boyish face. And the palpable fact that his regret was more on the clergyman's account than for the social faux pas drew Holder the more, since it bespoke a genuineness of character.
He did not see the yearning in the rector's eyes as he turned away... Why was it they could not be standing side by side, fighting the same fight? The Church had lost him, and thousands like him, and she needed them; could not, indeed, do without them.
Where, indeed, were the young men? They did not bother their heads about spiritual matters any more. But were they not, he asked himself, franker than many of these others, the so-called pillars of the spiritual structure?
Mr. Plimpton accosted him. “I congratulate you upon the new plans, Mr. Hodder,—they're great,” he said. “Mr. Parr and our host are coming down handsomely, eh? When we get the new settlement house we'll have a plant as up-to-date as any church in the country. When do you break ground?”
“Not until autumn, I believe,” Hodder replied. “There are a good many details to decide upon yet.”
“Well, I congratulate you.”
Mr. Plimpton was forever congratulating.
“Up-to-date”—“plant”! More illuminating words, eloquent of Mr. Plimpton's ideals. St. John's down at the heels, to be brought up to the state of efficiency of Mr. Plimpton's trust company! It was by no means the first time he had heard modern attributes on Mr. Plimpton's lips applied to a sacred institution, but to-night they had a profoundly disquieting effect. To-night, a certain clairvoyance had been vouchsafed him, and he beheld these men, his associates and supporters, with a detachment never before achieved.