"It is so good of you to come early," Mrs. Wilson said brightly. "I hope you don't mind coming upstairs. I wanted to talk to you confidentially, and we might be interrupted. Besides, you see, I am not dressed to go down."
The young men murmured something to the effect that they did not in the least mind coming up.
"Didn't mind coming up!" she echoed. "Is that the way you answer a lady who gives you the privilege of her private sitting-room? Come, you must do better than that. If you can't compliment me on my frock, you might at least say that you are proud to be here."
The two deacons stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, abashed at her raillery. Maurice saw the lips of Ashe harden, and he hastened to speak lest his companion should say something stern.
"You should remember, Mrs. Wilson," he said a little timidly, yet not without a gleam of humor, "that our curriculum at the Clergy House does not include a course in compliment."
"It should then," she responded gayly. "How in the world is a clergyman to get on with the women of his congregation if he can't compliment? Why, the salvation or the damnation of most women is determined by compliments."
The visitors stood speechless. Mrs. Wilson broke into a gleeful laugh.
"Come," cried she; "now I have shocked you! Pardon me; I should have remembered--_virginibus puerisque!_ Sit down, and we will come to business."
Both the young men flushed at her half-contemptuous, half-jesting phrase, but they sat down as directed. Mrs. Wilson took her seat directly in front of them, and proceeded to inspect them with cool deliberation.
"I am looking you over," she observed calmly. "I must decide what work you are fitted for before I can assign anything to you."
Two young men do not live together so intimately, and care for each other so tenderly as did the two deacons without coming to know each other well; and Maurice was so fully aware of the extreme sensitiveness of Ashe that he involuntarily glanced at his friend to see how he bore this inspection. He resented the impertinence of the scrutiny far more on Philip's account than his own. Ashe's pale face had on it the faintest possible flush, and his always grave manner had become really solemn; but otherwise he made no sign. Wynne had a certain sense of humor which helped him through the ordeal, and there was a faint gleam of a smile in his eye as he confronted the brilliant woman before him; but he was ill-pleased that his friend should be made uncomfortable.