“Do you know,” he observed, “I should like very much to become a member of your vestry.”
“I’m glad you are interested,” returned the rector, and producing a pencil he drew a white advertising space towards him. “This is the plan of tenement I have in mind,” and for the next half hour the five of them discussed tenement plans with great enthusiasm.
At the expiration of that time, Ted and Lucile and Dick and Marion came romping up, with the deliberate intention of creating a disturbance; and Gail and the Reverend Smith Boyd, being thrown accidentally to the edge of that whirlpool, walked away for a rest.
“They tell me you’re going abroad,” observed the rector, looking down at her sadly, as they paused at her favourite rail space.
“Yes,” she answered quietly. “Father and mother are coming next week,” and she glanced up at the rector from under her curving lashes.
There was a short space of silence. It was almost as if these two were weary.
“We shall miss you very much,” he told her, in all sincerity. They were both looking out over the blue waves; he, tall, broad-shouldered, agile of limb; she, straight, lithe, graceful. Mrs. Boyd and Mrs. Sargent passed them admiringly, but went on by with a trace of sadness.
“I’m sorry to leave,” Gail replied. “I shall be very anxious to know how you are coming on with your new plan. I’m proud of you for it.”
They were talking mechanically. In them was an inexpressible sadness. They had come so near, and yet they were so far apart. Moreover, they knew that there was no chance of change. It was a matter of conscience which came between them, and it was a divergence which would widen with the years. And yet they loved. They mutually knew it, and it was because of that love that they must stay apart.
There was a strained atmosphere in the vestry meeting from the first. Every member present felt the tension from the moment old Joseph G. Clark walked in with Chisholm. They did not even nod to the Reverend Smith Boyd, but took their seats solidly in their customary places at the table, Clark, shielding his eyes, as was his wont, against the light which streamed on him from the red robe of the Good Shepherd. The repression was apparent, too, in the Reverend Smith Boyd, who rose to address his vestrymen as soon as the late-comers arrived.