“Harsh language, Uncle Jim Sargent, to use toward your respectable fellow-vestrymen,” chided Arly, her black eyes dancing.
“Clark and Chisholm?” and Jim Sargent’s brows knotted. “They’re not my fellow-vestrymen. Either they go or I do!”
“I would like you to remain,” quietly stated the Reverend Smith Boyd. “I hope to achieve several important alterations in the ethics of Market Square Church.” He was grave this morning. He had unknowingly been ripening for some time on many questions; and the revelations in this morning’s papers had brought him to the point of decision. “I wish to drive the money changers out of the temple,” he added, and glanced at Gail with a smile in which there was acknowledgment.
“A remarkably lucrative enterprise, eh Gail?” laughed her Uncle Jim, remembering her criticism on the occasion of her first and only vestry meeting, when she had called their attention to the satire of the stained glass window.
“You will have still the Scribes and Pharisees, Doctor; ‘those who stand praying in the public places, so they may be seen of all men,’” and Gail smiled across at him, within her eyes the mischievous twinkle which had been absent for many days.
“I hope to be able to remove the public place,” replied the rector, with a gravity which told of something vital beneath the apparent repartee. Mrs. Boyd, strolling past with Aunt Grace Sargent, paused to look at him fondly. “I shall set myself, with such strength as I may have, against the building of the proposed cathedral.”
He had said it so quietly that it took the little group a full minute to comprehend. Jim Sargent looked with acute interest at the end of his cigar, and threw it overboard. Arly leaned slowly forward, and, resting her piquant chin on her closed hand, studied the rector earnestly. Gerald stroked his moustache contemplatively, and looked at the rector with growing admiration. By George, that was a sportsmanlike attitude! He’d have to take the Reverend Smith Boyd down to the Papyrus Club one day. All the trouble flew back into Gail’s eyes. It was a stupendous thing the Reverend Smith Boyd was proposing to relinquish! The rectorship of the most wonderful cathedral in the world! Mrs. Boyd looked startled for a moment. She had known of Tod’s bright dreams about the new cathedral and the new rectory. He had planned his mother’s apartments himself, and the last thing his eyes looked upon at night were the beautifully coloured sketches on his walls.