the reverend smith boyd, rector of the richest church in the world, dropped his last collar button on the floor, and looked distinctly annoyed. the collar button rolled under his mahogany highboy, and concealed itself carefully behind one of the legs. the reverend smith boyd, there being none to see, laid aside his high dignity, and got down on his knees, though not for any clerical purpose. with his suspenders hanging down his back, he sprawled his long arms under the highboy in all directions, while his face grew red; and the little collar button, snuggled carefully out of sight behind the furthest leg, just shone and shone. the rector, the ticking of whose dressing-room clock admonished him that the precious moments were passing never to return again, twisted his neck, and bent his head sidewise, and inserted it under the highboy, one ear scraping the rug and the other the bottom of the lowest drawer. no collar button. he withdrew his neck, and twisted his head in the opposite direction, and inserted his head again under the highboy, so that the ear which had scraped the carpet now scraped the bottom of the drawer, whereat the little collar button shone so brightly that the rector’s bulging eye caught the glint of it. his hand swung round, at the end of a long arm, and captured it before it could hide any further, then the young rector withdrew his throbbing 124head and started to raise up, and bumped the back of his head with a crack on the bottom of an open drawer, near enough to the top to give him a good long sweep for momentum. this mishap being just one degree beyond the point to which the reverend smith boyd had been consecrated, he ejaculated as follows:—
no, it is not respectful, nor proper, nor charitable, to set down what the reverend smith boyd, in that stress, ejaculated; but a beautiful, grey-haired lady, beautiful with the sweetness of content and the happiness of gratified pride and the kindliness of humour, who had paused at the reverend smith boyd’s open door to inquire how soon he would be down to dinner, hastily covered her mouth with her hand, and moved away from the door, with moist blue eyes, around which twinkled a dozen tiny wrinkles born of much smiling.
when the dignified young rector came down to dinner, fully clothed and apparently in his right mind, his mother, who was the beautiful grey-haired lady with the twinkling blue eyes, looked across the table and smiled indulgently at his disguise; for he was not a grown-up, tall, broad-shouldered man of thirty-two at all. in reality he was a shock-headed, slightly freckled urchin of nine or ten, by the name of “smitty” on the town commons, and “tod” at home.
“aren’t you becoming a trifle irritable of late, tod?” she inquired with solicitude, willfully suppressing a smile which flashed up in her as she remembered that ejaculation. it was shocking in a minister, of course, but she had ever contended that ministers were, and should be, made of clay; and clay is friable.
“yes, mother, i believe i am,” confessed the reverend smith boyd, considering the matter with serious impartiality.
125“you are not ill in any way?”
“not at all,” he hastily assured her.
“your cold is all gone?”
“entirely. as a matter of fact, mother,” and he smiled, “i don’t think i had one.”
“if you hadn’t drank that tea, and taken the mustard foot bath, and wrapped the flannel around your throat, it might have been a severe one,” his mother complacently replied. “you haven’t been studying too much?”
“no,” and the slightest flicker of impatience twitched his brows.
“you’ve no headache?” and the tone was as level as if she had not seen that flicker.
“no, mother.”
“do you sleep well?”
the reverend smith boyd took a drink of water. his hand trembled slightly.
“excellently.”
mrs. boyd surveyed her son with a practised eye.
“i think your appetite’s dropping off a little,” she commented, and then she was shrewdly silent, though the twinkles of humour came back to her eyes by and by. “i don’t think you take enough social diversion,” she finally advised him. “you should go out more. you should ride, walk, but always in the company of young and agreeable people. because you are a rector is no reason for you to spend your spare time in gloomy solitude, as you have been doing for the past week.”
the reverend smith boyd would have liked to state that he had been very busy, but he had a conscience, which was a nuisance to him. he had spent most of his spare time up in his study, with his chin in his hand.
126“you are quite right, mother,” he sombrely confessed, and swallowed two spoonfuls of his soup. it was excellent soup, but, after taking a bite of a wafer, he laid his spoon on the edge of the plate.
“i think i’ll drive you out of the house, tod,” mrs. boyd decided, in the same tones she had used to employ when she had sent him to bed. “i think i’ll send you over to sargent’s to-night, to sing with gail.”
the rector of the richest church in the world flushed a trifle, and looked at the barley in the bottom of his soup. his mother regarded him quietly, and the twinkles went out of her eyes. she had been bound to get at the bottom of his irritability, and now she had arrived at it.
“i would prefer not to go,” he told her stiffly, and the eyes which he lifted to her were coldly green.
“why?”
again that slight twitch of impatience in his brows, then he suppressed a sigh. the catechism was on the way, and he might just as well answer up promptly.
“i do not approve of miss sargent.”
for just one second the rector’s mother felt an impulse to shake tod boyd. gail sargent was a young lady of whom any young man might approve—and what was the matter with tod? she was beginning to be humiliated by the fact that, at thirty-two, he had not lost his head and made a fool of himself, to the point of tight shoes and poetry, over a girl.
“why?” and the voice of mrs. boyd was not cold as she had meant it to be. she had suddenly felt some tug of sympathy for tod.
“well, for one thing, she has a most disagreeable lack of reverence,” he stated.
“reverence?” and mrs. boyd knitted her brows. 127“i don’t believe you quite understand her. she has the most beautifully simple religious faith that i have ever seen, tod.”
the reverend smith boyd watched his soup disappearing, as if it were some curious moving object to which his attention had just been called.
“miss sargent claims to have a new religion,” he observed. “she has said most unkind things about the church as an institution, and about market square church in particular. she says that it is a strictly commercial institution, and that its motive in desiring to build the new cathedral is vanity.”
he omitted to mention gail’s further charge that his own motive in desiring the new cathedral was personal ambition. candour did not compel that admission. it did not become him to act from piqued personal pride.
mrs. boyd studied him as he gazed sombrely at his fish, and the twinkles once more returned to her eyes, as she made up her mind to cure tod’s irritability.
“i am ashamed of you,” she told her son. “this girl is scarcely twenty. if i remember rightly, and i’m sure that i do, you came to me, at about twenty, and confessed to a logical disbelief in the theory of creation, which included, of course, a disbelief in the creator. you were an infidel, an atheist. you were going to relinquish your studies, and give up all thought of the church.”
the deep red of the reverend smith boyd’s face testified to the truth of this cruel charge, and he pushed back his fish permanently.
“i most humbly confess,” he stated, and indeed he had writhed in spirit many times over that remembrance. “however, mother, i have since discovered that to be 128a transitional stage through which every theological student passes.”
“yet you won’t allow it to a girl,” charged mrs. boyd, with the severity which she could much better have expressed with a laugh. “when you discover that this young lady, who seems to be in every way delightful, is so misled as to criticise the motives of market square church, you withdraw into your dignity, with the privilege of a layman, and announce that ‘you do not approve of her.’ what she needs, tod, is religious instruction.”
she had carefully ironed out the tiny little wrinkles around her blue eyes by the time her son looked up from the profound cogitation into which this reproof had thrown him.
“mother, i have been wrong,” he admitted, and he seemed ever so much brighter for the confession. he drew his fish towards him and ate it.
later the reverend smith boyd presented himself at james sargent’s house, with a new light shining in his breast; and he had blue eyes. he had come to show gail the way and the light. if she had doubts, and lack of faith, and flippant irreverence, it was his duty to be patient with her, for this was the fault of youth. he had been youthful himself.
gail’s eyelids dropped and the corners of her lips twitched when the reverend smith boyd’s name was brought up to her, but she did her hair in another way, high on her head instead of low on her neck, and then she went down, bewildering in her simple little dark blue velvet cut round at the neck.
“i am so glad your cold is better,” she greeted him, smiling as pleasantly as if their last meeting had been a most joyous occasion.
129“i don’t think i had a cold,” laughed the young rector, also as happily mannered as if their last meeting had been a cheerful one. “i sneezed twice, i believe, and mother immediately gave me a course of doctoring which no cold could resist.”
“i was afraid that your voice was out,” remarked gail, in a tone suggestive of the fact that that would be a tragedy indeed; and she began hauling forth music. “you haven’t been over for so long.”
the reverend smith boyd coloured. at times the way of spiritual instruction was quite difficult. nevertheless, he had a duty to perform. mechanically he had taken his place at the piano, standing straight and tall, and his blue eyes softened as they automatically fell on the piece of music she had opened. of course it was their favourite, the one in which their voices had soared in the most perfect unison. gail glanced up at him as she brushed a purely imaginary fleck of dust from the keys. for an instant the brown eyes and the blue ones met. he was a tremendously nice fellow, after all. but what was worrying him?
“before we sing i should like to take up graver matters,” he began, feeling at a tremendous disadvantage in the presence of the music. to obviate this, he drew up a chair, and sat facing her. “i have called this evening in the capacity of your temporary rector.”
gail’s eyelids had a tendency to flicker down, but she restrained them. she was adorable when she looked prim that way. her lips were like a rosebud. the reverend smith boyd himself thought of the simile, and cast it behind him.
“you are most kind,” she told him, suppressing the imps and demons which struggled to pop into her eyes.
“i have been greatly disturbed by the length to 130which your unbelief has apparently gone,” the young rector went on, and having plunged into this opening he began to breathe more freely. this was familiar ground. “i am willing to admit, to one of your intelligence, that there are certain articles of the creed, and certain tenets of the church, which humanity has outgrown, as a child outgrows its fear of the dark.”
gail rested a palm on the edge of the bench behind her, and leaned back facing him, supported on one beautifully modelled arm. her face had set seriously now.
“however,” went on the rector, “it is the habit and the privilege of youth to run to extremes. sweeping doubt takes the place of reasonable criticism, and the much which is good is condemned alike with the little which has grown useless.”
he paused to give gail a chance for reply, but that straight-eyed young lady had nothing to say, at this juncture.
“i do not expect to be able to remove the spiritual errors, which i am compelled to judge that you have accumulated, by any other means than patient logic,” he resumed. “may i discuss these matters with you?” his voice was grave and serious, and full of earnest sincerity, and the musical quality alone of it made patient logical discussion seem attractive.
“if you like,” she assented, smiling at him with wileful and wilful deception. the wicked thought had occurred to her that it might be her own duty to broaden his spiritual understanding.
“thank you,” he accepted gravely. “if you will give me an hour or so each week, i shall be very happy.”
“i am nearly always at home on tuesday and friday evenings,” suggested gail. “scarcely any one 131calls before eight thirty, and we have dinner quite early on those evenings.” she began to be sincerely interested in the project. she had never given herself time to quite exactly define her own attitude towards theology as distinct from religion, and she felt that she should do it, if for no other reason than to avoid making impulsive over-statements. the reverend smith boyd would help her to look squarely into her own mind and her own soul, for he had a very active intelligence, and was, moreover, the most humanly forceful cleric she had ever met. besides, they could always finish by singing.
“i shall make arrangements to be over as early as you will permit,” declared the rector, warmly aglow with the idea. “we shall begin with the very beginnings of things, and, step by step, develop, i hope, a logical justification of the vast spiritual revolution which has conquered the world.”
“i should like nothing better,” mused gail, and since the reverend smith boyd rose, and stood behind her and filled his lungs, she turned to the piano and struck a preliminary chord, which she trailed off into a tinkling little run, by way of friendly greeting to the piano.
“we shall begin with the creation,” pursued the rector, dwelling, with pleasure, on the idea of a thorough progress through the mazes of religious growth. there were certain vague points which he wanted to clear up for himself.
“and wind up with vedder court.” she had not meant to say that. it just popped into her mind, and popped off the end of her tongue.
“even that will be taken up in its due logical sequence,” and the reverend smith boyd prided himself 132on having already displayed the patience which he had come expressly to exercise.
gail was immediately aware that he was exercising patience. he had reproved her, nevertheless, and quite coldly, for having violated the tacit agreement to take up the different phases of their weighty topic only “in their due logic sequence.” the rector, in this emergency, would have found no answer which would stand the test, but gail had the immense advantage of femininity.
“it altogether depends at which end we start our sequence,” she sweetly reminded him. “my own impression is that we should begin at vedder court and work back to the creation. vedder court needs immediate attention.”
that was quite sufficient. when allison called, twenty minutes later, they were at it hammer and tongs. there was a bright red spot in each of gail’s cheeks, and the reverend smith boyd’s cold eyes were distinctly green! allison had been duly announced, but the combatants merely glanced at him, and finished the few remarks upon which they were, at the moment, engaged. he had been studying the tableau with the interest of a connoisseur, and he had devoted his more earnest attention to the reverend smith boyd.
“so glad to see you,” said gail conventionally, rising and offering him her hand. if there was that strange thrill in his clasp, she was not aware of it.
“i only ran in to see if you’d like to take a private car trip in the new subway before it is opened,” offered allison, turning to shake hands with the reverend smith boyd. “will you join us, doctor?”
for some reason a new sort of jangle had come into the room, and it affected the three of them. allison 133was the only one who did not notice that he had taken gail’s acceptance for granted.
“you might tell us when,” she observed, transferring the flame of her eyes from the rector to allison. “i may have conflicting engagements.”
“no, you won’t,” allison cheerfully informed her; “because it will be at any hour you set.”
“oh,” was the weak response, and, recognising that she was fairly beaten, her white teeth flashed at him in a smile of humour. “suppose we say ten o’clock to-morrow morning.”
“i am free at that hour,” stated doctor boyd, in answer to a glance of inquiry from allison. he felt it his duty to keep in touch with public improvements. also, beneath his duty lay a keen pleasure in the task.
“you’ll be very much interested, i think,” and allison glowed with the ever-present pride of achievement, then he suddenly grinned. “the new subway stops at the edge of vedder court, waiting.”
there was another little pause of embarrassment, in which gail and the reverend smith boyd were very careful not to glance at each other. unfortunately, however, the reverend smith boyd was luckless enough to automatically, and without conscious mental process, fold the sheet of music which had long since been placed on the piano.
“why stop at the edge of vedder court?” inquired gail, with a nervous little jerk, much as if the words had been jolted out of her by the awkward slam of the music rack, which had succeeded the removal of the song. “why not go straight on through, and demolish vedder court? it is a scandal and a disgrace to civilisation, and to the city, as well as to its present proprietors! vedder court should be annihilated, torn down, 134burned up, swept from the face of the earth! the board of health should condemn it as unsanitary, the building commission should condemn it as unsafe, the department of public morals should condemn it as unwholesome!”
the reverend smith boyd had been engaged in a strong wrestle within himself, but the spirit finally conquered the flesh, and he held his tongue. he remembered that gail was young, and youth was prone to extravagant impulse. his spirit of forbearance came so strongly to his aid that he was even able to acknowledge how beautiful she was when she was stiffened.
allison had been viewing her with mingled admiration and respect.
“by george, that’s a great idea,” he thoughtfully commented. “gail, i think i’ll tear down vedder court for you!”
