the doves which in summer flitted about the quiet little vestry yard, and cooed over the vestry door, would have flown away had they been at home; for it was a stormy affair, with loud voices and clashing wills and a general atmosphere of tensity, which was somewhat at variance with the red-robed figure of the good shepherd in the pointed window of the vestry. the late arrival was joseph g. clark, and his eye sought that of banker chisholm, before he nodded to the others and took his seat at the gothic table. the reverend smith boyd, who was particularly straight and tall to-day, and particularly in earnest, paused long enough for the slight disturbance to subside, and then he finished his speech.
“that is my unalterable position in the matter,” he declared. “if market square church has a mission, it is the responsibility for these miserable human wrecks whom we have made our wards.”
“we can’t feed and clothe them,” objected banker chisholm, whose white mutton chops already glowed pink from the anger-reddened skin beneath.
“it doesn’t pay to pauperise the people,” supplemented willis cunningham, stroking his sparse vandyke complacently. cunningham, whose sole relationship to economics consisted in permitting his secretary 232to sign checks, had imbibed a few principles which sufficed for all occasions.
“i do not wish to pauperise them,” returned the rector. “i am willing to accept the shame of having the city show market square church its duty, in exchange for the pleasure of replacing the foul tenements in vedder court with clean ones.”
joseph g. clark glanced again at chisholm.
“they’d be dirty again in ten years,” he observed. “if we build the new type of sanitary tenement we shall have to charge more rent, or not make a penny of profit; and we can’t get more rent because the people who would pay it will not come into that neighbourhood.”
“are we compelled to make a profit?” retorted the rector. “is it necessary for market square church to remain perpetually a commercial landlord?”
the vestry gazed at the reverend smith boyd in surprised disapproval. their previous rector had talked like that, and the reverend smith boyd had been a great relief.
“so long as the church has property at all, it will meet with that persistent charge,” argued chisholm. “it seems to me that we have had enough of it. my own inclination would be to sell the property outright, and take up slower, but less personal, forms of investment.”
old nicholas van ploon, sitting far enough away to fold his hands comfortably across his tight vest, screwed his neck around so that he could glare at the banker.
“no,” he objected; for the van ploon millions had been accumulated by the growth of tall office buildings out of a worthless manhattan swamp. “we should never sell the property.”
233“there are a dozen arguments against keeping it,” returned the nasal voice of old joseph g. clark. “the chief one is the necessity of making a large investment in these new tenements.”
the reverend smith boyd rose again, shutting the light from the red robe of the good shepherd out of quietly concentrated jim sargent’s eyes.
“i object to this entire discussion,” he stated. “we have a moral obligation which forbids us to discuss matters of investment and profit within these walls as if we were a lard trust. we have neglected our moral obligation in vedder court, until we are as blackened with sin as the thief on the cross.”
shrewd old rufus manning looked at the young rector curiously. he was puzzled over the change in him.
“don’t swing the pendulum too far, doctor boyd,” manning reminded him, with a great deal of kindliness. these two had met often in vedder court. “our sins, such as they are, are more passive than active.”
it was, of course, old nicholas van ploon who fell back again on the stock argument which had been quite sufficient to soothe his conscience for all these years.
“we give these people cheaper rent than they can find anywhere in the city.”
“we should continue to do so, but in cleaner and more wholesome quarters,” quickly returned the rector. “this is the home of all these poverty stricken people whom market square church has taken under its shelter, and we have no right to dispose of it.”
“that’s what i say,” and nicholas van ploon nodded his round head. “we should not sell the property.”
“we can not for shame, if for nothing else,” agreed the rector, seizing on every point of advantage to support 234his intense desire to lift the vedder court derelicts from the depth of their degradation. “we lie now under the disgrace of having owned property so filthy that the city was compelled to order it torn down. the only way in which we can redeem the reputation of market square church is to replace those tenements with better ones, and conduct them as a benefit to the people rather than to our own pockets.”
“that’s a clever way of putting it,” commended jim sargent. “it’s time we did something to get rid of our disgrace,” and he was most earnest about it. he had been the most uncomfortable of all these vestrymen in the past few days; for the disgrace of market square church had been a very reliable topic of conversation in gail sargent’s neighbourhood.
the nasal voice of smooth-shaven old joseph g. clark drawled into the little silence which ensued.
“what about the cathedral?” he asked, and the hush which followed was far deeper than the one which he had broken. even the reverend smith boyd was driven to some fairly profound thought. his bedroom and his study were lined with sketches of the stupendously beautiful cathedral, the most expensive in the world, in which he was to disseminate the gospel.
“suppose we come back to earth,” resumed clark, who had built the standard cereal company into a monopoly of all the breadstuffs by that process. “if we rebuild we set ourselves back in the cathedral project ten years. you can’t wipe out what you call our disgrace, even if you give all these paupers free board and compulsory baths. my proposition is to telephone for edward e. allison, and tell him we’re ready to accept his offer.”
“not while i’m a member of this vestry,” declared 235nicholas van ploon, swivelling himself to defy joseph g. clark. “we don’t sell the property.”
“i put mr. clark’s proposition as a motion,” jerked w. t. chisholm, and in the heated argument which ensued, the good shepherd in the window, taking advantage of the shifting sun, removed from the room the light of the red robe.
in the end, the practical minded members won over the sentimentalists, if nicholas van ploon could be classed under that heading, and allison was telephoned. before they were through wrangling over the decision to have him meet them, allison was among them. one might almost have thought that he had been waiting for the call; but he exchanged no more friendly glances with clark and chisholm, of the new international transportation company, than he did with any of the others.
“well, allison, we’ve about decided to accept your offer for the vedder court property,” stated manning.
“i haven’t made you any, but i’m willing,” returned allison.
jim sargent drew from his pocket a memorandum slip.
“you offered us a sum which, at three and a half per cent., would accrue, in ten years, to forty-two million dollars,” he reminded the president of the municipal transportation company. “that figures to a spot-cash proposition of thirty-one millions, with a repeating decimal of one; so somebody will have to lose a cent.”
“that offer is withdrawn,” said allison.
“i don’t see why,” objected jim sargent. “the property is as valuable for your purpose as it ever was.”
“i don’t dispute that; but in that offer i allowed you 236for the income earning capacity of your improved property. since that capacity is stopped, i don’t feel obliged to pay you for it, or, in other words, to make up to you the loss which the city has compelled you to sustain.”
“there is some show of reason in what allison says,” observed joseph g. clark.
chisholm leaned forward, with his elbows on the table, around the edge of which were carved the heads of winged cherubs.
“what is your present offer?”
“twenty-five million; cash.”
“we refuse!” announced nicholas van ploon, bobbing his round head emphatically.
“i’m not so sure that we do,” returned clark. “i have been studying property values in that neighbourhood, and i doubt if we can obtain more.”
“then we don’t sell!” insisted nicholas van ploon.
“i scarcely think we wish to take up this discussion with mr. allison until we have digested the offer,” observed the quiet voice of manning, and, on this hint, allison withdrew.
he smiled as he heard the voices which broke out in controversy the moment he had closed the door behind him. being so near, he naturally called on gail sargent, and found her entertaining a little tea party of the gayest and brightest whom aunt helen davies could bring together.
she came into the little reception “cosy” to meet allison, smiling with pleasure. there seemed to be a degree of wistfulness in her greeting of her friends since the night of her return.
“of course i couldn’t overlook an opportunity to drop in,” said allison, shaking her by both hands, and 237holding them while he surveyed her critically. there was a tremendous comfort in his strength.
“so you only called because you were in the neighbourhood,” bantered gail.
“guilty,” he laughed. “i’ve just been paying attention to my religious duties.”
“i wasn’t aware that you knew you had any,” returned gail, sitting in the shadow of the window jamb. allison’s eyes were too searching.
“i attend a vestry meeting now and then,” he replied, and then he laughed shortly. “i’d rather do business with forty corporations than with one vestry. a church always expects to conduct its share of the negotiations on a strictly commercial basis, while it expects you to mingle a little charity with your end of the transactions.”
“the vedder court property,” she guessed, with a slight contraction of her brows.
“still after it,” said allison, and talked of other matters.
jim sargent returned, and glancing into the little reception tête-à-tête as he passed, saw allison and came back.
“i didn’t expect to see you so soon,” wondered allison.
“we broke up in a row,” laughed jim sargent. “clark and chisholm were willing to accept your price, but the rest of us listened to doctor boyd and nicholas van ploon, and fell. we insist on our cathedral, and doctor boyd’s plan seems the best way to get it, though even that may necessitate a four or five years’ delay.”
“what’s his plan?” asked allison.
“rebuilding,” returned sargent. “we can put up tenements good enough to pass the building inspectors 238and to last fifteen years. with the same rents we are now receiving, we can offer them better quarters, and, as doctor boyd suggested, redeem ourselves from some of the disgrace of this whole proceeding. clever, sensible idea, i think.”
gail was leaning forward, with her fingers clasped around her knee; her brown eyes had widened, and a little red spot had appeared in either cheek; her red lips were half parted, as she looked up in wonder at her uncle jim.
“is that the plan upon which they have decided?” and allison looked at his watch.
“well, hardly,” frowned sargent. “we couldn’t swing clark and chisholm. at the last minute they suggested that we might build lofts, and the impending fracas seemed too serious to take up just now, so we’ve tabled the whole thing.”
allison smiled, and slipped his watch back in his pocket.
“it’s fairly definite, however, that you won’t sell,” he concluded.
“not at your figure,” laughed sargent. “if we took your money, doctor boyd would be too old to preach in the new cathedral.”
“he’ll pull it through some way,” declared allison. “he’s as smart as a whip.”
neither gentleman had noticed gail. she had settled back in her chair during these last speeches, weary and listless, and overcome with a sense of some humiliation too evasive to be properly framed even in thought. she had a sense that she had given away something vastly precious, and which would never be valued. neither did they notice that she changed suddenly to relief. she had been justified in her decision.
239she took the reins of conversation herself after uncle jim had left, and entertained allison so brightly that he left with impatience at the tea party which monopolised her.
later, when the reverend smith boyd dropped in, he met with a surprising and disconcerting vivacity. in his eyes there was pain and suffering, and inexpressible hunger, but in hers there was only dancing frivolity; a little too ebullient, perhaps, if he had been wise enough to know; but he was not.
