persuasive,
apologetic, strenuous. Although the day was not particularly warm, he
began to perspire a little; and he repeated the words over to himself,
"I understand you." What the deuce did the rector know? He had somehow
the air of knowing everything--more than Mr. Plimpton did. And Mr.
Plimpton was beginning to have the unusual and most disagreeable feeling
of having been weighed in the balance and found wanting. He glanced at
his guest, who sat quite still, the head bent a trifle, the disturbing
gray eyes fixed contemplatively an him--accusingly. And yet the
accusation did not seem personal with the clergyman, whose eyes were
nearly the medium, the channels of a greater, an impersonal Ice. It was
true that the man had changed. He was wholly baffling to Mr. Plimpton,
whose sense of alarm increased momentarily into an almost panicky feeling
as he remembered what Langmaid had said. Was this inscrutable rector of
St. John's gazing, knowingly, at the half owner of Harrods Hotel in
Dalton Street, who couldn't take the Gospel literally? There was
evidently no way to find out at once, and suspense would be unbearable,
in vain he told himself that these thoughts were nonsense, the discomfort
persisted, and he had visions of that career in which he had become
one of the first citizens and the respected husband of Charlotte Gore
clashing down about his ears. Why? Because a clergyman should choose
to be quixotic, fanatical? He did not took quixotic, fanatical, Mr.
Plimpton had to admit,--but a good deal saner than he, Mr. Plimpton, must
have appeared at that moment. His throat was dry, and he didn't dare to
make the attempt to relight his cigar.

"There's nothing like getting together--keeping in touch with people,
Mr. Hodder," he managed to say. "I've been out of town a good deal this
summer--putting on a little flesh, I'm sorry to admit. But I've been
meaning to drop into the parish house and talk over those revised plans
with you. I will drop in--in a day or two. I'm interested in the work,
intensely interested, and so is Mrs. Plimpton. She'll help you. I'm
sorry you can't lunch with me."

He had the air, now, of the man who finds himself disagreeably and
unexpectedly closeted with a lunatic; and his language, although he
sought to control it, became even a trifle less coherent.

"You must make allowances for us business men, Mr. Hodder. I mean, of
course, we're sometimes a little lax in our duties--in the summer, that
i