Dangerous Days

The rector had not been a shining light for years without learning how

to control his expression. He had a second, too, while she contorted her

face again, to recover himself.

"Thank you," he said gravely. "I much appreciate your telling me."

Mrs. Hayden had lowered her voice still more. The revelation took on the

appearance of conspiracy.

"In the early spring, probably," she said, "we shall need your services,

and your blessing."

So that was the end of one dream. He had dreamed so many--in his youth,

of spiritualizing his worldly flock; in middle life, of a bishopric; he

had dreamed of sons, to carry on the name he had meant to make famous.

But the failures of those dreams had been at once his own failure and

his own disappointment. This was different.

He was profoundly depressed. He wandered out of the crowd and, after

colliding with a man from the caterer's in a dark rear hall, found his

way up the servant's staircase to the small back room where he kept

the lares and penates of his quiet life, his pipe, his fishing rods, a

shabby old smoking coat, and back files of magazines which he intended

some day to read, when he got round to it.

The little room was jammed with old furniture, stripped from the lower

floor to make room for the crowd. He had to get down on his knees and

crawl under a table to reach his pipe. But he achieved it finally, still

with an air of abstraction, and lighted it. Then, as there was no place

to sit down, he stood in the center of the little room and thought.

He did not go down again. He heard the noise of the arriving and

departing motors subside, its replacement by the sound of clattering

china, being washed below in the pantry. He went down finally, to

be served with a meal largely supplemented by the left-overs of the

afternoon refreshments, ornate salads, fancy ices, and an overwhelming

table decoration that shut him off from his wife and Delight, and left

him in magnificent solitude behind a pyramid of flowers.

Bits of the afternoon's gossip reached him; the comments on Delight's

dress and her flowers; the reasons certain people had not come. But

nothing of the subject nearest his heart. At the end of the meal Delight

got up.

"I'm going to call up Mr. Spencer," she said. "He has about fifty

dollars' worth of thanks coming to him."

"I didn't see Graham," said Mrs. Haverford. "Was he here?"