The daughter of Thurston Gore, with all her astuteness and real estate, was of a naivete in regard to spiritual matters that Hodder had grown to recognize as impermeable.  In an evening gown, with a string of large pearls testing on her firm and glowing neck, she appeared a concrete refutation of the notion of rebirth, the triumph of an unconscious philosophy of material common-sense.  However, in parish house affairs, Hodder had found her practical brain of no slight assistance.

“I think it quite wonderful,” she remarked, on the occasion at which he was the guest of honour in what was still called the new Gore mansion, “that you have come to know Mr. Parr so well in such a short time.  How did you do it, Mr. Hodder?  Of course Wallis knows him, and sees a great deal of him in business matters.  He relies on Wallis.  But they tell me you have grown more intimate with him than any one has been since Alison left him.”

There is, in Proverbs or Ecclesiastes, a formula for answering people in accordance with their point of view.  The rector modestly disclaimed intimacy.  And he curbed his curiosity about Alison for the reason that he preferred to hear her story from another source.

“Oh, but you are intimate!” Mrs. Plimpton protested.  “Everybody says so—­that Mr. Parr sends for you all the time.  What is he like when he’s alone, and relaxed?  Is he ever relaxed?” The lady had a habit of not waiting for answers to her questions.  “Do you know, it stirs my imagination tremendously when I think of all the power that man has.  I suppose you know he has become one of a very small group of men who control this country, and naturally he has been cruelly maligned.  All he has to do is to say a word to his secretary, and he can make men or ruin them.  It isn’t that he does ruin them—­I don’t mean that.  He uses his wealth, Wallis says, to maintain the prosperity of the nation!  He feels his trusteeship.  And he is so generous!  He has given a great deal to the church, and now,” she added, “I am sure he will give more.”

Hodder was appalled.  He felt helpless before the weight of this onslaught.

“I dare say he will continue to assist, as he has in the past,” he managed to say.

“Of course it’s your disinterestedness,” she proclaimed, examining him frankly.  “He feels that you don’t want anything.  You always strike me as so splendidly impartial, Mr. Hodder.”

Fortunately, he was spared an answer.  Mr. Plimpton, who was wont to apply his gifts as a toastmaster to his own festivals, hailed him from the other end of the table.

And Nelson Langmaid, who had fallen into the habit of dropping into Hodder’s rooms in the parish house on his way uptown for a chat about books, had been struck by the rector’s friendship with the banker.

“I don’t understand how you managed it, Hodder, in such a short time,” he declared.  “Mr. Parr’s a difficult man.  In all these years, I’ve been closer to him than any one else, and I don’t know him today half as well as you do.”