The rector occasionally dined there.  He had acquired a real affection for Mrs. Ferguson, who resembled a burgomaster’s wife in her evening gowns and jewels, and whose simple social ambitions had been gratified beyond her dreams.  Her heart had not shrunken in the process, nor had she forgotten her somewhat heterogeneous acquaintances in the southern part of the city.  And it was true that when Gertrude Constable had nearly died of appendicitis, it was on this lady’s broad bosom that Mrs. Constable had wept.  Mrs. Ferguson had haunted the house, regardless of criticism, and actually quivering with sympathy.  Her more important dinner parties might have been likened to ill-matched fours-in-hand, and Holder had sometimes felt more of pity than of amusement as she sat with an expression of terror on her face, helplessly watching certain unruly individuals taking their bits in their teeth and galloping madly downhill.  On one occasion, when he sat beside her, a young man, who shall be nameless, was suddenly heard to remark in the midst of an accidental lull: 

“I never go to church.  What’s the use?  I’m afraid most of us don’t believe in hell any more.”

A silence followed:  of the sort that chills.  And the young man, glancing down the long board at the clergyman, became as red as the carnation in his buttonhole, and in his extremity gulped down more champagne.

“Things are in a dreadful state nowadays!” Mrs. Ferguson gasped to a paralyzed company, and turned an agonized face to Holder.  “I’m so sorry,” she said, “I don’t know why I asked him to-night, except that I have to have a young man for Nan, and he’s just come to the city, and I was sorry for him.  He’s very promising in a business way; he’s in Mr. Plimpton’s trust company.”

“Please don’t let it trouble you.”  Holder turned and smiled a little, and added whimsically:  “We may as well face the truth.”

“Oh, I should expect you to be good about it, but it was unpardonable,” she cried . . . .

In the intervals when he gained her attention he strove, by talking lightly of other things, to take her mind off the incident, but somehow it had left him strangely and—­he felt—­disproportionately depressed, —­although he had believed himself capable of facing more or less philosophically that condition which the speaker had so frankly expressed.  Yet the remark, somehow, had had an illuminating effect like a flashlight, revealing to him the isolation of the Church as never before.  And after dinner, as they were going to the smoking-room, the offender accosted him shamefacedly.

“I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Holder,” he stammered.

That the tall rector’s regard was kindly did not relieve his discomfort.  Hodder laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it,” he answered, “I have only one regret as to what you said—­that it is true.”

The other looked at him curiously.

“It’s mighty decent of you to take it this way,” he laid.  Further speech failed him.