This being a question the lawyer was unable to answer, the conversation came to another pause.  And it was then that Mr. Plimpton’s natural optimism reasserted itself.

“It isn’t done,—­the thing we’re afraid of, that’s all,” he proclaimed, after a turn or two about the room.  “Hodder’s a gentleman, as I said, and if he feels as we suspect he does he’ll resign like a gentleman and a Christian.  I’ll have a talk with him—­oh, you can trust me!  I’ve got an idea.  Gordon Atterbury told me the other day there is a vacancy in a missionary diocese out west, and that Hodder’s name had been mentioned, among others, to the bishops for the place.  He’d make a rattling missionary bishop, you know, holding services in saloons and knocking men’s heads together for profanity, and he boxes like a professional.  Now, a word from Eldon Parr might turn the trick.  Every parson wants to be a bishop.”

Langmaid shook his head.

“You’re getting out of your depths, my friend.  The Church isn’t Wall Street.  And missionary bishops aren’t chosen to make convenient vacancies.”

“I don’t mean anything crude,” Mr. Plimpton protested.  “But a word from the chief layman of a diocese like this, a man who never misses a General Convention, and does everything handsomely, might count,—­particularly if they’re already thinking of Hodder.  The bishops would never suspect we wanted to get rid of him.”

“Well,” said Langmaid, “I advise you to go easy, all along the line.”

“Oh, I’ll go easy enough,” Mr. Plimpton assented, smiling.  “Do you remember how I pulled off old Senator Matthews when everybody swore he was dead set on voting for an investigation in the matter of those coal lands Mr. Parr got hold of in his state?”

“Matthews isn’t Hodder, by a long shat,” said Langmaid.  “If you ask me my opinion, I’ll tell you frankly that if Hodder has made up his mind to stay in St. John’s a ton of dynamite and all the Eldon Parrs in the nation can’t get him out.”

“Can’t the vestry make him resign?” asked Mr. Plimpton, uncomfortably.

“You’d better, go home and study your canons, my friend.  Nothing short of conviction for heresy can do it, if he doesn’t want to go.”

“You wouldn’t exactly call him a heretic,” Mr. Plimpton said ruefully.

“Would you know a heretic if you saw one?” demanded Langmaid.

“No, but my wife would, and Gordon Atterbury and Constable would, and Eldon Parr.  But don’t let’s get nervous.”

“Well, that’s sensible at any rate,” said Langmaid . . . .

So Mr. Plimpton had gone off optimistic, and felt even more so the next morning after he had had his breakfast in the pleasant dining room of the Gore Mansion, of which he was now master.  As he looked out through the open window at the sunshine in the foliage of Waverley Place, the prospect of his being removed from that position of dignity and influence on the vestry of St. John’s, which he had achieved, with others, after so much walking around the walls, seemed remote.  And he reflected with satisfaction upon the fact that his wife, who was his prime minister, would be home from the East that day.  Two heads were better than one, especially if one of the two were Charlotte Gore’s.  And Mr. Plimpton had often reflected upon the loss to the world, and the gain to himself, that she was a woman.