“For the reason I have stated, gentlemen, I decline to resign,” he said.  “I stand upon my canonical rights.”

Francis Ferguson arose, his voice actually trembling with anger.  There is something uncanny in the passion of a man whose life has been ordered by the inexorable rules of commerce, who has been wont to decide all questions from the standpoint of dollars and cents.  If one of his own wax models had suddenly become animated, the effect could not have been more startling.

In the course of this discussion, he declared, Mr. Hodder had seen fit to make grave and in his opinion unwarranted charges concerning the lives of some, if not all, of the gentlemen who sat here.  It surprised him that these remarks had not been resented, but he praised a Christian forbearance on the part of his colleagues which he was unable to achieve.  He had no doubt that their object had been to spare Mr. Hodder’s feelings as much as possible, but Mr. Hodder had shown no disposition to spare their own.  He had outraged them, Mr. Ferguson thought,—­wantonly so.  He had made these preposterous and unchristian charges an excuse for his determination to remain in a position where his usefulness had ceased.

No one, unfortunately, was perfect in this life,—­not even Mr. Hodder.  He, Francis Ferguson, was far from claiming to be so.  But he believed that this arraignment of the men who stood highest in the city for decency, law, and order, who supported the Church, who revered its doctrines, who tried to live Christian lives, who gave their time and their money freely to it and to charities, that this arraignment was an arrogant accusation and affront to be repudiated.  He demanded that Mr. Hodder be definite.  If he had any charges to make, let him make them here and now.

The consternation, the horror which succeeded such a stupid and unexpected tactical blunder on the part of the usually astute Mr. Ferguson were felt rather than visually discerned.  The atmosphere might have been described as panicky.  Asa Waring and Phil Goodrich smiled as Wallis Plimpton, after a moment’s hush, scrambled to his feet, his face pale, his customary easiness and nonchalance now the result of an obvious effort.  He, too, tried to smile, but swallowed instead as he remembered his property in Dalton Street . . . .  Nelson Langmaid smiled, in spite of himself. . .  Mr. Plimpton implored his fellow-members not to bring personalities into the debate, and he was aware all the while of the curious, pitying expression of the rector.  He breathed a sigh of relief at the opening words of Hodder, who followed him.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I have no intention of being personal, even by unanimous consent.  But if Mr. Ferguson will come to me after this meeting I shall have not the least objection to discussing this matter with him in so far as he himself is concerned.  I can only assure you now that I have not spoken without warrant.”

There was, oddly enough, no acceptance of this offer by Mr. Ferguson.  Another silence ensued, broken, at last, by a voice for which they had all been unconsciously waiting; a voice which, though unemotional, cold, and matter-of-fact, was nevertheless commanding, and long accustomed to speak with an overwhelming authority.  Eldon Parr did not rise.