“Looking over the ground?” Hodder repeated, ignoring the compliment.

“Sure,” said Mr. Plimpton, smiling more benignly than ever.  “You mustn’t be modest about it.  Dalton Street.  And when that settlement house is built, I’ll guarantee it will be run on a business basis.  No nonsense.”

“What do you mean by nonsense?” Hodder asked.  He did not make the question abrupt, and there was even the hint of a smile in his eyes, which Mr. Plimpton found the more disquieting.

“Why, that’s only a form of speech.  I mean you’ll be practical, efficient, that you’ll get hold of the people of that neighbourhood and make ’em see that the world isn’t such a bad place after all, make ’em realize that we in St. John’s want to help ’em out.  That you won’t make them more foolishly discontented than they are, and go preaching socialism to them.”

“I have no intention of preaching socialism,” said Hodder.  But he laid a slight emphasis on the word which sent a cold shiver down Mr. Plimpton’s spine, and made him wonder whether there might not be something worse than socialism.

“I knew you wouldn’t,” he declared, with all the heartiness he could throw into his voice.  “I repeat, you’re a practical, sensible man.  I’ll yield to none in my belief in the Church as a moral, uplifting, necessary spiritual force in our civilization, in my recognition of her high ideals, but we business men, Mr. Hodder,—­as—­I am sure you must agree, —­have got to live, I am sorry to say, on a lower plane.  We’ve got to deal with the world as we find it, and do our little best to help things along.  We can’t take the Gospel literally, or we should all be ruined in a day, and swamp everybody else.  You understand me?

“I understand you,” said the rector.

Mr. Plimpton’s cigar had gone out.  In spite of himself, he had slipped from the easy-going, casual tone into one that was becoming persuasive, apologetic, strenuous.  Although the day was not particularly warm, he began to perspire a little; and he repeated the words over to himself, “I understand you.”  What the deuce did the rector know?  He had somehow the air of knowing everything—­more than Mr. Plimpton did.  And Mr. Plimpton was beginning to have the unusual and most disagreeable feeling of having been weighed in the balance and found wanting.  He glanced at his guest, who sat quite still, the head bent a trifle, the disturbing gray eyes fixed contemplatively an him—­accusingly.  And yet the accusation did not seem personal with the clergyman, whose eyes were nearly the medium, the channels of a greater, an impersonal Ice.  It was true that the man had changed.  He was wholly baffling to Mr. Plimpton, whose sense of alarm increased momentarily into an almost panicky feeling as he remembered what Langmaid had said.  Was this inscrutable rector of St. John’s gazing, knowingly, at the half owner of Harrods Hotel in Dalton Street, who couldn’t take the Gospel literally?