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.