ot unkindly, but with a touch of indifference.

"You treat us shamefully," he informed her, "upon my word! But I'm
coming to call."

"Do," said Alison. Hodder caught her eye again, and this time he was
sure that she surprised in him a certain disdain of Mr. Atterbury's
zeal. Her smile was faint, yet unmistakable.

He resented it. Indeed, it was with a well-defined feeling of antagonism
that he took his seat, and this was enhanced as they flew westward, Mr.
Parr wholly absorbed with the speaking trumpet, energetically rebuking
at every bounce. In the back of the rector's mind lay a weight, which he
identified, at intervals, with what he was now convinced was the failure
of his sermon... Alison took no part in the casual conversation that
began when they reached the boulevard and Mr. Parr abandoned the
trumpet, but lay back in silence and apparently with entire comfort in a
corner of the limousine.

At the lunch-table Mr. Parr plunged into a discussion of some of the
still undecided details of the new settlement house, in which, as the
plan developed, he had become more and more interested. He had made
himself responsible, from time to time, for additional sums, until the
original estimate had been almost doubled. Most of his suggestions had
come from Hodder, who had mastered the subject with a thoroughness that
appealed to the financier: and he had gradually accepted the rector's
idea of concentrating on the children. Thus he had purchased an
adjoining piece of land that was to be a model playground, in connection
with the gymnasium and swimming-pool. The hygienic department was to be
all that modern science could desire.

"If we are going to do the thing," the banker would, remark, "we may as
well do it thoroughly; we may as well be leaders and not followers."

So, little by little, the scheme had grown to proportions that sometimes
appalled the rector when he realized how largely he had been responsible
for the additions,--in spite of the lukewarmness with which he had
begun. And yet it had occasionally been Mr. Parr who, with a sweep
of his hand, had added thousands to a particular feature: thus the
dance-hall had become, in prospect, a huge sun-parlour at the top of the
building, where the children were to have their kindergartens and games
in winter; and which might be shaded and opened up to the breezes
in summer. What had reconciled Hodder to the enterprise most of all,
however, was the chapel--in the plan a