Show LILLIAN rr I 1 I 1 SYNOPSIS 12 fl at a vestry meeting of the market square church gall sargent tell kev smith boyd that market square church ta apparently lucrative business enterprise aillon takes gall riding in his motor car she finds cold disapproval in the eyes of rev smith boyd allason tarts a campaign for consolidation and control of the entire transportation S tern of the world gall becomes popular grains control of transcontinental frame and arranges to absorb the ved court tenement property of market square church gall tells boyd that the cathedral market square church proposes to build will be out of profits wrung from at a meeting of the seven financial magnates of the country allason organizes the international transportation company hev smith boyd undertakes aall s spiritual instruction and gall unconsciously given ahlson a hint that solves the vedder court problem tor him on an inspection trip in allason s new subway the tunnel caves in gall goes back to her home in the her friends lure her and arly back to new york in the midst of a struggle with the creg of humanity in vedder court rev smith boyd suddenly ud denly finds that he Is a real living and lov ingman he proposes to gall out on the bergei of acceptance she remembers their religious differences and refuses CHAPTER the public arouxet clad in her filmy cream lace gown gall walked slowly into her boudoir and closed the door and sank upon her divan she did not stop tonight to let down her hair and change to her dainty negligee nor to straighten the room nor to turn on the beautiful green light instead with all the electric bulbs blazing she sat with her chin in her band and with her body perfectly in repose tried to study the whirl of her mind she was shaken she knew that shaken and stirred as she had never been before something in the depths of her had leaped up into life and cried out in agony and would not stop crying until it was satisfied t 1 I need you to walk hand in band with me about the greatest work in the world that waa it the greatest work in the worldly and waft was that to live and teach ritual in place of religion to turn worship t into a social observance to use help less belief as a ladder of ambition to reduce faith to words and hope to c recitation and charity to an obliga alon to make pomp and ceremony a k substitute for conscience and to interpose a secretary between the human heart and godt for just an Tn siant gall s eyelids dropped her long brown lashes curved upon her cheeks while beneath them her eyes glinted and a smile touched the corners of her lips then she was serious again no she bad decided wisely i there was a knock on the door and gall smiled again as she said come in mrs helen dadles entered tall and stately in her boudoir frills and ruffles she sat down in front of gall and prepared to enact the role of con mother SE ift t f boyd proposed to you tonight she charged with affectionate authority yes aunt helen and gall began to pull pins out of her hair A worried expression crossed brow of aunt helen did you accept him and she fair ly quivered with anxiety no aunt helen quite calmly piling more hairpins hair pins and still more into the little tray by her side and shaking down her rippling waves of hair aunt helen sighed a deep sigh of relief and smiled her approval gall dear you have shown a degree of carefulness which I 1 am delighted to find in you if you handle all your affairs so sensibly you have a brilliant future before you 1 I must be an awful worry to you aunt helen observed gall and walk ing over she slipped her arm around mrs dadles neck and kissed her and looked around for her chocolate box galls maid came in and mrs da ties bade her sisters niece good night most cordially and retired with a great load off her mind and bait an hour later the lights in galls pretty little suite went out it she lay long hours looking out at the pale stars if in the midst of her calm logic she suddenly burled her face in her pillows and sobbed silent ly it toward morning she awoke with a little cry to find her face and her bands hot all these things were but normal and natural it Is enough to know that she came to her break fast bright eyed and rosy checked cheeked and smiling with the pleasant greetings of the day and picked up the papers casually and lit upon the newest sen cation of the tree and entirely an curbed metropolitan press I 1 the free and entirely uncurbed met press had found vedder court and had made it the sudden focus of the public eye those few who were privileged to know antl the workings of that adroit master of the public welfare tim cor man could have recognized clearly bis fine hand in the blaze of notoriety which obscure vedder court had sud denly received after having en dured the contamination and conta cion of tb market square church ten cements for BO many yeara the city had all at once discovered that the condition was unbearable the tree and entirely uncurbed metropolitan press had taken up with great enghu the work of poking the finger of scorn at vedder court it had published photographs of the disreputable old sots of buildings and where they did not seem to drip enough the artists had re touched them it had sent budding young poes and dick anses down there to write up the place it bad sent the sob sisters there in shoals to interview the down trodden and above all things it had put prominently before the public eye the immense profit which market square church wrung from this organized misery gall turned sick at heart as she read uncle jim permitted tour morning papers to come to the bouse and the dripping details with many variations were in all of them she glanced over toward the rectory and the dignified old church standing beyond it with mingled indignation and humiliation A sort of ignominy seemed to have descended up it like a man whose features seem coarsened from the instant he Is doomed to wear prison stripes and the fact which she particularly resented was that a portion of the disgrace of market square church seemed to have descended upon her she could not make out why this should be but it was aunt grace sargent bustling about to see that gall was supplied with more kinds of delicacies than she could poa sample saw that unmistakable look of distress on gall s face and went straight up to her sister helen the creases of worry deep in her brow mrs helen dadles was having her coffee in bed and she continued that absorbing ceremony while she con soldered her sisters news 1 I did not think that gall was so deeply affected by the occurrences of last night she mused but of course doctor boyd proposed to you tonight she charged she could not sleep and ashes full of sympathy this morning and afraid that maybe ehe made a mistake and feels perfectly wretched grace sargent eat right down did the rector propose she breathlessly inquired mrs dadles poured herself some more hot coffee and nodded she refused him ohl and acute distress fettled on grace sargents Sar gents brow with such a firm clutch that it threatened to homestead the location mrs sargent shared the belief of rev smith boyd s mother that smith boyd was the finest young man in the world and galls aunt was speechless with dis may and disappointment 1 I have ceased to worry about gall s future went on mrs danlea compla gently it Is her present condition about which I 1 am most concerned she Is so conscientious and self ana that she may distress herself over this affair and I 1 must get in arly and luclle and plan a series of gay atles which will keep her mind mccu pled from morning until night in consequence of this kindly slon gall was plunged into gaiety gayety un til she loathed the scrape of a violin the mere fact that she bad no time to think did not remove the fact that sho bad a great deal to think about and the gaiety gayety only added dismally to her troubled burden meanwhile the free and entirely un curbed metropolitan press went mer rily onward with its righteous vedder court crusade until it had the public indignation properly aroused the public indignation rose to such a pitch that if the public bad not been busy with affairs of its own and if it bad not been in the habit of leaving everything to be seen to by the people financially interested and if it had not consisted chiefly of a few active vocal cords there Is not the slightest doubt it Is worth repeating that the public might have done something about vedder court aa things were it grew most satisfactorily indignant it talked of nothing else in the sub ways and on the Ls and on the sur face lines and on the condery corn muter trains and on the third day of the agitation before something else should happen to shake the populace to the very foundation of its being the city authorities condemned the ved der court property as unsanitary n human and unsafe as a menace to the public morals health and life and as a blot upon civilization this last being a fancy touch added by tim corman himself who in his old age bad a tendency to link poetry to his practicability tic ability in consequence of this decision the city authorities ordered vedder court to be forthwith torn down demolished and removed from the face of the earth thereby justify ing after all the existence of the tree and entirely uncurbed metropolitan press I 1 the exact psychological moment had been chosen the public caught at the very height of its frenzy applauded and ate its dinner in virtu ous satisfaction and gall sargent a distress crystallized into a much easier thing to handle lust plain anderl and so market square church had persisted in clutching its greedy hold on a commercial advantage so vile that even a notoriously corrupt city government had ordered it destroyed I 1 her mind was immensely relieved about rev smith boyd she had chosen well and wisely I 1 CHAPTER rev smith boyd protests the doves which in summer flirted flitted about the quiet little vestry yard and coded cooed over the vestry door would have flown away had they been at home for it was a stormy affair with loud voices and clashing ellla and a general atmosphere of which was somewhat at variance with the red robed figure of the good shepherd in the pointed window of the vestry the late arrival was josepn G dark and bis eye sought that of banker before be nodded to the jtb era and took his seat at the gothic table rev smith doyd who was particularly straight and tall today and particularly in earnest paused long enough for the slight disturbance to subside and then he finished bis speech that Is my unalterable position in the matter he declared if market square church has a mission it Is the responsibility for these miserable human wrecks whom we have made our wards we cant feed and clothe them objected banker whose white mutton chops already glowed pink from the anger reddened skin beneath it pay to pauperize the people supplemented cun stroking his sparse vandyke complacently cunningham whose sole relationship to economics con alsted in permitting bis secretary to sign checks bad imbibed a few pran caples which sufficed for all occasions 1 I do not wish to pauperize them returned the rector 1 I am willing to accept the shame of having the city show market square church its duty in exchange for the pleasure of replacing the toul tenements in ved der court with clean ones joseph 0 dark glanced again at chesholm be dirty again in ten years be observed it we build the wv type ot sanitary tenement we benall have to charge more rent or not make a penny of profit and we can t get more rent because the people who would pay it will not come into that neighborhood are we compelled to make a retorted the rector Is it necessary for market square church to remain perpetually a commercial land lord the vestry gazed at rev smith boyd in surprised disapproval their previous rector had talked like that and rev smith boyd bad been a great relict so long as the church has property at all it will meet with that persistent charge argued chesholm it seems to me that we have had enough of it my own inclination would be to sell the property outright and take up slower but less personal forms of investment old nicholas van aloon sitting far enough away to fold bis bands corn fort ably across bis tight vest screwed hla neck around so that be could glare at the banker no be objected tor the van aloon millions bad been accumulated by the growth of tall office buildings out of a worthless manhattan swamp we should never sell the property there are a dozen arguments against keeping it returned the nasal voice of old joseph G dark the chief one Is the necessity of making a large investment in these new tenements rev smith boyd rose again shut ting the light from the red robe of the good shepherd out of quietly con cent rated jim sargent a eyes I 1 object to this entire discussion be stated we have a moral obliga alon which forbids us to discuss matters of investment and profit within i these walls as if we were a lard trust we have neglected our moral obliga alon in vedder court until we are as blackened with sin as the thief on the cross shrewd old rufus manning looked at the young rector curiously he waa puzzled over the change in him don t swing the pendulum too far doctor boyd manning reminded him i with a areat deal of kindliness these two had met often in vedder court our buch as they are are more passive than active it was of course old nicholas van aloon who tell back again on the stock argument which had been quite sufficient to soothe his conscience for all these years we give these people cheaper rent than they can find anywhere in the city we should continue to do so but in cleaner and more wholesome quarters quickly returned the rector this Is the home of all these poverty stricken people whom market square church has taken under its shelter and we have no right to dispose ot it what I 1 say and nicholas van aloon nodded his round head we should not sell the proper tyM we cannot or shame U for noth ing else agreed the rector seizing on every point ot vantage to support his intense desire to lift the vedder court derelicts from the depth 0 their degradation we lie now under the disgrace ot having owned property BO filthy that the city was compelled to order it torn down the only way in which we can redeem the reputation ot market square church Is to replace those tenements with better ones and she came into the little reception cosy to meet aillon conduct them as a benefit to the people rather than to our own pock ets that s a clever way ot putting it commended jim sargent its time we did something to get rid of our disgrace and he was most earnest about it he bad been the most un comfortable of all these vestryman vestrymen vestry men in the past few days for the disgrace of market square church bad been a very reliable topic of conversation in gall sargent neighborhood the nasal voice of smooth shaven old joseph 0 dark drawled into the little silence which ensued what about the cathedral T he asked and the bush which followed was far deeper than the one which he had broken even rev smith ooyd was driven to some fairly profound thought his bedroom and bis study were lined with sketches of the stu beautiful cathedral the most expensive in the world in which he was to disseminate the gospel suppose we come back to earth resumed dark who bad built the standard cereal company into a mon of all the by that process if we rebuild we set our selves back in the cathedral project ten years you can t wipe out what you call our disgrace even it you give all these haupers paupers free board and compulsory baths my proposition is to telephone tor edward E allason All lson and tell him were ready to accept his offer not while I 1 m a member of this vestry declared nicholas van aloon himself to defy joseph 0 dark we don t sell the property I 1 put mr dark s proposition as a motion jerked W T and in the heated argument which en sued |