"Do you wish me," interrupted the minister, "to promote the establishment
of this union? Is that why you speak to me of it?"
"Why, I don't know _why_ I speak to you of it," she replied with a
laugh of embarrassment, to which he was cold, apparently. "I certainly
couldn't ask you to take part in an affair that you didn't approve."
"I don't know that I disapprove of it. Properly managed, it might be a good
thing."
"Yes, of course. But I understand why you might not sympathise with that
part of it, and that is why I told you of it," said Annie.
"What part?"
"The--the--theatricals."
"Why not?" asked the minister.
"I know--Mrs. Bolton told me you were very liberal," Annie faltered on;
"but I didn't expect you as a--But of course--"
"I read Shakespeare a great deal," said Mr. Peck. "I have never been in the
theatre; but I should like to see one of his plays represented where it
could cause no one to offend."
"Yes," said Annie, "and this would be by amateurs, and there could be no
_possible_ 'offence in it.' I wished to know how the general idea
would strike you. Of course the ladies would be only too glad of your
advice and co-operation. Their plan is to sell tickets to every one for the
theatricals, and to a certain number of invited persons for a supper, and a
little dance afterward on the lawn."
"I don't know if I understand exactly," said the minister.
Annie repeated her statement more definitely, and explained, from Mr.
Brandreth, as before, that the invitations were to be given so as to
eliminate the shop-hand element from the supper and dance.
Mr. Peck listened quietly. "That would prevent my taking part in the
affair," he said, as quietly as he had listened.
"Of course--dancing," Annie began.
"It is not that. Many people who hold strictly to the old opinions now
allow their children to learn dancing. But I could not join at all with
those who were willing to lay the foundations of a Social Union in a social
disunion--in the exclusion of its beneficiaries from the society of their
benefactors."
He was not sarcastic, but the grotesqueness of the situation as he had
sketched it was apparent. She remembered now that she had felt something
incongruous in it when Mr. Brandreth exposed it, but not deeply.