One day late in May, Clayton, walking up-town in lieu of the golf he had
been forced to abandon, met Doctor Haverford on the street, and found
his way barred by that rather worried-looking gentleman.
"I was just going to see you, Clayton," he said. "About two things. I'll
walk back a few blocks with you."
He was excited, rather exalted.
"I'm going in," he announced. "Regimental chaplain. I've got a year's
leave of absence. I'm rather vague about what a chaplain does, but I
rather fancy he can be useful."
"You'll get over, of course. You're lucky. And you'll find plenty to
do."
"I've been rather anxious," Doctor Haverford confided. "I've been a
clergyman so long that I don't know just how I'll measure up as a man.
You know what I mean. I am making no reflection on the church. But I've
been sheltered and--well, I've been looked after. I don't think I am
physically brave. It would be a fine thing," he said wryly, "if the
chaplain were to turn and run under fire!"
"I shouldn't worry about that."
"My salary is to go on. But I don't like that, either. If I hadn't a
family I wouldn't accept it. Delight thinks I shouldn't, anyhow. As a
matter of fact, there ought to be no half-way measures about our giving
ourselves. If I had a son to give it would be different."
Clayton looked straight ahead. He knew that the rector had, for the
moment, forgotten that he had a son to give and that he had not yet
given.
"Why don't you accept a small allowance?" he inquired quietly. "Or,
better still, why don't you let me know how much it will take and let
me do it? I'd like to feel that I was represented in France--by you," he
added.
And suddenly the rector remembered. He was most uncomfortable, and very
flushed.
"Thanks. I can't let you do that, of course."
"Why not?"
"Because, hang it all, Clayton, I'm not a parasite. I took the car,
because it enabled me to do my parish work better. But I'm not going to
run off to war and let you keep my family."
Clayton glanced at him, at his fine erect old figure, his warmly flushed
face. War did strange things. There was a new light in the rector's once
worldly if kindly eyes. He had the strained look of a man who sees great
things, as yet far away, and who would hasten toward them. Insensibly he
quickened his pace.