The rehearsal continued. Laura, who did not come on during the act, went back to her chair in the corner of the room.
But the original group had been broken up. Mrs. Cressler was in the dining-room with the Gretry girl, while Jadwin, Aunt Wess’, and Cressler himself were deep in a discussion of mind-reading and spiritualism.
As Laura came up, Jadwin detached himself from the others and met her.
“Poor Miss Gretry!” he observed. “Always the square peg in the round hole. I’ve sent out for some smelling salts.”
It seemed to Laura that the capitalist was especially well-looking on this particular evening. He never dressed with the smartness of Sheldon Corthell or Landry Court, but in some way she did not expect that he should. His clothes were not what she was aware were called “stylish,” but she had had enough experience with her own tailor-made gowns to know that the material was the very best that money could buy. The apparent absence of any padding in the broad shoulders of the frock coat he wore, to her mind, more than compensated for the ready-made scarf, and if the white waistcoat was not fashionably cut, she knew that she had never been able to afford a pique skirt of just that particular grade.
“Suppose we go into the reception-room,” he observed abruptly. “Charlie bought a new clock last week that’s a marvel. You ought to see it.”
“No,” she answered. “I am quite comfortable here, and I want to see how Page does in this act.”
“I am afraid, Miss Dearborn,” he continued, as they found their places, “that you did not have a very good time Sunday afternoon.”
He referred to the Easter festival at his mission school. Laura had left rather early, alleging neuralgia and a dinner engagement.
“Why, yes I did,” she replied. “Only, to tell the truth, my head ached a little.” She was ashamed that she did not altogether delight in her remembrance of Jadwin on that afternoon. He had addressed the school, with earnestness it was true, but in a strain decidedly conventional. And the picture he made leading the singing, beating time with the hymnbook, and between the verses declaring that “he wanted to hear everyone’s voice in the next verse,” did not appeal very forcibly to her imagination. She fancied Sheldon Corthell doing these things, and could not forbear to smile. She had to admit, despite the protests of conscience, that she did prefer the studio to the Sunday school.
“Oh,” remarked Jadwin, “I’m sorry to hear you had a headache. I suppose my little micks” (he invariably spoke of his mission children thus) “do make more noise than music.”
“I found them very interesting.”
“No, excuse me, but I’m afraid you didn’t. My little micks are not interesting—to look at nor to listen to. But I, kind of—well, I don’t know,” he began pulling his mustache. “It seems to suit me to get down there and get hold of these people. You know Moody put me up to it. He was here about five years ago, and I went to one of his big meetings, and then to all of them. And I met the fellow, too, and I tell you, Miss Dearborn, he stirred me all up. I didn’t ‘get religion.’ No, nothing like that. But I got a notion it was time to be up and doing, and I figured it out that business principles were as good in religion as they are—well, in La Salle Street, and that if the church people—the men I mean—put as much energy, and shrewdness, and competitive spirit into the saving of souls as they did into the saving of dollars that we might get somewhere. And so I took hold of a half dozen broken-down, bankrupt Sunday school concerns over here on Archer Avenue that were fighting each other all the time, and amalgamated them all—a regular trust, just as if they were iron foundries—and turned the incompetents out and put my subordinates in, and put the thing on a business basis, and by now, I’ll venture to say, there’s not a better organised Sunday school in all Chicago, and I’ll bet if D. L. Moody were here today he’d say, ‘Jadwin, well done, thou good and faithful servant.’ ”
“I haven’t a doubt of it, Mr. Jadwin,” Laura hastened to exclaim. “And you must not think that I don’t believe you are doing a splendid work.”
“Well, it suits me,” he repeated. “I like my little micks, and now and then I have a chance to get hold of the kind that it pays to push along. About four months ago I came across a boy in the Bible class; I guess he’s about sixteen; name is Bradley—Billy Bradley, father a confirmed drunk, mother takes in washing, sister—we won’t speak about; and he seemed to be bright and willing to work, and I gave him a job in my agent’s office, just directing envelopes. Well, Miss Dearborn, that boy has a desk of his own now, and the agent tells me he’s one of the very best men he’s got. He does his work so well that I’ve been able to discharge two other fellows who sat around and watched the clock for lunch hour, and Bradley does their work now better and quicker than they did, and saves me twenty dollars a week; that’s a thousand a year. So much for a business like Sunday school; so much for taking a good aim when you cast your bread upon the waters. The last time I saw Moody I said, ‘Moody, my motto is “not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, praising the Lord.” ’ I remember we were out driving at the time, I took him out behind Lizella—she’s almost straight Wilkes’ blood and can trot in two-ten, but you can believe he didn’t know that—and, as I say, I told him what my motto was, and he said, ‘J., good for you; you keep to that.
