"Put it this way; you deal with many kinds of men, but do you not always feel better disposed toward a simple soul, say like our friend Fisette, than toward some shrewd person who arms himself at every conceivable point?"
"Well, that's what I feel about my people. Most of them are unarmed and they trust me, and anything I can do seems small in comparison to that trust. You've got a trust too, my friend."
Clark smiled. "That's what my directors lose no opportunity of telling me."
"But who or what is your Director?" asked the bishop, leaning forward earnestly. "You needn't be anxious, I'm not going to sermonize. Your Director is the same as mine, the great Force, call it what you will. It drove me into the church and drove you to what you are, and our first trust is to ourselves--you'll agree with me there--and with that undischarged nothing else can be carried out. Just at this moment I wish I were as competent for my job as you are for yours."
The big man raised his hand. "Not a word, for tonight I feel like Browning's Bishop Blougram who 'rolled him out a mind long crumpled, till creased consciousness lay smooth.' It does me good to rub out the wrinkles occasionally. Now tell me, looking back at the last few years in St. Marys, do you appreciate what you've done?"
"I haven't had much time to look back," said Clark thoughtfully. "The opportunity was there and I took it, then I was fortunate enough to enlist the necessary support. Since that time the district seems to have responded to every conceivable need, and we have been able to fall in step with a natural scheme for developing natural resources, that's all."
The bishop shook his head. "Not quite: it's a great drama you're enacting up there, with the rapids for a setting. They run through it all, don't they?--the changeless, elemental background before which man climbs up on the stage, makes his bow, enacts his part and gives place to some one else. You are sending out multitudes of influences that will never be determined or traced to their result. You once told me that it all began when you overheard a conversation in a train."
"Yes," Clark paused, then added with a laugh, "an example of the importance of small things. You've made your point, bishop."