“I don’t see why,” objected Jim Sargent. “The property is as valuable for your purpose as it ever was.”
“I don’t dispute that; but in that offer I allowed you for the income earning capacity of your improved property. Since that capacity is stopped, I don’t feel obliged to pay you for it, or, in other words, to make up to you the loss which the city has compelled you to sustain.”
“There is some show of reason in what Allison says,” observed Joseph G. Clark.
Chisholm leaned forward, with his elbows on the table, around the edge of which were carved the heads of winged cherubs.
“We refuse!” announced Nicholas Van Ploon, bobbing his round head emphatically.
“I’m not so sure that we do,” returned Clark. “I have been studying property values in that neighbourhood, and I doubt if we can obtain more.”
“Then we don’t sell!” insisted Nicholas Van Ploon.
“I scarcely think we wish to take up this discussion with Mr. Allison until we have digested the offer,” observed the quiet voice of Manning, and, on this hint, Allison withdrew.
He smiled as he heard the voices which broke out in controversy the moment he had closed the door behind him. Being so near, he naturally called on Gail Sargent, and found her entertaining a little tea party of the gayest and brightest whom Aunt Helen Davies could bring together.
She came into the little reception “cosy” to meet Allison, smiling with pleasure. There seemed to be a degree of wistfulness in her greeting of her friends since the night of her return.
“Of course I couldn’t overlook an opportunity to drop in,” said Allison, shaking her by both hands, and holding them while he surveyed her critically. There was a tremendous comfort in his strength.
“So you only called because you were in the neighbourhood,” bantered Gail.
“Guilty,” he laughed. “I’ve just been paying attention to my religious duties.”
“I wasn’t aware that you knew you had any,” returned Gail, sitting in the shadow of the window jamb. Allison’s eyes were too searching.
“I attend a vestry meeting now and then,” he replied, and then he laughed shortly. “I’d rather do business with forty corporations than with one vestry. A church always expects to conduct its share of the negotiations on a strictly commercial basis, while it expects you to mingle a little charity with your end of the transactions.”