There was an instant's hush about the table. Olive, in the lee of the clerical elbow and with young Dolph Dennison by her side, was palpably in danger of hysterics. The others, all but Brenton, were well enough accustomed to the doctor to await the finish of the interview with no small degree of interest. Brenton felt the pause and reddened a little, more in marital self-consciousness than from any specific sense of conjugal alarm. Indeed, the only two unconscious ones about the table were the two protagonists: Catia and the absent-minded doctor, neither of whom appeared to be in the least aware of any pause in the general talk. "Nothing at all," Catia told him suavely. "It was only that I wanted--" Again there came the instant's hesitation. Again the doctor employed that instant in a frenzied search about the table to discover and make good the missing need. This time, though, his success was better. It was with a sigh of unmistakable relief that his fingers shut upon the salt. His gesture crossed the final words of Catia who had resumed her broken phrase, now rounding to a satisfactory conclusion. "--So much to meet you, Doctor Keltridge. Ever since I heard of you," her eyes looked smilingly into his keen ones which now, a little bit inscrutable, were studying her intently from beneath their bushy brows; "I have told Scott that I felt quite certain that we should find out we had any number of tastes in common." This time, the pause was not of Catia's making. The doctor let it lengthen while, to all of his old friends about the table, it was plain that the motors of his ego now were working at full speed. Meanwhile, his keen old eyes were still resting upon Catia's up-raised face, and in them was the same look an aged sheepdog might bestow upon a youthful terrier puppy. Then a smile broke over the keen face, and the stern eyes lighted, as the doctor spoke. "I surely hope so, Mrs. Brenton," he answered her benignantly. "As you see, I like horse radish with my oysters. How is it about you?" CHAPTER TEN It was not until a good two weeks later that Olive Keltridge came into any actual contact with the new rector. At the Dennison dinner, she had been too busy in dodging the conversational assaults of the rector's lady to pay any great amount of attention to the rector himself. Since that time, she had viewed Brenton only with the height of the chancel steps between them. However, Olive was conscious that the man interested her, even at that distance; and it was with some degree of impatience that she confessed her interest to young Dolph Dennison who, as a rule, was her safety valve. "I despise a woman who goes mad about the clergy, Dolph, and I despise the way this new rector-man of ours keeps my eyes glued upon him, all the time he's preaching. It isn't the quality of his sermons, either; it is something inherent in the man himself that causes me to watch him."