Her
thought played upon them all through the sermon, rejecting
and rejecting again their application and their argument
and the spring of hope in them. She, too, knew that Finlay
was in church and, half timidly, she looked back for him,
as the congregation filed out again into the winter
streets. But he, furious, and more resolved than ever,
had gone home by another way.
CHAPTER XXVII
Octavius Milburn was not far beyond the facts when he
said that the Elgin Chamber of Commerce was practically
solid this time against the Liberal platform, though to
what extent this state of things was due to his personal
influence might be a matter of opinion. Mr Milburn was
President of the Chamber of Commerce, and his name stood
for one of the most thriving of Elgin's industries, but
he was not a person of influence except as it might be
represented in a draft on the Bank of British North
America. He had never converted anybody to anything, and
never would, possibly because the governing principle of
his life was the terror of being converted to anything
himself. If an important nonentity is an imaginable thing,
perhaps it would stand for Mr Milburn; and he found it
a more valuable combination than it may appear, since
his importance gave him position and opportunity, and
his nonentity saved him from their risks.
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