“What?” she said, looking at the copy of their financial statement he had sent sailing across the table. “We have to get loans. That’s the way you do it, right?” She stopped. She sounded more like a high school girl running a student council meeting than a Leader of Men. And women. She tried for a more decisive tone. “That is, my experience has been”-watching her mother run a capital campaign for their home parish near Norfolk and a single workshop on fund-raising at Virginia Episcopal Seminary, but they didn’t have to know all the details, did they?-“that necessary improvements on the physical plant are started by loans from the diocese or the bank, and the capital campaign is designed to supplement them and pay them off.”

“That’s a good way to do it,” McKellan agreed.

“So what’s the catch?”

McKellan’s luxurious brown mustache quirked up at each end. “You have looked at the financial statements over the past year, haven’t you?”

“Of course I have.”

“Did you notice the outstanding loan from the diocese? We took it out three years ago to pay for the organ restoration and the parking lot repairs.”

“Sure. But we’ve been making regular payments on it.”

His eyes flicked toward the others seated around the table. “And you noticed the monthly mortgage payment we’re making?”

“Sure. The parish hall burned down nearly to the ground in ’93 and the vestry took out a mortgage to cover the cost of repairs. I’ve looked over the records. We’ve never had a late payment, not once.” She looked around the table. “St. Alban’s must have good credit.”

McKellan’s mustache broadened. He was looking at her in a distinctly paternal way. She didn’t like it. “Clare,” he said, “have you ever taken out a loan?”