Part 6 (1/2)
”When I have finished trying all its gaits, and find the sum total satisfactory, I shall label it, and fit a comfortable side saddle and introduce you formally. Now, Miss Kent, come to confession. Did you see the list of pa.s.sengers who arrived on yesterday's steamer from Liverpool?”
”I did not.”
”Can you recollect a certain prophecy I made at Cowes, anent a handsome naval officer who entertained us at luncheon on his father's yacht?”
”Ca.s.sandra was a woman, and men should not trespa.s.s on the one feminine right of 'I told you so,' that has descended to us intact from Hecuba's daughter. But, Mr. Noel, if you mean----”
She turned and looked up into his eyes.
”Yes, I met him this morning at the club, where Ogden introduced him, and I saved him a useless journey to Was.h.i.+ngton by telling him you were here for a few days.”
”I can only say I am sorry to hear it.”
”While he is in New York I must, in part, return the hospitality shown us, and your father will pay the remainder of the debt in Was.h.i.+ngton. I have arranged a dinner for this evening, and later we shall see 'Hamlet,' then a supper afterward at Delmonico's. Will you join us at the theatre, if I call for you, bringing Mrs. St. Clair as chaperon?”
”Thank you, I much prefer not to be one of the party; besides, I have a previous engagement. I am going with my cousin, Vernon Temple, to a meeting of shop girls, a sort of night school established by some of his lady friends.”
”What cla.s.s does he teach?”
”I believe he 'talks' now and then on 'feminine arts,' and to-night there will be a lecture on lace making and tapestry guilds, ill.u.s.trated of course by a sketch of the inevitable Matilda and the indestructible 'Bayeux.' I am trying to cla.s.sify this new cousin, who seems to me a queer blend of mediaeval monk, pre-Raphaelite reformer, and socialist. He is altogether unlike any one I ever knew, but his beautiful, sad face reminds me of a picture I saw in Munich--a young priest administering the viatic.u.m to his dying sweetheart, whom he forsook for holy orders.”
Lowering his eyelids, Mr. Herriott glanced keenly at her.
”You find Temple wonderfully magnetic at times?”
”Scarcely that. 'Magnetic' implies so much and really explains so little. When I see his ceaseless struggle to keep the heel of his spirit on the neck of his flesh, it suggests a fanatical rebellion against that equipoise G.o.d saw fit to establish. Like Joubert, 'he seems to be a soul that by accident met with a body, and tries to make the best of it.' My cousin Temple is fond of you.”
”Despite much difference of opinion on many questions, our friends.h.i.+p has survived the 'storm and stress' period, and I honor a man whose battle cry for humanity is:
”'Make trade a Christian possibility, And individual right no general wrong.'
Have you noticed the expression of Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l's face when they happen to meet?”
”Haven't I! It is too funny to see her narrow her eyes and look at him as if he were some uncla.s.sified beast whose method of pouncing on his prey had not yet been warningly advertised. She is convinced he is an ecclesiastical infernal machine trying to wreck our family orthodoxy. I asked him----”
She stopped suddenly at sight of two gentlemen approaching on horseback, and Mr. Herriott smiled, as he whispered:
”Lo! the second son of a duke!”
CHAPTER VII
In a quiet and unfrequented cross street--equally remote from the thronged thoroughfares of trade and from fas.h.i.+onable avenues lined with palaces--stood the low and unpretentious Chapel of St. Hyacinth, marked by neither spire nor belfry. The old stone front receded sufficiently from the pavement to permit a short flight of shallow steps that led to an arched door in a pillared portico with a cross on its pointed roof, which hung over the entrance like a sullen, frowning brow. A northeast wind came fitfully in hissing blasts, dashed with fine sleet; but when Eglah pa.s.sed through the swinging inner door a warm atmosphere spiced with resinous incense infolded her as in a fragrant mist, through which glimmered bra.s.s lattice screens, rows of tall candles, the gilded carving of the white altar, laden with lilies, and the marble statue of the Virgin, at whose snowy feet a red light burned in a silver lamp. On each side of the wall below the bra.s.s lattice that barred the chancel was a ”confessional” of dark wood surmounted by a cross, and the cl.u.s.tered lights in the centre of the concave ceiling formed a crown.
On the right and left of the altar the white surpliced choristers filled several seats, and the quivering thunder of the organ ceased suddenly, as if to listen to the marvellous voice of the boy soloist, that swelled and rose as if the singer felt himself ”hard by the gates of heaven.” A slender child of ten years, grasping his music with waxen hands almost infantile in size, while his head, covered thickly with s.h.i.+ning ripples of golden hair, was thrown back, and his blue eyes almost purplish, like a periwinkle, were raised in contemplation of the crown glowing above him. The colorless face was delicate and beautiful as if wrought out of ivory, and a certain pathetic sadness of expression inherent in fragile childhood was for the moment dominated by the radiant exultation of his wonderful eyes, that seemed made to dwell between the wings of a seraph.
Father Temple left the altar before which he had knelt in prayer, and advancing to the steps of the chancel, stood with one hand on the bra.s.s railing and briefly explained his unexpected presence. A telegram had summoned the rector of St. Hyacinth's to the deathbed of his father, and the request to officiate in his absence had been received too late to permit the preparation of a regular sermon; hence the patient indulgence of the congregation was invoked for some desultory remarks which might not prove entirely fruitless. After a few exordial sentences, he repeated slowly the opening ten verses from St. John xv., and waited a moment.
”For text let us consider: 'I am the true vine,' said our Lord, 'and ye, my brethren, are the branches.'”