Sudden congestion in the line of equipages, stretching far ahead, had caused a temporary halt, and when the knot dissolved, and the impatient horses sprang forward once more, Eglah said:
"I thought you loved good music too well to lose last night's opera treat, and until the final act I expected you."
"Shall I flatter myself that even in the midst of the select party occupying my box you really missed me?"
"Certainly I missed you – all the more because some of them chattered, and you would have hushed the tattle."
"Am I so successful in the rôle of ogre as to over-awe my guests in an opera box?"
"Your quiet way of setting an example of good breeding is sometimes contagious among thoughtless people."
"My lucky star is surely ascending: you have paid me two compliments, and I am puzzled to know whether I shall be expected to balance my account at ad valorem rates on the basis of your assessment or mine?"
"Oh, you and I established free trade long ago, and I can always tell you the truth without pausing to weigh words as do legation attachés, and as father does when wily lobbyists intercept him on his way from committee rooms. Mr. Noel, had you any special reason for absenting yourself? The lovely lilac orchids were, of course, far more ornamental in your empty chair, and you must not think me lacking in appreciation because I am so tardy in thanking you for them."
"An unexpected change in the date of a lecture given by one of my friends kept me away, when I had hoped to join you. As I had promised to attend, there was no alternative when a belated note informed me that last night had been selected for its delivery."
"Tell me about it."
"If I should so afflict you, most certainly you would vote me a bore, or fall asleep in self-defence."
"When you say that, you know curiosity always covets the forbidden."
"At your peril then! It was a monograph on the autochthonic origin of American races, and by way of ornamentation bristled with such graceful trifles as cephalic index, brachycephalic, and dolichocephalic, and was sprinkled with the curry of Votanic legends, and choice tid-bits from the Quiché Popol Vuh and from Codex Chimalpopoco! Sounds spicy, doesn't it? Piques your appetite for a larger slice?"
"No, thank you. Yet you preferred that tiresome jargon to listening to a superb tenor solo?"
"In a way – yes. We all ride hobby-horses from the nursery to the cemetery, and it is merely a question of individual taste what blood strain or pedigree we choose. My racing stable is not so generously supplied as yours, which embraces colts of various breeds: reports of fisheries commissions, bounties, American tonnage from 18 – to 18 – , and a vast – "
"Sarcasm does not fit you becomingly, Mr. Noel; it hangs askew, like a clown's cap on a cowl. What have you registered your own special toy, that you canter so vigorously around the world? Is it called ethnology, or totemism, or anthropology?"
"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 passengers 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?"
"Cassandra was a woman, and men should not trespass 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 Washington 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 Washington. 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 class 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, illustrated of course by a sketch of the inevitable Matilda and the indestructible 'Bayeux.' I am trying to classify this new cousin, who seems to me a queer blend of mediæval 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 viaticum 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 God 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 friendship 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. Mitchell'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 unclassified 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 fashionable 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 passed through the swinging inner door a warm atmosphere spiced with resinous incense infolded her as in a fragrant mist, through which glimmered brass 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 brass lattice that barred the chancel was a "confessional" of dark wood surmounted by a cross, and the clustered 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 shining ripples of golden