o eager, that we overprinted
our faces with attention; knowing this did not help, nothing helped, and
we went on to the end, seeing ourselves doing it; and it must have
been that Mrs. Weguelin saw us likewise. But she was truly admirable in
giving no sign, she came out well ahead; the lectures were not
hurried, one had no sense of points being skipped to accommodate our
unworthiness, it required a previous familiarity with the church to
know (as I did) that there was, indeed, more and more skipping; yet the
little lady played her part so evenly and with never a falter of
voice nor a change in the gentle courtesy of her manner, that I do not
think--save for that moment at the window-sill--I could have been sure
what she thought, or how much she noticed. Her face was always so pale,
it may well have been all imagination with me that she seemed, when we
emerged at last into the light of the street, paler than usual; but I
am almost certain that her hand was trembling as she stood receiving the
thanks of the party. These thanks were cut a little short by the arrival
of one of the automobiles, and, at the same time, the appearance of
Hortense strolling toward us with John Mayrant.

Charley had resumed to Bohm, "A tax of twenty-five cents on the ton
is nothing with deposits of this richness," when his voice ceased; and
looking at him to see the cause, I perceived that his eye was on John,
and that his polished finger-nail was running meditatively along his
thin mustache.

Hortense took the matter--whatever the matter was--in hand.

"You haven't much time," she said to Charles, who consulted his watch.

"Who's coming to see me off?" he inquired.

"Where's he going?" I asked Beverly.

"She's sending him North," Beverly answered, and then he spoke with his
very best simple manner to Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael. "May I not walk
home with you after all your kindness?"

She was going to say no, for she had had enough of this party; but she
looked at Beverly, and his face and his true solicitude won her; she
said, "Thank you, if you will." And the two departed together down the
shabby street, the little veiled lady in black, and Beverly with
his excellent London clothes and his still more excellent look of
respectful, sheltering attention.

And now Bohm pronounced the only utterance that I heard fall from his
lips during his stay in Kings Port. He looked at the church he had come
from, he looked at the neighboring larger chur