ozen, so as to establish their attitude
once for all. It was, in fact, too severe a test for human nature and
the feelings which Church ought to arouse. The stillness of that young
figure, the impossibility of seeing her face and judging of her state
of mind thereby; finally, a faint lurking shame that they should be so
intrigued and disturbed by something which had to do with sex, in
this House of Worship--all combined to produce in every mind that
herd-feeling of defence, which so soon becomes, offensive. And, half
unconscious, half aware of it all, Noel stood, and sat, and knelt. Once
or twice she saw her father's eyes fixed on her; and, still in the glow
of last night's pity and remorse, felt a kind of worship for his thin
grave face. But for the most part, her own wore the expression Lavendie
had translated to his canvas--the look of one ever waiting for the
extreme moments of life, for those few and fleeting poignancies
which existence holds for the human heart. A look neither hungry nor
dissatisfied, but dreamy and expectant, which might blaze into warmth
and depth at any moment, and then go back to its dream.

When the last notes of the organ died away she continued to sit very
still, without looking round.

There was no second Service, and the congregation melted out behind
her, and had dispersed into the streets and squares long before she
came forth. After hesitating whether or no to go to the vestry door, she
turned away and walked home alone.

It was this deliberate evasion of all contact which probably clinched
the business. The absence of vent, of any escape-pipe for the feelings,
is always dangerous. They felt cheated. If Noel had come out amongst all
those whose devotions her presence had disturbed, if in that exit, some
had shown and others had witnessed one knows not what of a manifested
ostracism, the outraged sense of social decency might have been appeased
and sleeping dogs allowed to lie, for we soon get used to things;
and, after all, the war took precedence in every mind even over social
decency. But none of this had occurred, and a sense that Sunday after
Sunday the same little outrage would happen to them, moved more than a
dozen quite unrelated persons, and caused the posting that evening of
as many letters, signed and unsigned, to a certain quarter. London is no
place for parish conspiracy, and a situation which in the country would
have provoked meetings more or less public, and possibly