e to quench the unconquerable laugh. She added, with a falter
in which there was no laughter, "and what--was the--fellow like?"

"All that I could see was that he was a tall man. I saw his large
shirt-front and his black evening clothes, and something like grey hair
above those two big, black goggles----"

"Grey hair!" Elinor said, with a low suppressed cry.

"He never took them away from his eyes for a moment, so of course I
could not see his face, or anything much except that he was more than
common tall--like myself," Pippo said, with a little air of pleased
vanity in the comparison.

Like himself! She did not make any remark. It is very doubtful whether
she could have done so. There came before her so many visions of the
past, and such a vague, confused, bewildering future, of which she could
form no definite idea what it would be. Was it with a pang that she
foresaw that drawing towards another influence: that mingled instinct,
curiosity, perhaps admiration and wonder, which already seemed to move
her boy's unconscious mind? Elinor did not even know whether that would
hurt her at all. Even now there seemed a curious pungent sense of
half-pleasure in the pain. Like himself! So he was. And if it should be
that it was his father, who for hours had stood there, not taking his
eyes off the boy (for hours her imagination said, though Pippo had not
said so), his father who had known where she was and never disturbed
her, never interfered with her; the man who had summoned her to perform
her martyrdom for him, never doubting--Phil, with grey hair! To say what
mingled feelings swept through Elinor's mind, with all these elements in
them, is beyond my power. She saw him with his face concealed, standing
up unconscious of the crowded place and of the mimic life on the stage,
his eyes fixed upon his son whom he had never seen before. Where was
there any drama in which there was a scene like this? His son, his
only child, the heir! Unconsciously even to herself that fact had some
influence, no doubt, on Elinor's thoughts. And it would be impossible to
say how much influence had that unexpected subduing touch of the grey
hair: and the strange change in the scene altogether. The foolish,
noisy, "fast" woman, with her _tourbillon_ of men and dogs about her,
turned into the old lady of Pippo's careless remark, with her daughter
beside her far more important than she: and the tall figure in the front
of the box, with grey hair---