inept and often malignant; but he could not imagine an alchemist at the
moment of success, a general in the hour of victory, or a financier with
a gigantic scheme of swindling well on the market being annoyed by the
buzz of insects. The spider is, no doubt, a very terrible brute with a
hideous mouth and hairy tiger-like claws when seen through the
microscope; but Lucian had taken away the microscope from his eyes. He
could now walk the streets of Caermaen confident and secure, without any
dread of interruption, for at a moment's notice the transformation could
be effected. Once Dr. Burrows caught him and made him promise to attend
a bazaar that was to be held in aid of the Hungarian Protestants; Lucian
assented the more willingly as he wished to pay a visit to certain
curious mounds on a hill a little way out of the town, and he calculated
on slinking off from the bazaar early in the afternoon. Lord Beamys was
visiting Sir Vivian Ponsonby, a local magnate, and had kindly promised
to drive over and declare the bazaar open. It was a solemn moment when
the carriage drew up and the great man alighted. He was rather an
evil-looking old nobleman, but the clergy and gentry, their wives and
sons and daughters welcomed him with great and unctuous joy.
Conversations were broken off in mid-sentence, slow people gaped, not
realizing why their friends had so suddenly left them, the Meyricks came
up hot and perspiring in fear lest they should be too late, Miss Colley,
a yellow virgin of austere regard, smiled largely, Mrs. Dixon beckoned
wildly with her parasol to the "girls" who were idly strolling in a
distant part of the field, and the archdeacon ran at full speed. The air
grew dark with bows, and resonant with the genial laugh of the
archdeacon, the cackle of the younger ladies, and the shrill parrot-like
voices of the matrons; those smiled who had never smiled before, and on
some maiden faces there hovered that look of adoring ecstasy with which
the old maidens graced their angels. Then, when all the due rites had
been performed, the company turned and began to walk towards the booths