Simeon flowed. Conscience reproached him with the little he had done for
Victor, and he had now his congenial opportunity.

Up in the box, the powers of the orator were not so cordially esteemed.
To Matilda Pridden, his tales were barely decently the flesh and the
devil smothering a holy occasion to penetrate and exhort. Dartrey sat
rigid, as with the checked impatience for a leap. Nesta looked at Louise
when some one was perceived on the stage bending to her father: It was
Mr. Peridon; he never once raised his face. Apparently he was not
intelligible or audible but the next moment Victor sprang erect. Dartrey
quitted the box. Nesta beheld her father uttering hurried words to right
and left. He passed from sight, Mr. Peridon with him; and Dartrey did
not return.

Nesta felt her father's absence as light gone: his eyes rayed light.
Besides she had the anticipation of a speech from him, that would win
Matilda Pridden. She fancied Simeon Fenellan to be rather under the
spell of the hilarity he roused. A gentleman behind him spoke in his
ear; and Simeon, instead of ceasing, resumed his flow. Matilda Pridden's
gaze on him and the people was painful to behold: Nesta saw her mind.
She set herself to study a popular assembly. It could be serious to the
call of better leadership, she believed. Her father had been telling her
of late of a faith he had in the English, that they (or so her
intelligence translated his remarks) had power to rise to spiritual
ascendancy, and be once more the Islanders heading the world of a new
epoch abjuring materialism--some such idea; very quickening to her, as it
would be to this earnest young woman worshipped by Skepsey. Her father's
absence and the continued shouts of laughter, the insatiable thirst for
fun, darkened her in her desire to have the soul of the good working
sister refreshed. They had talked together; not much: enough for each to