must see him again." She sat with her hands folded in her grey lap, a
little apart, watching the pretty scene and happy in it, but outside it
all, untouched and grey and still.




VII

TO MEET THE "HALCYON CLUB"

Outside the door the horses pranced, champing a little at the bit, and
turning their shining, arching necks in the sun. Other carriages drove
up and drove away. Rich toilets alighted and mounted the red-brown
steps--hats that rose, tier on tier, riotous parterres of flowers and
feathers and fruit, close little bonnets that proclaimed their elegance
by velvet knot or subtle curve of brim and crown. Colours flashed,
ribbon-ends fluttered, delicately shod feet scorned the pavement. It was
the Halcyon Club of the North Side, assembling to listen to Professor
Addison Trent, the great epigraphist, who was to discourse to them on
the inscriptions of Cnossus, the buried town of Crete. The feathers and
flowers and boas were only surface deep. Beneath them beat an intense
desire to know about epigraphy--all about it. The laughing faces and
daintily shod feet were set firmly in the way of culture. They swept
through the wide doors, up the long carved staircase--from the Caracci
Palace in Florence--into the wide library, with its arched ceiling and
high-shelved books and glimpses of busts and pedestals. They fluttered
in soft gloom, and sank into rows of adjustable chairs and faced sternly
a little platform at the end of the room. The air of culture descended
gratefully about them; they buzzed a little in its dim warmth and