“Well?”
“Well, the two cases seem to me to be about parallel.”
Brock reddened. Nevertheless, it was impossible to take offence at Nancy’s downright tone and, the color still in his cheeks, he laughed.
“I may as well plead guilty. But who is the man?”
“The New Yorker?”
“No; the Basilica.”
“What is he, you’d better say. He appears to be a mixture of an usher, a tithingman and a glorious personification of the Church Militant. He is at least six feet tall, and he wears a long blue coat with scarlet facings and yards of gold lace. That would be impressive enough; but he gains an added bit of dignity by perambulating himself up the aisles with a tall, gold-headed sceptre in his hand.”
“Did he also perambulate you?”
Nancy’s head moved to and fro in sorrowful negation.
“No; nobody told me about him, and I lost my chance. I was so disappointed, too. One doesn’t get a chance, every day in the week, to be converted into a whole triumphal procession with an ecclesiastical drum-major at its head.”