These were all sentiments that in the past, Mary felt sure, Jack must have acquiesced in and approved of, and yet she felt surer that Imogen's manner of enunciating them was making Jack very angry. She herself did not find them as inspiring as she might have expected, and looking very much frightened and flurried she murmured that as she was to go back to Boston next day she would not have much opportunity for all this observation. "Besides—I don't believe that I'm so—so wise—so civilized, you know, as to be able to see it all."
"Oh, Imogen will tell you what to see!" said Jack.
"It's very kind of her, I'm sure," poor Mary faltered. She could have burst into tears. These two!—these beloved two!
Meanwhile, at a little later hour, Valerie and Mrs. Wake made their way to the theater, there to meet the group of friends from whom they had parted in England six months before.
The Pakenhams, full of question and comment, were intelligently amassing well-assorted impressions of the country that was new to them. Sir Basil, though cheerfully pleased with all to which his attention was drawn, showed no particular interest in his surroundings. His concentration was entirely for his regained friend.
After her welcoming radiance of the day before, Valerie looked pale and weary, and when, with solicitude, he asked her whether she were not tired, she confessed to having slept badly.
"She's changed, you know," Sir Basil said to Mrs. Pakenham, when they were settled in their seats, and Valerie, beside him, was engaged in pointing out people to Tom Pakenham. "It's been frightfully hard on her, all this, I'm sure."
"She's as charming as ever," said Mrs. Pakenham.
"Oh, well, that could never change. But what a shame that she should have had, all along, such a lot to go through." Sir Basil, as a matter of course, had the deepest antipathy for the late Mr. Upton.
The tableaux struck at once the note of success. Saved by Jack's skill from any hint of waxwork or pantomime, their subtle color and tranquil light made each picture a vision of past time, an evocation of Hellenic beauty and dignity.