III
Antonio hurried to the door. His guests, with the exception of Mrs. Baxter, who was following in the chariot with a hamper of silver and linen, had reached the little white gate of the garden. Mr. Crowberry rushed in first.
"Good, good, good," he cried, wringing the monk's hand up and down. Antonio noticed with pleasure that his old employer now treated him as a social equal; but it pleased him more and touched him deeply to find that Mr. Crowberry was overflowing with honest delight at his reunion with a friend.
Before he could reply he was being presented to Sir Percival. Sir Percival submitted to the ceremony inattentively. Nine-tenths of his wits were evidently engaged with something or somebody else. He was a tall, thin, straight, soldierly man, whose scanty gray hair and disproportionately luxuriant mustache made his head look too small and bird-like. His cheeks were a trifle red, his gray eyes bright and restless. As soon as one quick glance had assured him that Antonio did not mean to do him any harm, he seemed to lose interest in his host and in his surroundings.
With Sir Percival's daughter the case was different. Antonio instantly became conscious that, after four years of isolation, he was standing once more face to face with a being of his own kind. He felt, vaguely, that this being was tall, graceful, feminine, proud, fine; but it did not occur to him to take stock of her features, or dress, or complexion. Until later in the afternoon, he could not have told young Crowberry the color of her eyes, or whether she was dark or fair.
This had always been Antonio's way in the presence of a woman. When she happened to be handsome, he felt unerringly and immediately her grace and beauty; yet his first, involuntary, eager search was for her spirit, for the inner self which might perchance be peeping out from the depths of her eyes. His own eyes, dark and soft as brown velvet, could be in the same moment both masterful and tender. While he was still a boy, a wise old woman had said of him: "May God put it into his head to turn monk, for he has eyes to break hearts." Not that Antonio was ever aware of looking at a woman otherwise than at a man. The habit was unconscious; but, for all the purity and austerity of his heart and life, it was there. It was not a fault. One might as well have blamed him for his black hair or for his tallness.
Fifty times in the past Antonio's glance had flashed forth to probe fifty pairs of eyes. Black eyes, blue eyes, hazel eyes, gray eyes, brown eyes—he had glanced into them all. Very often this swift glance had encountered maiden shyness and confusion; very seldom it had struck against brazen immodesty, like a sword against a shield. Once it had met a devil, a devil from hell, all the uglier because of the possessed woman's sweet pink cheeks and gold-crowned white brow. Twice or thrice it had peered into bottomless lakes of pity; and twenty times it had surprised a craving for human kindness, a hunger and thirst for Antonio's or some other love. But, when Mr. Crowberry began reciting his formula of introduction, the monk's keen glance met something it had never met before.
What his glance met was a glance more searching than his own; a still swifter glance which encountered his, like one mailed knight encountering another; a stronger, more impetuous glance which overmastered his and hurled it back. This glance came from beautiful eyes which were neither hard nor cold; but Antonio was too much taken aback to notice their heavenly blue. Unlike his, the lady's glance did not seem to be habitual. It seemed, on the contrary, to be something against the grain of her pride; something peculiar to an abnormal moment of her life. Of this the monk was speedily assured by the slight flush which warmed her cheeks as she turned the blue eyes away.
Mr. Crowberry put an end to the embarrassment. As tumultuously as a cart discharging a thousand of bricks, he expressed, in a single outburst, his joy at seeing Antonio, his detestation of Portugal, his ravenous hunger and raging thirst, and also some sudden animosity against his headlong heir. He wound up by demanding an immediate view of the champagne.