A little later Alonzo is seated with Bill in Mrs. Astor’s parlor, on the very davenport where Bill had first seen HER. Silently they awaited the appearance of the maiden of whom Bill talked all day, whom he visited every evening, and of whom he dreamed all night.
The face of the Mystic was set and stern. His body was erect and rigid. His gaze was abstracted, cold and indifferent.
To his innermost Inner he was steeled against Woman.
Presently there was a swish and a swirl of nearby silk and heatherbloom, a faint but intoxicating odor of patchouli, and then—and then—a face, a bewildering flash of the rose and the lily, a sunburst of radiant loveliness.
The up-to-date maiden and the up-to-date Mystic stood face to face.
On that instant the tragic entanglement of Mysticism and Materialism, which had been recorded in the stars, now took on its initial expression.
The effect upon the Occultist was instantaneous and overpowering. On the instant his face, form and expression lost their hauteur, rigidity and disdain. Rising, but unheeding the formal introduction by his proud and awkward chum, Alonzo Leffingwell paled, trembled and swayed. For one unutterable moment he gazed upon that dazzling vision with rapt ecstasy, and then raising his delicate white hand and pointing at random in the air, he shrieked in a loud voice, “Aha!—Ah-ha! ’tis SHE! ’Tis SHE!—MISS SHEETS IS SHE!” and fell in convulsions at the feet of the lovely stranger.
Then Miss Sheets shrieked like it was a mouse, and Bill growled his astonishment.
“Well! wouldn’t that jar you?” cried the girl.
But collecting himself, Bill rather enjoyed the impression his Imogene had made.