“Who is Latimer?” asked Mrs. Stornaway.
“Excuse me,” said Baird again, and turning back towards the platform, he disappeared among the crowd with Annie, who had clung to his hand.
“Why, he’s gone!” proclaimed Mrs. Stornaway. “But where’s he gone? Why didn’t he stay? Who’s Latimer?”
“Latimer!” Miss Amory echoed, “you ought to know him. His family lives in Willowfield. He is the man who was coming home to take charge of the little church at Janway’s Mills. He has evidently crossed the Atlantic with them.”
“Well, now, I declare,” proclaimed Mrs. Stornaway. “It must be the man who took his sister to Europe. It was a kind of absurd thing. She died away—the girl did, and people wondered why he did not come back and how he lived. Why, yes, that must be the man.” And she turned to look about for him.
Miss Amory Starkweather made a slight movement.
“Don’t look,” she said. “He might not like to be stared at.”
“They’re quite common people,” commented Mrs. Stornaway, still staring. “They live in a little house in a side street. They had very silly ideas about the girl. They thought she was a genius and sent her to the School of Art in Boston, but it wasn’t long before her health failed her. Ah! I guess that must be the man talking to Mr. Baird and Annie. He looks as if he would go off in a consumption.”
He was a tall, hollow-chested man, with a dark, sallow face and an ungainly figure. There were suggestions of both ill-health and wretchedness in his appearance, and his manner was awkward and embarrassed. Two human beings more utterly unlike each other than himself and the man who held his hand could not possibly have been found. It was Baird who held his hand, not he Baird’s, and it was Baird who seemed to speak while he listened, while with his free hand he touched the hair of the child Annie.
“Well,” remarked Mrs. Stornaway, “Mr. Baird seems to have taken a fancy to him. I don’t think he’s attractive myself. Are they going to talk to him all day?”