“Well,” she said, reading too swiftly and not very correctly the altered expression of her friend’s face, “have you made friends, then, after all? I thought you would, and—oh, Alma, I am so happy!”
“Yes,” replied Alma gravely, though she could not repress a smile at the radiant face that looked up at hers, “we have made friends. But you seem to have done something more than that. Your explanations”—
“There were no explanations at all,” interrupted Isma, rosy red from neck to brow. “When we met in the room he picked me up in his arms before everybody and kissed me—and after that of course there was nothing to be said.”
CHAPTER XXII.
THE EVE OF BATTLE.
AN irregular procession was now formed, at the head of which walked the two returned exiles, each with his father by his side, and followed by the rest of the company. They passed out of the reception-room, down the wide entrance-hall, and out of the great arched portal which opened on to the square.
As they appeared at the top of the spacious flight of marble steps which led from it down to the pavement, a mighty cheer of welcome went up from a hundred thousand throats, the peals of bells in the four towers which rose from the angles of the Council Hall sent forth the signal to all the other belfries of the city, and, amidst the jubilant chorus that instantly burst forth, the scene of the reinvestiture was reached. Then the great bell in the dome tolled out one sonorous warning note, and instantly there was silence on the earth and in the air.
This was at the moment that the procession, after passing half round the square along the broad path left for it by the cheering throng, halted in front of the main entrance to the Temple of Aeria, which faced towards the south, in the middle of the magnificent façade fronting a marble-paved avenue of double rows of palms and tree-ferns which ran in a straight line for three miles down to the shores of the lake.