Gloria Mundi

by Harold Frederic

There followed here an unrehearsed, and seemingly unpremeditated, episode. Lord Julius advanced with impressive gravity across the little open space, and taking the hand which Christian impulsively extended to him, bent over it in a formal and courtly bow. When Emanuel, following his father, did the same, it was within the consciousness of all that they had become committed to a new ceremonial rite. Kathleen, coming behind her husband, gave her cheek to be kissed by the young chief of her adopted clan—and this action translated itself into a precedent as well.

Edward and Augustine, after the hesitation of an awkward instant, came forward together, and in their turn, with a flushed stiffness of deportment, made their salutation to the head of the house. To them, conjointly, Christian said something in a whisper. He kissed Cora upon each cheek, with a faint smile in his eyes at her preference for the foreign method. His remoter cousins, the Earl of Chobham and Lord Lingfield, passed before him, and he vaguely noted the reservation expressed in their lifeless palms and frigid half-bow. They seemed to wish to differentiate themselves from the others—to express to him the Pickwickian character of their homage. They were not Torrs; they did not salaam to him as their over-lord. They had a rival dynasty of their own, and their appearance here involved nothing but the seemly courtesy of distant relationship. He perceived in a dim way that this was what their manner was saying to him—but it scarcely diverted his attention. His glance and his thoughts passed over their heads, to fasten upon the remaining figure.

Lady Cressage, unlike the other two women, had retained the bonnet and heavy veil of mourning. The latter she held drawn aside with a black-gloved hand as she approached. It flashed suddenly across Christian’s brain that the year of her mourning for her own dead was not over—yet in her own house she wore gay laces and light colors. But it was unkind to remember this—and senseless, too. He strove to revivify, instead, the great compassionate impulse which formerly she had stirred within him. A pallid shadow of it was all that he could conjure up—and in the chill of this shadow he touched her white temple with his lips, and she moved away. There lingered in his mind a curious, passive conflict of memories as to whether their eyes had met or not. Then this yielded place to the impression some detached organ of perception had formed for him, that in that somber setting of crape her face had looked too small for the rest of her figure.

Then, as the whole subject melted from his mind, he turned toward the two young men who, upon his whispered request, had remained in the library after the departure of the others. He looked at his watch, and beckoned them forward with a friendly wave of his hand.

“Pray come and sit down,” he said, with affability upon the surface of his tone. “We have a quarter of an hour, and I felt that it could not be put to better use than in relieving your minds a little—or trying to do so. Let me begin by saying that I do not think I have met either of you before. In fact, now that I reflect, I am sure that we have not met before. I am glad to see you both.”

The two brothers had drawn near, and settled uneasily into the very chairs which Lord Julius and Emanuel had occupied some hours before. Again Christian half seated himself upon the corner of the table, but this time he swung his leg lightly as he surveyed his guests. It flattered his prophetic judgment to note that Augustine seemed the first to apprehend the meaning of his words, but that Edward, upon pondering them, appeared the more impressed by their magnanimity. Between them, as they regarded him and each other doubtfully, the family likeness was more striking than ever. Christian remembered having heard somewhere that their father, Lord Edward, had been a dark man, as a Torr should be. Their flaxen hair and dull blue eyes must come from that unmentionable mother of theirs, who was living in indefinite obscurity—if she was living at all—upon the blackmail Julius paid her for not using the family name. The thought somehow put an added gentleness into his voice.

“How old are you—Eddy?” he asked, forcing himself into the use of the diminutive as a necessary part of the patriarchal rôle he had assumed.

“Nine-and-twenty in October,” answered the Captain, poutingly. It seemed on the tip of his tongue to add something else, but he did not.

“There’s two years and a month between us,” remarked Augustine, with more buoyancy.

“And you’ve been out of the army for five years,” pursued Christian. “It seems that you became a Captain very early. Would there be any chance of your taking it up again, where you left off?”