Before Dr. Vivian could meet this poser, the front door opened with a bang, and a youngish man in a wet yellow raincoat came striding rapidly across the court toward them. He was a powerfully built man with a blue-tinged chin, and wore the air of a person of authority.
"Meeting not begun yet?" he demanded, without salutation, apparently addressing Carlisle. "Thought I was late."
"Ah, Mr. Pond--glad to see you," said Vivian, stepping forward a little to meet the newcomer. "They've just begun--you'll find an ovation waiting for you."
"In your office? Aren't you going up, to lead the applause?"
The doctor bowed gravely. "In my office. I'll join you directly."
"I see," said the man, nodding, having never checked his stride.
But all that he had seemed to see with his keen black eyes was the lovely girl posed on the last step of the ornamental stairway. He almost brushed against her as he strode by.
The Pond person's footsteps diminished up the long stairs. A moment later a volley of hand-clapping, sounding very near, indicated his arrival in the meeting-room. But his interruption and his irritating stare had accomplished no mollifying purpose down in the court. But one end, indeed, could justify the proud Miss Heth in lingering in a public hall with the slanderer of herself and her family.
"Doesn't it occur to you," she said, hardly waiting for the intruder to get out of earshot, "that so much preaching about other people's business seems rather--odd, coming from you?"
Dr. Vivian now affected to look troubled.