The solo was dying away, and, sweet and low, it fell from heaven like manna upon his soul, blending divinely with the secretary's voice. Her expression "hired" sounded like a tragic note—to think of one so beautiful, so meek, so surrounded by mellow hymn-notes, being hired! He had lost the vision of his career in mists of an attenuated Grace Noir. As the material skirts of the spiritual Grace Noir brushed his leg, it was as if, for a moment, his veins ran muslin and pink ribbons.
"You hesitate to advise me, before you know all," she said, "and you are right. In a moment the choir will be singing louder, and we can all talk together. Mrs. Gregory should be consulted, too."
Grace, conscious of doing all that one could in consulting Mrs. Gregory, "too", looked toward the choir loft, and smiled into Hamilton Gregory's eyes. How his baton, inspired by that smile, cut magic runes in the air! An anthem rose buoyantly, covering the ensuing conversation with its mantle of sound.
"Mrs. Gregory," Grace said in a low voice, "I suppose Professor Ashton is so surprised at seeing you in church—it has been more than five months, hasn't it?…that I'm afraid he isn't thinking about what I'm saying." She paused as if to ask why the other was there,—as if she were an interloper, who, having by absence forfeited her rights, now came in her arrogance to claim them. Not only Grace's tone, but her very attitude seemed to ask, "Why is this woman here?"
Mrs. Gregory could not help feeling in the way, because her husband seemed to share Grace's feeling. Instinctively she turned to her mother and laid her hand on the invalid's arm.
"They ain't bothering me, Lucy," said the old lady, alertly. "I can't hear their noise, and when I shut my eyes I can't see their motions."
"I have something to tell you both," Grace said solemnly. "Last night, I couldn't sleep, and that made me sensitive to noises. I thought I heard some one slipping from the house just as the clock struck half- past eleven. It seemed incredible, for I knew if it were any one, it was that Fran, and I didn't think even she would do that."
It was as if Abbott had suddenly raised a window in a raw wind. His temperature descended. The other's manner of saying "That Fran!" obscured his glass of the future.
Mrs. Gregory said quickly, "Fran leave the house at half-past eleven?
Impossible."
Grace smiled unpleasantly. Believing Fran, possibly an impostor, certainly a disturbing element, it was her duty to drive her from her employer's house; but however pure and noble her disapproval, Grace could not speak of the orphan without a tone or look suggesting mere spite.