The young man received the covert sneer at his German training and his liberal ideas with a smile; and Alec listened no longer, but relapsed into dreamland. The dispute, however, continued long after most of the men had returned to the drawing-room, and Alec rose from his chair while an animated discussion was in progress on the point whether the use of an organ was favourable to spiritual worship or tended to sensuousness, and whether the fact that the New Testament was silent on the subject, condemned the organ and its followers by anticipation.
When Alec entered the drawing-room, Miss Mowbray was singing. He retreated to a corner and stood as one spell-bound. He watched for an opportunity of speaking to her again, but there was none; however, on passing him on her way to the door on her uncle’s arm, she gave him a little bow and smile, which he regarded as another proof of her sweetness of disposition.
The theologians had not finished their disputations, and were continuing them in a corner of the drawing-room, when Alec took his departure.
He walked back to his poor and empty room with his head among the stars. She had talked with him, smiled upon him, treated him as an equal. He would find out where she lived, and contrive to meet her again. How lovely she was, how sweet, how pure, how good! The wide earth, Alec Lindsay was firmly convinced, contained no mortal fit for one moment to be compared with the girl whose soft brown eyes and gentle, almost appealing, looks still made his heart beat as he remembered them.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Disgusted.
CHAPTER VII.
A SUNDAY IN GLASGOW.
‘Well, Alec, how did you get on last night?’ asked Duncan Cameron of his friend, when they met as usual the day after the dinner at Blythswood Square.
‘Oh, all right. It was rather a stupid affair.’