Marcus watched in despair. For his niece he had ceased to exist—only as part of this world had she known him. She was translated to another: a world where the sands were more golden, the sea more glassy than they could ever be here on earth.
Marcus waited. Waited until Shan’t, with a radiant smile, turned to the black man, thanked him, folded her small hands, gloved in white cotton gloves, the fingers of which turned up as only white cotton fingers can, and gave herself up to the sermon.
“Poor devil!” murmured Marcus, perhaps at the thought of Shan’t’s extreme fairness.
In the middle of the sermon the attention of Shan’t slackened: she swallowed: she removed her gaze from the face of the preacher, just to look around, to see, perhaps, if there were any little boys less religious—or as religious—as herself, and her eyes met those of her reproachful uncle. Hers straightway became fixed on that far-away something. Things have—in the history of the world—looked as innocent as she looked: but very few—among them puppies in chicken-yards. She was absorbed in that far-away something—but what gave her away was the pink flush which stole over her little face, then flooded it. Tears gathered in her eyes. But she still gazed bravely—intently—absorbedly.
Marcus walked round, behind the crowd, stooped down behind her and whispered. She rose, and putting her hand in his walked away with him.
“Did you like it, Shan’t?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “You see, I hadn’t got a hymn-book of my own.”
“So I supposed,” he said stiffly.
“I turned over.”
“Did you? Did you like the preacher?”