When the departing throng had thinned in the aisle, she stepped from the pew, and stood waiting. There passed, then, a lady in rich attire—sweet-faced, of exquisite manner. A bluff, ruddy young man attended her.
"Did you like the music?" he asked—a conventional question: everywhere repeated.
"Perfectly lovely!" she replied. "A wonderful voice! And such a pretty child!"
"I wonder," said he, "who the boy can be?"
Acting upon ingenuous impulse, the boy's mother overtook the man, timidly touched his elbow, looked into his eyes, her own bright with proud love.
"He is my son," she said.
The lady turned in amazement. In a brief, appraising glance, she comprehended the whole woman; the outré gown, the pencilled eyebrows, the rouged cheeks, the bleached hair. She took the man's arm.
"Come!" she said.
The man yielded. He bowed—smiled in an embarrassed way, flushing to his sandy hair: turned his back.
"How strange!" the lady whispered.