There was a silence; she looked him through and through and, after a while, deep, deep in his soul, she saw, awaking once again, all he
had deemed dead—the truth, the fearless reason, the sweet and faultless instinct of the child whose childhood had become a memory. Then, once more spiritually equal, they smiled at one another; and Lissa, pausing to gather up her ermine stole, passed noiselessly out to the aisle, where she stood, perfectly self-possessed, while her sister joined her, smiling vaguely down at the firing-line and their lifted battery of blue, inquiring eyes.
The poet—and whether he had slumbered or not nobody but himself is qualified to judge—the poet pensively opened one eye and peeped at Harrow as that young man bent beside him with Lethbridge at his elbow.
“In sending those two tickets you have taught us a new creed,” whispered Harrow; “you have taught us innocence and simplicity—you have taught us to be ourselves, to scorn convention, to say and do what we believe. Thank you.”
“Dear friend,” said the poet in an artistically-modulated whisper, “I have long, long followed you in the high course of your career. To me the priceless simplicity of poverty: to you the responsibility for millions. To me the daisy, the mountain stream, the woodchuck
and my Art! To you the busy mart, the haunts of men, the ship of finance laden with a nation’s wealth, the awful burden of millions for which you are answerable to One higher!” He raised one soft, solemn finger.
The young men gazed at one another, astounded. Lethbridge’s startled eyes said, “He still takes you for Stanley West!”
“Let him!” flashed the grim answer back from the narrowing gaze of Harrow.
“Daughters,” whispered the poet playfully, “are you so soon tired of the brilliant gems of satire which our master dramatist scatters with a lavish——”
“No,” said Cybele; “we are only very much in love.”