Miss Pembroke was usually a very dignified and quiet young woman, who said what she meant, who never effervesced on small occasions, and sometimes found herself unmoved on occasions which many considered great ones. But when, now and then, the real afflatus came, it was hard to have her lips sealed and her limbs shackled.
As she dropped her hand, faintly and fairylike in the distance she heard all the bells of Crichton ringing for sunset.
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, she sang softly, clasping her hands, still walking forward; and so went on with the rest of the hymn, not minding where the others of the party were, or if there were any others, till she felt a little pull at her dress, and became aware that Mr. Schöninger’s young friend had urged him forward to hear the singing, and was holding up her hand to the singer. But the Jew’s visor was down.
Miss Pembroke took the child’s hand, which thus formed a link between the two, and continued her singing: Benedictus qui venit in nomini Domini. She felt almost as if the man, thus linked to her by that transparent, innocent nature of the little girl between them, were spiritually joining her in the Hosanna. How deep or bitter his prejudices might be she knew not. Their acquaintance had been short, and they had never spoken of their theological differences. That his unbelief could be profound, yet gentle and tolerant toward her belief, had never occurred to her mind. She would have been scarcely more shocked than astonished could she have known the thought that almost escaped his lips. “She is too noble to be a worshipper of strange gods,” he thought. “When will this miserable delusion be swept away!”
A slim, light hand stole into Miss Pembroke’s arm on the other side, and Miss Carthusen’s cheek pressed close to her shoulder. Miss Carthusen was a foundling, and had been adopted by a wealthy and childless couple. Nothing whatever was known of her parentage.
“Lady Honora,” she whispered, “this scene reminds me of something. I am like Mignon, with my recollections gathering fast into a picture; only my past is further away than hers was. I almost know who I am, and where I came from. It flashes back now. We were dancing on the green, a ring of us. It was not in this land. The air was warm, the sward like rose-leaves; there were palms and temples not far away. I had this hand stretched forward to one who held it, and the other backward to one who held it, and so we danced, and there were wreaths on our heads, vine-leaves tangled in our hair. Suddenly something swept over and through us, like a cold wind, or a sharp cry, or both, and we all became fixed in a breath, the smile, the wreath, the tiptoe foot, and we hardened and grew less, and the air inside the ring died with our breaths in it, and the joy froze out of us, and the recollection of all we were faded. We were like flames that have gone out. There was nothing left but an antique vase with Bacchantes dancing round it in a petrified circle. Have you ever seen such a vase, with one figure missing?”
“Silly child!” said Honora, smiling, but shrinking a little. This girl was too clinging, her imagination too pagan. “It is said that, at the birth of Christ, that wail was heard through all the hosts of pagan demons. ‘Pan is dead!’ they cried, and fled like dry leaves before a November wind. Pan is dead, Lily Carthusen; and if you would kindle his altars again, you must go down into the depths of perdition for the spark.”
She spoke with seriousness, even with energy, and a light blush fluttered into her cheeks, and faded out again.
Miss Carthusen, still clinging to the arm she had clasped, leaned forward to cast a laughing glance into the face beyond. “To Mr. Schöninger,” she said, “we are both talking mythology.”
Miss Pembroke freed her arm decidedly, and stepped backward, so as to bring herself between Miss Ferrier and Lawrence Gerald. She took an arm of each, and held them a moment as if she were afraid. “Annette, Lily Carthusen must not help us to trim the altar,” she said. “It is not fitting. We will do it ourselves, with Mother Chevreuse.”