He had never
seen anything at once so heathenish and so exquisite. To one hampered
and restricted as he was in bodily freedom, the absolute grace was
marvellous, but the uncanny words and the girl's apparent seriousness
gave a touch of unreality to the scene. Presently, from sheer inability
to further control himself, the looker-on gave a laugh that rent the
stillness of the afternoon like a cruel shock.
Priscilla, horrified, paused in the midst of a wild whirl and listened,
her eyes dilating, her nostrils twitching. She waited for another burst
that would make her understand.
Having given vent to that one peal of mirth, Richard Travers pulled
himself to a sitting position, and, by so doing, presented his head and
shoulders to the indignant eyes of Priscilla Glenn.
"Oh!" cried she; "how dare you!"
And now Travers got rather painfully upon his feet, and, with fiddle
under one arm and book under the other, came forward into the open and
inclined his uncovered head. He was twenty then, fair and handsome, and
in his gray eyes shone that kindliness that was doomed later on to bring
him so much that was both evil and good.
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