"
Arthur Stuart smiled. "Wait a moment," he said, "and I will send for
her. I would like you to meet her, and like her to meet your wife
and family. She has few, if any, acquaintances in my congregation."
Mr Cheney went down the aisle, and joined the three ladies who were
waiting for him in the pew. All were smiling, for all three believed
that he had been asking the rector to accompany them home to dinner.
His first word dispelled the illusion.
"Wait here a moment," he said. "Mr Stuart is going to bring the
organist to meet us. I want to know the woman who can move me so
deeply by her music."
Over the faces of his three listeners there fell a cloud. Mabel
looked annoyed, Alice sulky, and a flush of the old jealous fury
darkened the brow of the Baroness. But all were smiling deceitfully
when Joy Irving approached.
Her radiant young beauty, and the expressions of admiration with
which Preston Cheney greeted her as a woman and an artist, filled
life with gall and wormwood for the three feminine listeners.
"What! this beautiful young miss, scarcely out of short frocks, is
not the musician who gave us that wonderful harmony of sounds. My
child, how did you learn to play like that in the brief life you have
passed on earth? Surely you must have been taught by the angels
before you came.
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