As our fears, like our wishes, when strong and unremitting, prove to
be magnets, the result of Joy's despondent fears came in the scandal
which the Baroness had planted and left to flourish and grow in
Beryngford after her departure. An hour before the services began,
on the day of Preston Cheney's burial, Joy learned at whose rites she
was to officiate as organist. A pang of mingled emotions shot
through her heart at the sound of his name. She had seen this man
but a few times, and spoken with him but once; yet he had left a
strong impression upon her memory. She had felt drawn to him by his
sympathetic face and atmosphere, the sorrow of his kind eyes, and the
keen appreciation he had shown in her art; and just in the measure
that she had been attracted by him, she had been repelled by the
three women to whom she was presented at the same time. She saw them
all again mentally, as she had seen them on that and many other days.
Mrs Cheney and Alice, with their fretful, plain, dissatisfied faces,
and their over-burdened costumes, and the Baroness, with her cruel
heart gazing through her worn mask of defaced beauty.
She had been conscious of a feeling of overwhelming pity for the
kind, attractive man who made the fourth of that quartette. She knew
that he had obtained honours and riches from life, but she pitied him
for his home environment.
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