Some few days after the Duchess's dinner-party, Alwyn was strolling one morning through the Park, enjoying to the full the keen, fresh odors of the Spring,--odors that even in London cannot altogether lose their sweetness, so long as hyacinths and violets consent to bloom, and almond-trees to flower, beneath the too often unpropitious murkiness of city skies. It had been raining, but now the clouds had rolled off, and the sun shone as brightly as it ever CAN shine on the English capital, sending sparkles of gold among the still wet foliage, and reviving the little crocuses, that had lately tumbled down in heaps on the grass, like a frightened fairy army put to rout by the onslaught of the recent shower.
A blackbird, whose cheery note suggested melodious memories drawn from the heart of the quiet country, was whistling a lively improvisation on the bough of a chestnut-tree, whereof the brown shining buds were just bursting into leaf,--and Alwyn, whose every sense was pleasantly attuned to the small, as well as great, harmonies of nature, paused for a moment to listen to the luscious piping of the feathered minstrel, that in its own wild woodland way had as excellent an idea of musical variation as any Mozart or Chopin. Leaning against one of the park benches, with his back turned to the main thoroughfare, he did not observe the approach of a man's tall, stately figure, that, with something of his own light, easy, swinging step, had followed him rapidly along for some little distance, and that now halted abruptly within a pace or two of where he stood,--a man whose fine face and singular distinction of bearing had caused many a passer-by to stare at him in vague admiration, and to wonder who such a regal-looking personage might possibly be.
Alwyn, however, absorbed in thought, saw no one, and was about to resume his onward walk, when suddenly, as though moved by some instinctive impulse, he turned sharply around, and in so doing confronted the stranger, who straightway advanced, lifting his hat and smiling. One amazed glance,--and then with an ejaculation of wonder, recognition, and delight, Alwyn sprang forward and grasped his extended hand.
"HELIOBAS!" he exclaimed. "Is it possible YOU are in London!--YOU, of all men in the world!"
"Even so!"--replied Heliobas gayly--"And why not? Am I incongruous, and out of keeping with the march of modern civilization?"
Alwyn looked at him half-bewildered, half-incredulous,--he could hardly believe his own eyes. It seemed such an altogether amazing thing to meet this devout and grave Chaldean philosopher, this mystic monk of the Caucasus, here in the very centre, as it were, of the world's business, traffic, and pleasure; one might as well have expected to find a haloed saint in the whirl of a carnival masquerade! Incongruous? Out of keeping?--Yes, certainly he was,-- for though clad in the plain, conventional garb to which the men of the present day are doomed by the fiat of commerce and custom, the splendid dignity and picturesqueness of his fine personal appearance was by no means abated, and it was just this that marked him out, and made of him as wonderful a figure in London as though some god or evangelist should suddenly pass through a wilderness of chattering apes and screaming vultures.