Walden allowed his calm blue eyes to rest quietly on His Grace the Duke of Lumpton without much interest. His Grace was an undersized fat man, with a bald head and a red face, and on Walden's being presented to him, merely nodded with a patronisingly casual air.
"Lord Mawdenham,"--continued Sir Morton, swelling visibly with just pride at his own good fortune in being able to introduce a Lord immediately after a Duke, and offering Walden, as it were, with an expressive wave of his hand, to a pale young gentleman, who seemed seriously troubled by an excess of pimples on his chin, and who plucked nervously at one of these undesirable facial addenda as his name was uttered. Walden acknowledged his presence with silent composure, as he did the wide smile and familiar nod of his brother minister, the Reverend 'Putty,' whose truly elephantine proportions were encased in a somewhat too closely fitting bicycle suit, and whose grand-pianoforte shaped legs and red perspiring face together, presented a most unclerical spectacle of the 'Church at large.'
The two gentlemen who had been studying the groined roof, now brought their glances to bear on Walden, and one of them, a youngish man with a crop of thick red hair and a curiously thin, hungry face, spoke without waiting for Sir Morton's cue.
"Mr. Walden? Ye-es!--I felt sure it must be Mr. Walden! Let me congratulate you, sir, on your exquisite devotional work here! The church is beau-ti-ful--beau-ti-ful! A sonnet in stone! A sculptured prayer! Ye-es! It is so! Permit me to press your hand!"
John smiled involuntarily. There was a quaint affectation about the speaker that was quite irresistibly entertaining.
"Mr. Julian Adderley is a poet," said Sir Morton, whispering this in a jocose stage aside; "Everything is 'beautiful' to him!"
Mr. Julian Adderley smiled faintly, and fixed a pair of rather fine grey eyes on Walden with a mute appeal, as one who should say with Hamlet 'These tedious old fools!' Meanwhile Sir Morton Pippitt had secured the last member of his party affectionately by the arm, and continuing his stage whisper said: "Permit me, Mr. Walden! This is one of our greatest London literary lights! He will particularly appreciate anything you may he good enough to tell him respecting your work of restoration here--Mr. Marius Longford, of the Savile and Savage clubs!"
Mr. Marius Longford, of the Savile and Savage clubs, bent his head with an air of dignified tolerance. He was an angular personage, with a narrow head, and a face cleanly shaven, except at the sides where two small pussy-cat whiskers fringed his sharply defined jaws. He had a long thin mouth, and long thin slits for his eyes to peep through,--they would have been eyelids with other people, but with him they were merely slits. He was a particularly neat man in appearance--his clothes were well brushed, his linen spotless, his iron-grey hair sleek, and his whole appearance that of a man well satisfied with his own exterior personality. Walden glanced at this great London literary light as indifferently as he would have glanced at an incandescent lamp in the street, or other mechanical luminary. He had not as yet spoken a word. Sir Morton had done all the talking; but the power of silence always overcomes in the end, and John's absolute non-committal of himself to any speech, had at last the effect he desired--namely that of making Sir Morton appear a mere garrulous old interloper, and his 'distinguished' friends somewhat of the cheap tripper persuasion. The warm May sun poured through the little shrine of prayer, casting flickers of gold and silver on the 'Saint at Rest' before the altar, and showering azure and rose patterns through the ancient stained glass which filled the side lancet windows. The stillness became for the moment intense and almost oppressive,--Sir Morton Pippitt fidgeted uneasily, pulled at his high starched collar and became red in the face,--the Reverend 'Putty' forgot himself so far as to pinch one of his own legs and hum a little tune, while the rest of the party waited for the individual whom their host had so frequently called 'the damned parson' to speak. The tension was relieved by the sudden quiet entrance of a young woman carrying a roll of music. Seeing the group of persons in the chancel, she paused in evident uncertainty. Walden glanced at her, and his composed face all at once lighted up with that kindly smile which in such moments made him more than ordinarily handsome.