A tumult of hearty applause followed, and then he cried, "Gentlemen, this old man fought for the land of our birth. He is dying of hunger," and into the old man's hat he dropped a bill and then handed it round to millionaire and workingman alike. Ethel's purse was in her hand. As he passed along the curb at which her carriage stood, he looked at her eager face, and with a smile held out the battered hat. She, also smiling, dropped her purse into it. In a few moments the hat was nearly full; the old man and the money were confided to the care of an hotel officer, the stream of traffic and pleasure went on its usual way, and the musician disappeared.
All that evening the conversation turned constantly to this event. Mostyn was sure he was a member of some operatic troupe. "Voices of such rare compass and exceptional training were not to be found among non-professional people," he said, and Judge Rawdon was of his opinion.
"His voice will haunt me for many days," he said. "Those two lines, for instance-'Tis the home of our childhood, that beautiful spot Which memory retains when all else is forgot.
The melody was wonderful. I wish we could find out where he is singing. His voice, as I said, haunts my ear."
Ethel might have made the same remark, but she was silent. She had noticed the musician more closely than her father or Fred Mostyn, and when Ruth Bayard asked her if his personality was interesting, she was able to give a very clear description of the man.
"I do not believe he is a professional singer; he is too young," she answered. "I should think he was about twenty-five years old, tall, slender, and alert. He was fashionably dressed, as if he had been, or was going, to an afternoon reception. Above all things, I should say he was a gentleman."
Oh, why are our hearts so accessible to our eyes? Only a smiling glance had passed between Ethel and the Unknown, yet his image was prisoned behind the bars of her eyelids. On this day of days she had met Love on the crowded street, and he had "But touched his lute wherein was audible The certain secret thing he had to tell; Only their mirrored eyes met silently"; and a sweet trouble, a restless, pleasing curiosity, had filled her consciousness. Who was he? Where had he gone to? When should they meet again? Ah, she understood now how Emmeline Labiche had felt constrained to seek her lover from the snows of Canada to the moss-veiled oaks of Louisiana.