The angelic lips parted, and a low voice, so gentle it was like the
murmur of a leaf, replied, "_Yes, it is Altair._" And to Victor her
voice was of exquisite delicacy. "_Believe, be faithful._"
No one breathed. It was as if they had been permitted to gaze upon one
of heaven's angelic choir. How came she there? Who was she? Before these
questions could be framed she disappeared, silently as a bubble on the
water, leaving behind only that delicious, subtle, unaccountable odor as
of tropic fruits and unknown flowers.
Leo, breathing a sigh of sad ecstasy, exclaimed: "Is she not beautiful?
Never has she shown herself more glorious than to-night."
Victor was like one drugged and dreaming. There was no question of his
mother's honesty in his mind. He did not relate the vision to her, and
he winced with pain as Leo spoke. He wished to recall the face, to hear
that whisper again. The effect upon him was enormous, instant,
unfolding. In all his life nothing mystic, nothing to disturb or rouse
his imagination had hitherto come to him, and now this transcendent
marvel, this face born of the invisible and intangible essence of the
air, beat down his self-assurance and destroyed his smug conception of
the universe. He lost sight of his hypothesis and accepted Altair for
what she seemed, a gloriously beautiful soul of another world, a world
of purity and light and love.
He remained silent as Mrs. Joyce rose and went to his mother. He was
still in his seat when they turned up the lights. Leo spoke to him, but
he did not answer. Strange transformation! At the moment her voice
jarred upon him. She seemed commonplace, prosaic, in contrast with the
woman who had looked upon him from the luminous shadow.
Gradually the walls he hated, the entangling relationship he feared,
returned upon him; and though he realized something of the revealing
character of his reticence, he had not the will to break it. He watched
his mother return to her normal self with such detachment that she at
last became aware of it and lifted her feeble hands in search of him.
"Victor, come to me!" she pleaded.
He went to her then, still in a daze, and to her question, "Did your
father come?" he replied, brokenly, "A voice came, but I can't talk
about that now--I must go out into the air."
All perceived the tumult--the strange psychic condition into which he
had been thrown, and were considerate enough to refrain from pressing
him with inquiry. "He has been touched by 'the power,'" whispered Mrs.
Joyce to Leo. "He's under conviction."
The cool, clear air and the material rush of the city throbbing in upon
his brain restored the youth to something like his normal self; but he
remained silent and distraught all the way home.
As they entered the hall Leo glanced at his face with unsmiling,
penetrating intensity, and in that moment perceived that Victor the boy
had given place to Victor the man. She experienced a swift change of
relationship, and a pang of jealousy shot through her heart. She
realized that the wondrous spirit face was the power that had so wrought
upon and transformed him. She, too, had thrilled to the mystical beauty
of the phantom, and she had read in the tremulous lips the hesitating
whisper, a love for the young mortal, which had troubled her at the
moment, and which became more serious to her now.
They said good-night as strangers; he absorbed, absent-minded; she
resentful and a little hurt.
To his mother, when they were alone in her room, he said,
haltingly: "Mother, you must forgive me. I thought you did those
things--unconsciously cheating--but now--I--give it up. I believe in you
absolutely."
She raised her eyes to his wet with happy tears. "My son! My splendid
boy!" she said, and in her voice was song.