One blue summer morning, Wyndham, for the twentieth time at least,
entered the Salon through his customary turnstile, and stood in the
great central court, under the crystal roof, amid the gleaming display
of statuary. There was already a goodly number of people about; not yet
a crowd, but enough for the costumes and hats of the fair sex to colour
the whole place like a flower-garden. He moved about among them for
awhile, his eye keen and ready; then ascended the staircase, and entered
the nearest doorway. He spent an hour or two in leisurely progression
through the galleries, long since familiar with all the pictures, and
staying only before the interesting ones, yet with attention ever on the
alert.
At last he had set foot in the particular room, which was to him the
shrine, the inner sanctuary, of this Temple of the Arts. It was already
crowded here, and his first impression was of a mass of silk hats and
beflowered millinery rather than of pictures. He hesitated in the
doorway an instant, then began the slow tour of the room, pausing
before every picture in turn, so as to indulge in the pleasurable
make-believe of coming on Lady Betty again suddenly. Gradually he worked
his way along and it was not till he had come again within reach of his
starting-point that his own frame gleamed on his vision. He manoeuvred
through a bevy of ladies, and then found himself side by side with a
girlish figure in a light flowered muslin costume and a pretty hat
trimmed with violets. He had stepped quite close to her out of the
crowd, by which she had been entirely hidden; but, his eyes drawn
imperiously to the portrait of Lady Betty, he was merely aware of his
neighbour as one of the crowd, and he did not even look at her
definitely. He saw just her gloved hand holding her catalogue, and, in a
vague way, he wondered what she was thinking of the picture. He felt
rather than saw that his neighbour had stepped back a little, as if
naturally to make way for him. Then some mysterious impulse made him
turn, and their eyes met. In all those winter days that were past he had
never seen her so bright and gracious as she appeared now, clad for the
summer, and in this sparkling universe. Never before had those violet
eyes shone with so perfect a light, as of the full freshness of
childhood. Yet her face was pallid and awestruck as she gazed at him.
But a wild joy sang at his heart, and he felt his blood pulsing with a
glad note that seemed to be at one with the note that sang to him from
horizons of enchantment opening before him; at one, too, with the note
that sang to him out of all this exquisite Paris!
"I am free," he whispered. "Do you understand? Free!"
"Free?"
He divined rather than heard the breathed exclamation from the movement
of her lips--read the amazed questioning of her eyes.
"I have not broken my promise to you!" The crowd surged round them,
struggling to see his picture, ejaculating banal words of admiration.
"You do not doubt!" he whispered tensely.