Could it be that this was his little
brown friend, the maid of the wilderness? This girl with the lovely,
refined face, the intellectual brow, the dainty fineness of manner? She
looked like some white angel dropped down into that motley company of
Sunday-school picknickers and city pleasure-seekers. The noise and clatter
of the place seemed far away from her. She was absorbed utterly in the
sweet sounds.
When she looked up and saw him, the smile that flashed out upon her face
was like the sunshine upon a day that has hitherto been still and almost
sad. The eyes said, "You are come at last!" The curve of the lips said, "I
am glad you are here!"
He went to her like one who had been hungry for the sight of her for a
long time, and after he had grasped her hand they stood so for a moment
while the hum and gentle clatter of talk that always starts between
numbers seethed around them and hid the few words they spoke at first.
"O, I have so longed to know if you were safe!" said the man as soon as he
could speak.
Then straightway the girl forgot all her three years of training, and her
success as a debutante, and became the grave, shy thing she had been to
him when he first saw her, looking up with awed delight into the face she
had seen in her dreams for so long, and yet might not long for.
The orchestra began again, and they sat in silence listening. But yet
their souls seemed to speak to each other through the medium of the music,
as if the intervening years were being bridged and brought together in the
space of those few waves of melody.
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