They were much more interesting to Brown, however, than anything he had ever seen in the set and artificial radiance of the calcium light.  He knew well every face there, and yet, after his year’s exile and in contrast to the faces at which he had been lately looking, they formed a more engrossing study than any he had known for many months.

In the centre of the circle, in Brown’s old red-cushioned rocker and most comfortable chair, sat Mrs. Brainard, the exquisitely sophisticated wife of the distinguished specialist close by.  Her graceful head, with its slight and becoming touches of gray at the temples, rested like a fine cameo against the warm hue of the cushion.  Her brilliant eyes reflected the dancing firelight; her shapely hands, jewelled like Mrs. Breckenridge’s, but after an even more rare and perfectly chosen fashion, lay in her silken lap.  As his glance fell upon these hands some whimsical thought brought to Brown’s mind Mrs. Kelcey’s red, work-roughened ones.  He wondered if by any chance the two hands would ever meet, and whether Mrs. Brainard’s would shrink from the contact, or meet it as that of a sister, “under the skin.”

Near her his sister Sue’s dainty elegance of person showed like a flower against the big figure of Doctor Brainard, who sat at her elbow.  Brainard himself, with his splendid head and erect carriage, was always an imposing personage; he had never seemed more so than now, with the face of Patrick Kelcey, Andrew Murdison, and James Benson, the little watchmaker, in the background of Brown’s mind with which to contrast it.  Beyond Mrs. Brainard lounged Hugh Breckenridge—­as nearly as one could be said to lounge—­in a plain, cane-seated chair without arms.

At one side of the group was Webb Atchison, the rich bachelor of the party where all were possessed of wealth in plenty.  Next Atchison sat Miss Helena Forrest, the one member of the company who had not known where she was going until well upon her way there.  Upon her the glance of the man standing by the chimney-piece fell least often, yet there was no person present of whom he was so unremittingly conscious.  It may be said that from the moment that he had lifted her veil in his puzzled search for her identity, he had been conscious of little else.

There was not a single movement of Miss Forrest’s hands—­and she had certain little delightful, highly characteristic ways of helping out her speech with slight yet significant motions—­but had its place in Brown’s memory.  She was not a frequent talker, she did not speak one word to Sue Breckenridge’s fifty; but when she did speak, in her voice of slow music, people listened.  And yet one never thought of her, Brown remembered, as a silent person; the effect of her presence in any circle was that of a personality of the active, not the passive, sort.  The eyes of one speaking must, involuntarily, be drawn to her because she was listening, if I may coin a phrase, vividly.  As