At that moment the priests entered; mass began.  She opened her prayer book, but, however firmly she fixed her thoughts in prayer, they sprang back, without her knowing it, to Owen and the red-haired woman, with the smooth, cream-coloured shoulders.  Without being aware of it, she was looking at him, and it was such a delight to think of him that she could not refrain.  His chair was the last on the third line from the altar rail, and she noticed that he wore patent leather shoes; the hitching of the dark grey trousers displayed a silk sock; but he suddenly uncrossed his legs, and assumed a less negligent attitude.  In a sudden little melancholy she remembered how he had watched the woman with the red hair, and the determined indifference of this woman’s face as she left the room.  Immediately after she was amused at the way in which his face expressed his opinion of the music, and she had to admit to herself that he listened as if he understood it.

It was not until her father began to play the offertory, one of Schubert’s beautiful inspirations, that she noticed the look of real delight that held the florid profile till the last note, and for some seconds after.  “He certainly does love music,” she thought; and when the bell rang for the Elevation, she bowed her head and became aware of the Real Presence.  When it rang a second time she felt life stifle in her.  When it rang a third time she again became conscious of time and place.  But the sensation of awe which the accomplishment of the mystery had inspired was dissipated in the tumult of a very hideous Agnus Dei, in the voice of a certain concert singer, who seemed determined to shout down the organ.  Evelyn had some difficulty in keeping her countenance, so plain was the expression of amazement upon the profile in front of her.

Then the book was carried from the right to the left side of the altar, and when the priest had read the Gospel, she began once more to ask herself the reason that had brought Sir Owen to St. Joseph’s.  The manner in which he genuflected before the altar told her that he was a Catholic; perhaps he had come to St. Joseph’s merely to hear mass.

“I have come to see your father.”

“You will find him in the organ loft....  But he’ll be down presently.”

And at the end of the church, in a corner out of the way of the crowd, they waited for Mr. Innes, and she learnt almost at once, from his face and the remarks that he addressed to her, that it was not for her that he had come to St. Joseph’s.  His carriage was waiting, he told the coachman to follow; all three tramped through the snow together to the station.  In this miserable walk she learnt that he had decided to go for a trip round the world in his yacht, and expected to be away for nearly a year.  As he bade them good-bye he looked at her, and his eyes seemed to say he was sorry that it was so, that he wished it were otherwise.  She felt that if she had been able to ask him to stay he would have stayed; but, of course, that was impossible, and the last she saw of him was as he turned, just before getting into his brougham, to tell her father that the best critic of the Review should attend the concerts, and that he hoped that what he would write would bring some people of taste to hear them.