On Good Friday there was not a sight of the Wendover party in church, and Halcyone went back by the orchard house to look in at Cheiron, who had had a cold in the last few days.

Stretched in the armchair she found John Derringham.

The brisk walk in the fresh spring air had brought some faint color to her pale cheeks, her soft hair was wound about her head with becoming simplicity, and she wore an ordinary suit which could not disguise her beautiful slender limbs, so long and thin, a veritable Artemis in her chaste perfection of balance and proportion.

Halcyone could pass in any crowd and perhaps no one would ever notice her and her mouse-like coloring, but once your eye was arrested, then, like looking at some rare bit of delicate enamel, you began to perceive undreamed-of graces which soothed the sight until you were filled with the consciousness of an exquisite beauty as intangible as her other charm—­distinction.  An infinite serenity was in her atmosphere, a promise of all pure and tender things in her great soft eyes.  The mystery and freshness of the night seemed always to hang about her.  Her ways were noiseless—­the most creaking door appeared to forget its irritating habit when under her touch.  Thus it was that John Derringham, smoking a cigar, never even glanced up until a voice of extreme cultivation and softness said gently: 

“Good morning.  And how are you?”

Then he bounded from his chair, startled a little, and held out his hand.

“My old friend, Miss Halcyone, the Priestess of Truth!” he exclaimed, “as I am alive!”

She smiled serenely while they shook hands, and sat down demurely by the Professor’s side.

“I thought you would have been translated to Olympus long ago,” the visitor said.  “Have you honored this ordinary earth and our friend Cheiron’s cave, ever since?”

“Ever since!”

“There can be nothing left for you to learn.  Master, it is you and I whom she could teach,” he laughed.

“How do you know all this?” asked Halcyone quietly, while her eyes smiled at his raillery.  “Do I look such an old-fashioned blue-stocking, then?”

“You look perfectly sweet,” and John Derringham’s expressive eyes confirmed what he said.

“Enough, enough, John.  Halcyone is quite unaccustomed to gallants from the world like you,” the Professor growled.  “If you pay her compliments she won’t believe you can really make a speech.”

So Mr. Derringham laughed and continued his interrupted conversation.  He seemed in good humor with all the world.  He was going to stay at Wendover for the whole of Easter week.  Mrs. Cricklander had an amusing party of luminaries of both sides—­she was the most perfect hostess and had a remarkable talent for collecting the right people.

“She is quite the best-read woman I have ever met, Master,” John Derringham said.  “You must let me bring her over here one day to see you—­you would delight in her wit and beauty.  She does not leave you a dull moment.”