“How silly of them!” said Lucy, though in her heart she sympathized; “I think that a kind action done tactfully⁠—”

“Tact!”

He threw up his head in disdain. Apparently she had given the wrong answer. She watched the singular creature pace up and down the chapel. For a young man his face was rugged, and⁠—until the shadows fell upon it⁠—hard. Enshadowed, it sprang into tenderness. She saw him once again at Rome, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, carrying a burden of acorns. Healthy and muscular, he yet gave her the feeling of greyness, of tragedy that might only find solution in the night. The feeling soon passed; it was unlike her to have entertained anything so subtle. Born of silence and of unknown emotion, it passed when Mr. Emerson returned, and she could reenter the world of rapid talk, which was alone familiar to her.

“Were you snubbed?” asked his son tranquilly.