"Meeting not begun yet?" he demanded, without salutation, apparently
addressing Carlisle. "Thought I was late."

"Ah, Mr. Pond--glad to see you," said Vivian, stepping forward a little
to meet the newcomer. "They've just begun--you'll find an ovation
waiting for you."

"In your office? Aren't you going up, to lead the applause?"

The doctor bowed gravely. "In my office. I'll join you directly."

"I see," said the man, nodding, having never checked his stride.

But all that he had seemed to see with his keen black eyes was the
lovely girl posed on the last step of the ornamental stairway. He almost
brushed against her as he strode by.

The Pond person's footsteps diminished up the long stairs. A moment
later a volley of hand-clapping, sounding very near, indicated his
arrival in the meeting-room. But his interruption and his irritating
stare had accomplished no mollifying purpose down in the court. But one
end, indeed, could justify the proud Miss Heth in lingering in a public
hall with the slanderer of herself and her family.

"Doesn't it occur to you," she said, hardly waiting for the intruder to
get out of earshot, "that so much preaching about other people's
business seems rather--odd, coming from you?"

Dr. Vivian now affected to look troubled.