They shouted, clapped, and waved while he sat in blank amazement, and
was with difficulty forced to the rostrum to bow again and again. The
spectacled white man leaned over to Stillings.
"Who is he?" he asked. Stillings told him. The man noted the name and
went quietly out.
Miss Wynn sat lost in thought, and Teerswell beside her fumed. She was
not easily moved, but that speech had moved her. If he could thus stir
men and not be himself swayed, she mused, he would be--invincible. But
tonight he was moved as greatly as his hearers had been, and that was
dangerous. If his intense belief happened to be popular, all right; but
if not? She frowned. He was worth watching, she concluded; quite worth
watching, and perhaps worth guiding.
When Alwyn accompanied her home that night, Miss Wynn set herself to
know him better for she suspected that he might be a coming man. The
best preliminary to her purpose was, she knew, to speak frankly of
herself, and that she did. She told him of her youth and training, her
ambitions, her disappointments. Quite unconsciously her cynicism crept
to the fore, until in word and tone she had almost scoffed at many
things that Alwyn held true and dear. The touch was too light, the
meaning too elusive, for Alwyn to grasp always the point of attack; but
somehow he got the distant impression that Miss Wynn had little faith in
Truth and Goodness and Love.
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