It could not have been curiosity to
see Mrs. Amyot that had impelled him to attend the performance, for it
would have been impossible for him, without changing his place, to command
the improvised platform at the end of the room. When I looked at him he
seemed lost in contemplation of the chandelier.
The lady from whom I had bought my tickets fluttered in late, unattended
by Charlie and the others, and assuring me that she would _scream_ if we
had the lecture on Ibsen--she had heard it three times already that
winter. A glance at the programme reassured her: it informed us (in the
lecturer's own slanting hand) that Mrs. Amyot was to lecture on the
Cosmogony.
After a long pause, during which the small audience coughed and moved its
chairs and showed signs of regretting that it had come, the door opened,
and Mrs. Amyot stepped upon the platform. Ah, poor lady!
Some one said "Hush!", the coughing and chair-shifting subsided, and she
began.
It was like looking at one's self early in the morning in a cracked
mirror. I had no idea I had grown so old. As for Lancelot, he must have a
beard. A beard? The word struck me, and without knowing why I glanced
across the room at my bearded friend on the sofa. Oddly enough he was
looking at me, with a half-defiant, half-sullen expression; and as our
glances crossed, and his fell, the conviction came to me that _he was
Lancelot_.
I don't remember a word of the lecture; and yet there were enough of them
to have filled a good-sized dictionary.
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