There was a curious familiarity in the action of the head which struck
Carnac. He and his mother were seated about five rows back from the
front row on the edge of the aisle. As the meeting progressed,
Barouche's eyes wandered slowly over the faces of his audience.
Presently he saw Carnac and his mother. Mrs. Grier was conscious of a
shock upon the mind of Barouche. She saw his eyes go misty with feeling.
For him the world was suddenly shut out, and he only saw the woods of a
late summer's afternoon, a lonely tent--and a woman. A flush crept up
his face. Then he made a spasmodic gesture of the hand, outward, which
again Carnac recognized as familiar. It was the kind of thing he did
himself.
So absorbed was Barode Barouche that he only mechanically heard the
chairman announce himself, but when he got to his feet his full senses
came back. The sight of the woman to whom he had been so much, and who
had been so much to him for one short month, magnetized him; the face of
the boy, so like his own as he remembered it thirty years ago, stirred
his veins. There before him was his own one unacknowledged child--the
only child ever born to him. His heart throbbed. Then he began to
speak. Never in all his life had he spoken as he did this day. It was
only a rural audience; there was not much intelligence in it; but it had
a character all its own. It was alive to its own interests, chiefly of
agriculture and the river.
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