And now they were there before him--rather near him, too. Young Perkins, one of the ushers for the middle aisle, had pounced on them as a pair who would do credit to his natural desire to have all the best dressed and most distinguished looking strangers placed where they would do the most good to the personnel of the congregation. He knew Jane for what he called “a stunner,” thereby paying youthful tribute to her looks and quiet perfection of dress. As for Cary, one glance of appraisal had placed him, for Perkins, in the class of the “classy,” than which there is no greater compliment in the vocabulary of the Perkinses. Therefore it was that Perkins, leading Jane and Cary down the middle aisle, had complacently slipped them into the pew of one of the leading members--to-day out of town, as he knew--and thus had left them within exceedingly close range of whatever gunfire might be at the command of the pulpit. Perkins, having hurriedly scanned the headlines of the morning papers, had a hunch that it was going to be one of those mornings when the congregation would be likely to leave the church with its hair a trifle rampant on its brow from excited thrustings--or with its hats a little askew from agitated noddings or shakings. He had come to look forward to such Sundays with increasing zest. There was something else to stake quarters on with the other ushers, these days, than on how late Doctor Burns was going to be at church, or how short a time he would be permitted to remain there. Perkins was beginning to wonder how he had ever endured the dull times of Black’s immediate predecessor; certainly he was rejoicing that they were over.
Frances Fitch, in the Lockhart pew, just across the aisle and two rows behind Jane and Cary, found the pair a particularly interesting study. Through Tom she had heard much of Cary; she had caught only unsatisfying glimpses before. As he sat at the end of the pew nearest the aisle she had a full view of that profile which had first assured Black that Cary was indeed Jane’s brother, and it now struck Miss Fitch as one of the most attractive masculine outlines she had ever seen. Cary was still distinctly pale, but his pallor was becoming more healthy with each succeeding day of Jane’s skillful feeding, and his manner had lost its excessive nervousness. To the eye, by now, he merely looked the interesting convalescent from a possibly severe illness, with every probability of a complete return to full fitness of body. As to his mind--one glance at him could hardly help suggesting to the intelligent observer that here was a young man who possessed brains trained to the point of acuteness and efficiency in whatever lines they might be employed.