Page:The Eleventh Virgin.pdf/36

was a continual babble of voices, but Adele and June were silent.

Then Mr. Armand strode through the crowd, and there was a ripple of applause as he came which swelled and swelled. He was tall and lithe. June noticed again with a thrill the aggressive way he carried his shoulders.

Adele nudged her sister as he passed. “He lives next door to us now,” she whispered. “I’ve seen him pass a couple of times. He knows father because he always speaks to him.”

June kicked her under the bench to make her keep quiet. She was irritated that Adele should break the sensuous stillness that enveloped her and she was angry and jealous that her sister should have seen him more often than she. And it was then too, that he passed her seat, which was on the outside by the aisle, and his hand brushed hers. The contact made her catch her breath and an agreeable quiver came to her heart.

For the rest of the evening June gazed at him with an intensity which he must have felt, she reasoned, because every now and then he’d look her way and smile. And all the while the spell grew and grew.

A week later, Mother Grace came home from the hospital with a tiny atom in her arms which she put