The Libri GmbH The Blood Red Dawn Paperback

he pastor's announcement had been swallowed up in a hum of truantinattention, and as the heralded speaker made his appearance upon theplatform Claire Robson, leaning forward, said to her mother:"What?... Did you catch his name?""A foreigner of some sort!" replied Mrs. Robson, with smug sufficiency.For a moment the elder woman's sneer dulled the edge of Claire's anticipa-tions, but presently the man began to speak, and at once she felt a sense ofpower back of his halting words, a sudden bursting fort of bloom amid thefrozen assembly that sat ice-bound, refusing to be melted by the fires of analien enthusiasm. She could not help wondering whether he felt how hope-less it would be to force a sympathetic response from his audience. In ordi-nary times the Second Presbyterian Church of San Francisco could not pos-sibly have had any interest in Serbia except as a field for foreign missionaries.Now, with America in the war and speeding up the draft, these worthy peo-ple were too much concerned with problems nearer their own hearthstonesto be swept off their feet by a specific and almost inarticulate appeal for anobscure country, made only a shade less remote by the accident of being ac-3 CHARLES CALDWELL DOBIEcounted an ally.Claire, straining at attention, found it hard to follow him. He talked rapidlyand with unfamiliar emphasis, and he waved his hands. Frankly, people werebored. They had come to hear a concert and incidentally swell the Red Crossfund, but they had not reckoned on quite this type of harangue. Besides,an appetizing smell of coffee from the church kitchen had begun to beguiletheir senses. And yet, the man talked on and on, until quite suddenly ClaireRobson began to have a strange feeling of disquiet, an embarrassment forhim, such as one feels when an intimate friend or kinsman unconsciouslymakes a spectacle of himself. She wished that he would stop. She longed torise from her seat and scream, to create an outlandish scene, to do anything,in short, that would silence him. At this point he turned his eyes in herdirection, and she felt the scorch of an intense inner fire. Instinctively shelowered her glance.... When she looked up again his gaze was still fixed uponher. She felt her color rise. From that moment on she had a sense that she washis sole audience. He was talking to her. The others did not matter. She stilldid not have any very distinct idea what it was all about, but the manner of itheld her captive. But gradually the mists cleared, he became more coherent,and slowly, imperceptibly, bit by bit, he won the others. Yet never for aninstant did he take his eyes fromher. When he finished, a momentary silenceblocked the final burst of applause. But Claire Robson's hands were lockedtightly together, and it was not until he had disappeared that she realizedthat she had not paid him the tribute of even a parting glance.