"Yes--much easier," says Perpetua; "you will find that out, after a bit, when you have got used to calling me by it. Are you going now, Mr. Curzon? Going _so soon?_"
"Students?" says she. "You teach them? I wish I was a student. I shouldn't have been given over to Aunt Jane then, or," with a rather wilful laugh, "if I had been I should have led her, oh!" rapturously, _"such a life!"_
It suggests itself to the professor that she is quite capable of doing that now, though she is _not_ of the sex male.
"Good-bye," says he, holding out his hand.
"You will come soon again?" demands she, laying her own in it.
"Not till then? I shall be dead then," says she, with a rather mirthless laugh this time. "Do you know that you and Aunt Jane are the only two people in all London whom I know?"
"That is terrible," says he, quite sincerely.
"But soon you will know people. Your aunt has acquaintances. They--surely they will call; they will see you--they----"
"Will take an overwhelming fancy to me? just as you have done," says she, with a quick, rather curious light in her eyes, and a tilting of her pretty chin. "There! _go,"_ says she, "I have some work to do; and you have your classes. It would never do for you to miss _them._ And as for next week!--make it next month! I wouldn't for the world be a trouble to you in any way."
"I shall come next week," says the professor, troubled in somewise by the meaning in her eyes. What is it? Simple loneliness, or misery downright? How young she looks--what a child! That tragic air does not belong to her of right. She should be all laughter, and lightness, and mirth----
"As you will," says she; her tone has grown almost haughty; there is a sense of remorse in his breast as he goes down the stairs. Has he been kind to old Wynter's child? Has he been true to his trust? There has been an expression that might almost be termed despair in the young face as he left her. Her face, with that expression on it, haunts him all down the road.
Yes. He will call next week. What day is this? Friday. And Friday next he is bound to deliver a lecture somewhere--he is not sure where, but certainly somewhere. Well, Saturday then he might call. But that----
Why not call Thursday--or even Wednesday?