I was always fluctuating in my judgment upon this issue; and the problem occupied me during many an hour of meditation.
How dull the alternate days had become; and how pleasant even the look-forward to our little meetings! Thus, very agreeably, for about a fortnight our readings proceeded, and, one evening on our return, expecting the immediate arrival of our "master," as I called Mr. Carmel, we found, instead, a note addressed to Miss Grey. It began: "Dear Miss Eth," and across these three letters a line was drawn, and "Grey" was supplied. I liked even that evidence that his first thought had been of me. It went on:
"Duty, I regret, calls me for a time away from Malory, and our Italian readings, I have but a minute to write to tell you not to expect me this evening, and to say I regret I am unable, at this moment, to name the day of my return.
"In great haste, and with many regrets, "Yours very truly, "E. Carmel."
"So he's gone again!" I said, very much vexed. "What shall we do to-night?"
"Whatever you like best; I don't care--I'm sorry he's gone."
"How restless he is! I wonder why he could not stay quietly here; he can't have any real business away. It may be duty; but it looks very like idleness. I dare say he began to think it a bore coming to us so often to read Tasso, and listen to my nonsense; and I think it a very cool note, don't you?"
"Not cool; a little cold; but not colder than he is," said Laura Grey. "He'll come back, when he has done his business; I'm sure he has business; why should he tell an untruth about the matter?"
I was huffed at his going, and more at his note. That pale face, and those large eyes, I thought the handsomest in the world. I took up one of Laura's manuals of The Controversy, which had fallen rather into disuse after the first panic had subsided, and Mr. Carmel had failed to make any, even the slightest, attack upon our faith. I was fiddling with its leaves, and I said:
"If I were an inexperienced young priest, Laura, I should be horribly afraid of those little tea-parties. I dare say he is afraid--afraid of your eyes, and of falling in love with you."
"Certainly not with me," she answered. "Perhaps you mean he is afraid of people talking? I think you and I should be the persons to object to that, if there was a possibility of any such thing. But we are talking folly. These men meet us, and talk to us, and we see them; but there is a wall between, that is simply impassable. Suppose a sheet of plate glass, through which you see as clearly as through air, but as thick as the floor of ice on which a Dutch fair is held. That is what their vow is."