These considerations were running lightly through his mind as he sat down to his desk to finish off some tutorial work before dinner, in the little inner room which he made his sanctuary, whither undergraduates only penetrated for strictly business purposes. The outer keeping-room was furnished with taste and comfort for the general eye, but here Raine kept such things as were nearly connected with his own life. As he wrote, he idly took up an ivory paper-knife in his left hand, and pressed it against his cheek.
He paused to think, looked mechanically at the paper-knife, and then lost himself in a day-dream. For the bit of ivory had taken him back many years--to the days when he had just entered on his manhood.
He started, threw down his pen, and leant back in his chair, a shadow of earnestness over his face.
“That was the boy,” he said, half aloud. “What would it be for the man? If this foolishness is serious--as the other--”
And, after a few seconds, he clapped both hands down on the leather arms of his chair.
“It _is_ both equally--it must be--I'll swear that it is! And so there's nothing in it.”
He pushed aside his unfinished schedule, and took a sheet of note-paper from the stationery-case.
_“My dear Nora,” he wrote, “I have been thinking you may have misunderstood my rubbish this afternoon. So don't think I propose anything so idiotic as a search for a wife. Remember there are two, and there is safety in numbers. If you will go over to Geneva and make a third attraction, you may be absolutely unconcerned as to the safety of_
When he had tossed the letter into the tray for the next post, he felt relieved, and went on with his work.
But the next morning he received a note by hand from Mrs. Monteith, which he tore up wrathfully into little pieces and threw into the waste-paper basket.
“My dear Raine,--Men are the funniest creatures! I laughed over your letter till I cried.
Which shows how a woman can know your mind from a sample, when you yourself are in doubt with the whole piece before you.
|From the moment of mutual revelation, the relations between Katherine and Felicia underwent a change, not the less appreciable for being subtle. This was inevitable. In fact, Felicia had dreaded the first confidential talk as much as she dreaded the arrival of Raine. But these things are infinitely simpler than we are apt to imagine, by reason of the mere habit of human intercourse. The hours that they spent together at first, passed outwardly as pleasantly as before. But Katherine was more reserved, limited the conversation as much as possible to the ephemeral concrete, and Felicia, keeping a guard over herself, lost somewhat in simplicity of manner. Imperceptibly, however, they drifted apart, and saw less of one another. A tendency towards misjudgment of Katherine was a necessary consequence of the sense of indelicacy under which the girl chafed. The rare utterances of feeling or opinion that the other gave vent to, instead of awakening her sympathy, aroused undefined instincts of antagonism. She sought the old scholar's society more and more, boldly put into execution a project she had long rather tremulously contemplated, and established herself as his amanuensis.