The Senior Tutor had never coached such an unpromising pupil. She would never get through her Little-go, he told himself—never, never. She would get plucked to a certainty.
Oh, it would never do for the future Mistress of St. Benedict's to be plucked!
He debated with himself while he was bending over her, and remarking what a dainty little profile it was, and how the little rings of chestnut hair clustered on her forehead, and how clear, how deliciously transparent, was the carnation tint of her cheek, and the shapely curve of her throat—such a little throat he could clasp it with his hand—he debated with himself, as he remarked these quite every-day things that no man in his senses except an old bachelor Fellow of a college would have noticed, whether it would not be better to settle the thing at once, and stop all this unprofitable work.
If Lucy knew what was before her, she would have other opportunities of fitting herself for her high position besides poring over mathematics, for which she clearly had no vocation.
'I'm afraid you find the work rather hard,' he said with a preliminary 'H'm' and 'Ah' to clear his throat. He didn't know exactly how to begin. What comes by nature at thirty is uncommonly hard at sixty. It is like going in again for a hurdle-race, or taking the high jump. He could have done it easily years ago, but he couldn't do it now. He stopped with that preliminary 'Ah.'
'Yes,' said Lucy, 'it is not very easy, but I am going to work eight hours a day. It is more than a month to the exam.; if I work very hard eight hours every day, I think I may manage it.'
Eight hours a day for a whole month! She was so much in earnest; and when she lifted her little pale drooping face to his, with just a suspicion of a tear on her eyelashes, he was really sorry for her. He was very near taking her in his arms and kissing away that fugitive tear and settling the matter—he was never nearer in his life.
Perhaps it was the best thing he could have done, but he missed the chance, and Lucy picked up her books and began to talk about the work she was to prepare for the next lesson.
'I wouldn't work eight hours a day,' he said; 'you will get through easier than that. I would give an extra two hours to tennis.'