“You must let me see some of these poems,” she said, pursuing the theme no further.
He shook his head. “They are only doggerel, like the one I sang last night,” he laughed. “They are as shallow as my heart.”
She resumed her painting and he his reading; but his mind was not following the movement of his eyes.
He was thinking how little he understood his companion. She was clearly a woman of strong views, one who had taken her life into her own hands and was facing the world with reliant courage. In fact, it might be said of her that she was the sort of woman who would not be turned from what she knew to be right by any qualms of guilty conscience. He smiled to himself at the epigram, and again allowed his thoughts to speculate upon her alluring personality.
He found at length, however, that the matter was beyond him; and presently he turned to his reading once more.
It was while he was so engaged that suddenly he sat up in his chair, gazing with amazement at the printed page before him.
“Great Scott!” he whispered, pronouncing the words slowly and capaciously. There was a crazy look of astonishment upon his face.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, glancing at him, but unable to tell from the whimsical expression of his mouth and eyes what manner of news had taken his attention.
He looked at her as though he did not see her. Then he read once more the words, which seemed to dance before him, and again stared through her into the distance of his breathless thoughts.
“News that concerns you?” she asked.