Dr. Grey walked up and down the library floor, and, as his sister watched him, a sad smile trembled over her thin, wrinkled face.
“Ulpian, you are considerably younger than our poor 167 father was when he married a beautiful creature not one month older than Salome is to-day. Will you sit in judgment on your own young mother?”
“Nay, Janet; the parallelism is not as apparent as you imagine, for my manner toward Salome has been calculated to check and chill any sentiment analogous to that which my father sought to win from my mother. Pray, do not press upon me a surmise which is indescribably painful to me.”
He resumed his seat, and, thrusting his fingers through his hair, leaned his head on his open hand.
“My dear boy, if true, why should it prove indescribably painful to you?”
“Cannot your womanly intuitions spare me an explicit reply?”
“No; speak frankly to me.”
“No man of honor—no man who has any delicacy or refinement of feeling—can fail to be distressed and annoyed by the thought that he has unintentionally and unconsciously aroused in a woman’s heart an interest which he cannot possibly reciprocate.”
“But, if you have never considered the subject until now, how do you know that you may not be able to return the affection?”
“Because, when I examine my own heart, I find not even the germ of a feeling which years might possibly ripen into love.”