“Maybe it is. Well, Lorna’s an only child. A queer girl; never met anybody like her, and—”
“You seem quite interested, though, don’t you, my son?”
“Well, she’s beautiful, Max.”
“Oh, that changes the situation. More power to your elbow. But wait.” His black eyes wandered casually over Mauney’s open features and a smile stole over his lips. “Do you know, you’re liable to fall for her.”
“I know it. I’ve fallen already,” Mauney admitted. “I’m in hot water. I want to be near her. She’s like an Easter lily. I want to—to pick that lily.”
A man never knows his capacity for action along any line until put to the test. Mauney, burdened with trying to find himself in many ways, received the added burden of a woman’s attraction. It was all new to him. Never before had it happened. Here was Lorna Freeman, fresh as the lily to which he had referred, with him every day of the week except Sunday. Even the Sabbath began to hold her, too, for she accepted his invitations to stroll out Riverton way. There were long reaches of broad, board walks stretched beside the river where they perambulated, just like less sophisticated clerks and stenographers, who also found Riverton good. The Freemans never had a motor-car. Mauney did not realize that he had money enough to buy one. Consequently their feet took them wherever they went. Long strolls on Sunday, during which they got away from history entirely! In fact nothing could be farther removed from history. The vivid present swelled up before him so gigantically that he had trouble sticking to his books.
He wanted to say something to Lorna, but kept putting it off, partly because he was uncertain as to the thing itself, and partly because more preparation seemed necessary. He found that he could keep on looking at her for hours, but that, on attempting to describe his feelings, he was overtaken by a sense of diffidence. Would she quite understand him?
He was on the third term time-table now. Christmas and Easter were past. Spring and the prospect of examinations were at hand. There came languorous evenings. The precincts of his bedroom grew tiresome. April moved the lace curtains inside his open window. He got up from his desk and stretched himself and went straight to Freeman’s, on Crandall Street, and asked if Lorna was at home. She was out, but was expected home soon, and he was invited to wait for her. Perhaps, Mrs. Freeman suggested, he would like to go up with the professor until she came back.
“Of course you know where to find him,” she said, with a soft gesture toward the staircase. “Up in his study. Always, always studying, you know.”