"I think you have, but the greatest ladies are often darlings."
"Yes, but married men do not tell them so, on very short acquaintance, Mr. Strobridge."
In his case he felt this was rather true, since he never spoke to girls at all if he could help it. He suddenly wondered in what light he really did consider her?—As an abstract and quite adorably provoking woman, he supposed.
"Is there anything else to be written down?" she asked. She had become the conventional secretary. "Because if not, I must go back to my work."
"My aunt gave me full permission to keep you for two hours. I told her all we had to do would take quite that time."
"Well, you see it has not—we have come to the end of the gallery."
"Then there is a very comfortable sofa not too far from the fire, where we could sit down and discuss what we have learned."
They walked to it. As long as he was being of some use to her Katherine Bush desired his company. So they talked uninterruptedly until dusk fell, and the footmen would soon be coming to close shutters and draw curtains.
They flitted from subject to subject, Gerard Strobridge exerting his brain to interest and amuse her, in a way that he had seldom done with Englishwomen, even of his own class. Her receptive power was exceptional, and she was completely frank. She was honestly and deeply interested in all he had to say, and the subtle flattery of this was eminently soothing. He began to take pride in his pupil. They touched upon the spirit of the Renaissance and its origin—and upon all the glorious flood of light which it brought to art and learning. He was astonished to find her so advanced in certain branches of literature, and absolutely ignorant of the names even of others—showing that it had merely been chance and no helping hand which had guided her.