"And yet," said Agnes, "it isn't easy to see why it should be of so much importance to him."
"He has become interested in it," said Mrs. Merriam. "That is the expression, isn't it? It is my opinion that it would be better for him if he were less so. I have seen that kind of thing before. It is like being bitten by a tarantula."
She was not favorably inclined toward Richard. His sparkling moods did not exhilarate her, and she had her private theories concerning his character. Tredennis she was very fond of; few of his moods escaped her bright eyes; few of the changes in him were lost upon her. When he went away this evening she spoke of him to Agnes and Arbuthnot.
"If that splendid fellow does not improve," she said, "he will begin to grow old in his prime. He is lean and gaunt; his eyes are dreary; he is beginning to have lines on his forehead and about his mouth. He is enduring something. I should be glad to be told what it is."
"Whatever he endured," said Agnes, "he would not tell people. But I think 'enduring' is a very good word."
"How long have you known him?" Mrs. Merriam asked of Arbuthnot.
"Since the evening after his arrival in Washington on his return from the West," was the reply.
"Was he like this then?" rather sharply.
Arbuthnot reflected.
"I met him at a reception," he said, "and he was not Washingtonian in his manner. My impression was that he would not enjoy our society, and that he would finally despise us; but he looked less fagged then than he does now. Perhaps he begins to long for his daily Pi-ute. There are chasms which an effete civilization does not fill."