It was sweet to gain this triumph over her friend, whose progress in the school of life she watched with the jealousy of a girl condemned to sterile passions.
Their talk was interrupted by the entrance of Samuel Barmby, and his elder sister, addressing him without reflection, said wonderingly:
‘Sam, did you know that Nancy Lord couldn’t pass the examination that Miss. Morgan is going in for?’
Jessica blushed, and hastened to extenuate this crude statement.
‘Oh, I didn’t say that. Only that she would have to study very hard if she went in for the matriculation.’
‘Of course she would,’ Samuel assented, largely, as he took his stand before the fireplace and beamed upon the female trio. ‘Miss Lord goes in for broad culture; that’s quite a different thing from studying for examinations.’
To the hearers, Jessica not excepted, this seemed to argue the spirit of broad culture in Samuel himself. Miss. Morgan pursued nervously:
‘Examinations are nothing. I believe very stupid people often do well in them, and clever people often fail.’
Her voice sank on the last word, and she tried to read Barmby’s face without meeting his look. Of late, a change had come about in her estimation of Samuel. Formerly she spoke of him with contemptuous amusement, in the tone set by Nancy; since she had become a friend of the family, his sisters’ profound respect had influenced her way of thinking, and in secret she was disposed rather to admire ‘the Prophet.’ He had always struck her as a comely man, and, her education notwithstanding, she never perceived in his remarks that downright imbecility which excited Nancy’s derision. On Jubilee night he was anything but a tedious companion; apart from her critical friend, Jessica had listened without impatience to his jests, his instructive facts, his flowing rhetoric. Now-a-days, in her enfeebled state of body and mind, she began to look forward with distinct pleasure to her occasional meetings with Samuel, pleasure which perhaps was enhanced by the air of condescension wherewith he tempered his courtesy. Morbid miseries brought out the frailty of her character. Desiring to be highly esteemed by Mr. Barmby, she found herself no less willing to join his sisters in a chorus of humbly feminine admiration, when he discoursed to them from an altitude. At moments, after gazing upon his eloquent countenance, she was beset by strange impulses which brought blood to her cheek, and made her dread the Miss. Barmbys’ scrutiny.
‘I look upon examinations,’ Samuel was saying, ‘as a professional matter. I never went in for them myself, simply because I—I turned my energies in another direction.’