For his part, Lance, in noticing Sylv's abstracted behavior, recalled what Jessie had said as to throwing the young fellow so much with Adela, and wondered whether there was any confirmation of her fear in the constraint which had overtaken his protégé. But he was so anxious to see Adela, that he did not stop to reflect on that point more than a moment.
Ushered by the matronly principal of the academy into its scrupulously dusted but threadbare parlor, he awaited the girl's advent with a good deal of trepidation. The window-blinds were closed, and the interior was pervaded by a mock twilight. When Adela at last made her appearance, her figure, from the opposite side of the room, looked so dim and uncertain that Lance was strongly reminded of the first time he ever saw her—the time that she rose out of the earth, as it were, and again crumbled back into it.
"Miss Reefe!" he said, scarcely above a murmur.
"Oh, Mr. Lance! Sylv told me you were coming." And she approached him through the dimness of the room, groping, one might say.
They shook hands formally, and to Lance's distraught fancy it seemed as if her fingers withdrew themselves with the recoil of absolute dislike from the touch of his own.
"You're not glad to see me, I'm afraid," he began, boldly.
"Oh yes—yes I am. What makes you think so?"
"I can hardly tell, but I think I should know if you were. It is so dark here I can barely see you. Shall I open a shutter?" He made a movement to do so.
"It is light enough for me," Adela answered; and he at once desisted from his purpose. "Won't you sit down?" she asked.
He accepted the invitation.