“He is only trying to be clever,” explained Azalea. “He is subtly suggesting that if the very best of us proclaimed our thoughts upon our foreheads, there would be jolly few who didn’t pull their hats low above their brows.”
Azalea did not wear her thoughts upon her forehead, Dilling reflected, and he smiled at his conceit in thinking that if she did, they would probably be written in a language that was difficult to read! It suddenly occurred to him that he knew very little of what was passing in Azalea’s mind. His endeavour had been directed to an opposite course—assisting her to understand what was in his thoughts.
“She’s a curious creature,” he repeated, “a problem. But she has rare intelligence and imagination. I need her . . . She is necessary for the advancement of my work. I can’t concentrate in this hopeless muddle . . .”
The idea excited him more than he realised. In planning a schedule for their day’s routine, he did not recognise his keen desire for a closer intimacy with the girl’s mind, the assurance of her esteem, the stimulus of knowing that she expected him to conquer unconquerable things. He began to wear down her arguments, to win her from possible disinclination. She must agree! She must come!
He pictured a scene with her tiresome old father, when he should ask not for her hand but for her brain. How insensately stubborn the old antiquarian would be! How damnably unreasonable!
He consulted his book of appointments . . . not a minute Wednesday . . . nor Thursday . . . Ah! Mrs. Pratt’s dinner party . . . Good! He would ask her then . . .
A thin smile touched his features as he said to himself,
“If I can move the Opposition in the House, surely I can override the objections of Grenville Deane!”
Mr. Deane would have swelled with pride had he known that his daughter was engaging the attention of more than one Parliamentary Member that day. In a room above that occupied by Raymond Dilling, the thoughts of three other gentlemen bent themselves fleetingly upon her.