"Yes, she is very intelligent," he repeated. "I must try to find time to have some more talks with her."
"I wish you joy of them!" thought Dudley. "I should like to know how you tackle a case like that, Stuart," he said. "Tell me what you said to her, and what she said to you."
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHUMS.
Action and reaction are equal and opposite.
Dudley was back in his den in London. For the first day after his return, he had thought of nothing but Mona; her face had come between him and everything he did. Now it was bending, grave and motherly, over the fainting girl, now it was sparkling with mischief at the quotation from Faust, now it vibrated to the words of Stradivarius, and now—oftenest of all—it looked up at him in the dim lamplight, with that enquiring, inexplicable smile, half friendly, half defiant.
And the evening and the morning were the first day.
But now the second day had come, and Dudley was thinking—of Rachel Simpson.
He pushed aside his books, and tramped up and down the room. How came she there, his exquisite fern, in that hideous dungeon? And was she indeed so fair? Removed from those surroundings, would she begin for the first time to show the taint she had acquired? In the drawing-room, at the dinner-table, in a solitude à deux, what if one should see in her a suggestion of—Rachel Simpson?
And then Mona's face came back once more, pure, high-souled, virgin; without desire or thought for love and marriage. There was not the faintest ruby streak on the bud, and yet, and yet—what if he were the man to call it forth? Why had she refused his arm? It would have been pleasant to feel the touch of that strong, self-reliant little hand. It would be pleasant to feel it now——