It was strange that Ferrars should mistake the difference Miss Ballinger showed in her manner when talking to him and to other men, the keen alacrity with which she listened to, and the fearless manner in which she attacked, many of his views, for growing interest of a deeper kind. He misunderstood her character, if not completely, at all events in part. No woman, he believed, could care so much to convert a man to her way of thinking, who was indifferent as to that man's future. She was not indifferent; this young woman felt an unusual, almost a passionate concern about the lives of those in whom she was interested; and she was sincerely interested in Quintin Ferrars. But it was not the sort of interest he imagined; therein was the initial error of his conduct towards her.
On the way from church that evening, he sounded Mrs. Courtly.
"Have you had much conversation with Miss Ballinger since she arrived?"
"No private conversation. Why?"
"I saw a great deal of her in New York. We met every day. Sometimes I was for hours virtually alone with her. You can guess the result as regards myself. I thought I could never care for a woman again. But I care about this English girl as I never cared before. Has she ever spoken to you about me?"
"Not since we were on board the Teutonic. She asked me then about you, but I told her nothing. I knew you disliked your secret being talked of, and, as it has been so well kept, I resolved to say nothing, unless absolutely forced to do so." Then, after a pause, "She is not a woman to be lightly won, Quintin."
"No; but—unless I am an ass—she takes that sort of interest in me which may deepen into—something stronger. What I want, on all accounts, is time. And that is just the difficulty. They will only be here a few days."
"Yes, they are going west, after passing a day or two in Boston, when their aunt arrives."
"And they will leave America in the spring. And if I follow them west, they will be staying with people I don't know. It is time, you see, I want—time!"
"Do nothing precipitate, at all events. When will you be free?"