“I’m afraid I ordered you about, Miss Chandos.”
“Oh, you did. But I liked that. Obedience is necessary to success. That line is engraved on my heart. I used to write it out thousands of times when I first went to school.”
“Did you? There’s a touch of the rebel in you.”
“Yes; there is. I used to spell ‘necessary’ with one ‘s’ on purpose to annoy the mistress who set the pun. Such a silly pun too. Vain repetitions!”
“Exasperating everywhere.”
“Particularly in church, from the mouth of dear old Goody.”
“You are a rebel. And so am I.”
“Of course I know that.” Her eyes met his frankly, with an odd challenge. Against his discreeter judgment he felt impelled to take up that challenge.
“Do you still want to work with a rebel?”
She eyed him with self-possession, faintly smiling. But she was thinking how difficult it would be to describe him adequately in a letter to Miss Arabella Tiddle. By now she was able to view him in perspective, ripening to full maturity. Immense possibilities were indicated, she decided. Would he expand into a splendid somebody? Would he “furnish up”?—to use Brian’s favourite expression about a four-year-old. Dr. Pawley had said of him: “He rings true,” with an allusion to the eighteenth-century wine-glasses which he collected. And, after that happy comparison, she had never heard Grimshaw speak without noting the lingering resonance of his tones. Head and body were admirably proportioned, rich in line and contour, but not aggressively so. The careless eye would wander past him. He was, admittedly, too thin, too pale, to please the ordinary bouncing country miss; and yet he had the colour of a fine black-and-white print.