"I'm going into the library," announced Frances, all the banter gone from her voice.
"Have you been to breakfast?" in astonishment.
"Haven't you? Oh! you are lazy! You must go at once. Mrs. Lancey won't save it for you."
"Yes she will!" He followed her into the fairy white interior of the Rotunda, with its great pillars bearing above their Corinthian pilasters the carved circle on which were written the names of the giants of the book world.
He had some faint desire to see before which of the cases she would pause. He was proud of his knowledge of his fellow beings, but this young woman puzzled him. It was a pleasure to his beauty-loving eyes to gaze on her—tall, slender, but well set up, frank-eyed, clear-skinned with an air of utter independence; the things he had heard her say and seen her do kept her from any place in his category.
The long serge gown rustling softly on the marble pavement, she went straight to the books she wanted. It was late, and she wished to avoid the stream of students that would soon be setting roomwards and hallwards.
She took down the volumes instantly—Fiske's "Old Virginia and her Neighbors," and Byrd's "History of the Dividing Line." If Lawson was astonished she gave him no chance to express it.
"You must hurry to breakfast," she insisted as they went out.
The young man looked down at the sunlit quadrangle. "Won't you go for a drive about ten?" he asked abruptly.
"I'm going."