"You must miss her very much."
Her father smiled a little sadly, "I am not used to doing without her," he said whimsically.
"Where is she?" Lawson could hear the heavy throb of his heart when the question had been put.
"In Richmond," the professor answered, as if it were quite a question without special interest to any one. "Good-day!" he added as he looked at his watch, "I'm due! Come and see me, some time!"
The professor had been touched by the anxious air of the man and set it down to diffidence. He wished the students would not show that awe of him. None of them knew how friendly he would like to be; but he was studying, working, reading, dreaming, all the while. He dwelt in a world of abstractions and carried the atmosphere with him. It was an alien atmosphere and kept him apart.
"Richmond!" said the young man to himself. "Richmond!" he could have shouted. His boot heels rang it in the pavement, his pulses throbbed it. "Richmond," and they were going there to-morrow. He rushed to his room, threw down his books, and began singing:—
"Gayly the Troubadour touched his guitar
As he was hastening home from the war,
Singing in search of thee fain would I roam,