He slipped into his smoking-jacket, turned on the glare of the light, pulled table and Morris chair before the fire, and sat down, book in hand, to some pretence of study, but other cases than legal thronged his mind. He flung the note-book on the table, wrenched off the blower, and then, with a half sigh of content at the blazing coals in the grate, he sank back in his chair. He watched the flicker of the flames in the chimney's mouth; yellow and white and red and violet, the tongues of burning gas flared up the rough, black chimney's mouth, and the coals below glowed red and redder. But Lawson, looking at them dreamingly, was seeing the way he must go, and was growing stronger in his determination.
He would win her, yes! He had begun merely as a diversion from the study he sometimes liked and sometimes disliked, sometimes dreamed to win fame through and sometimes was intolerantly impatient of, counting, in a bitter moment, nothing worth effort.
He had begun, too, by draping traditions about Frances, every one of which, she had freed herself from; and he had ended by unquestioning acceptance of the fact that this woman, puzzling beyond his ken, was the one thing of the hour he desired.
The memory of Susan's words only strengthened his obstinacy. The shield Frances kept about her, thin as gauze, impenetrable as steel, which he had fended aside once and once again, but made his fight the more interesting. He had no fault to find at any point of the situation,—only a wild impatience that he should have been thrust back when he felt attainment within his grasp.
XIV
With the advent of visitors the professor's house became the centre of gayety in the quadrangle. The women of the other households were glad to show friendliness to the young girl, in whom they felt a warm interest, but who had seemed in her content to need no one. Visits and invitations, drives and supper parties transformed the quiet household.
The professor made one stand for himself. Susan had asked for a scullion and named a boy, who was promptly engaged. "And, Susan," the professor had commanded, "see that he keeps a good fire in the parlor; show every one who calls in there. Leave the library undisturbed."
"I must have some peace!" added the professor to himself, who found this whirl a trial, but endured it for Frances' sake. For Frances seemed to thoroughly enjoy this dispensing of hospitality; she planned gayeties far ahead. She accepted and returned the invitations from their neighbors. She spent hours in the kitchen while her guests were dispatched on pleasures, and fought Susan's wrath for each of those hours. There was no idle moment when accusing thoughts might sting, or when some seeker for such opportunity would find her alone.