She saw nothing more of him until evening, and then he was rather quiet, sitting beside Tillie and Miss Margaret, with occasional low-toned remarks to them, but not joining in the general conversation.
"What a queer remark that was for a man to make!" thought Rachel, looking at him across the room;—"a young man especially"; and that started her to thinking of his age, about which people would have widely different opinions. To see him sometimes, laughing and joking with the rest, he looked a boy of twenty. To hear him talking of scientific researches in his own profession and others, of the politics of the day, or literature of the age, one would imagine him at least forty. But sitting quietly, his face in repose, yet looking tired, his eyes so full of life, yet steeped in reveries, the rare mouth relaxed, unsmiling, then he looked what he probably was, thought the girl—about thirty; but it was seldom that he looked like that.
"Therefore," reasoned this feminine watcher, "it is seldom that we see him as he really is; query—why?"
"Perhaps I felt as a parent feels!" How frank his words had been, and how unlike most men he was, to give utterance to that thought with so much feeling, and how caressing to the child! Rachel had to acknowledge that he was original in many ways, and the ways were generally charming. His affections were so warm, so frankly bestowed; yet that gracious, tender manner of his, even when compared with the bluntness of the men around him, never made him seem effeminate.
Rachel, thinking of his words, wondered if he had a sweetheart somewhere, that made him think of a possible wife or children longingly—and if so, how that girl must love him!
So, despite her semi-warlike attitude, and her delight in thwarting him, she had appreciation enough of his personality to understand how possible it was for him to be loved deeply.
Jim, under Miss Hardy's tuition, had been making an attempt to "rope in" an education, and that night was reading doubtfully the history of our Glorious Republic in its early days; garnishing the statements now and then with opinions of his own, especially the part relating to the character of the original lords of the soil.
"Say, Miss Rache, yer given' me a straight tip on this lay-out?" he said at last, shutting the book and eyeing her closely.
The question aroused her from the contemplation of the Hermes-like head opposite, though she had, like Hardy, been pretending to read.
"Do you mean, is it true?" she asked.