He had brought home a collection of specimens with which to experiment. A room upstairs was devoted to them. Several times I was invited to enter.
I liked to watch the Butterfly Hunter as he bent his gray head over the cocoons. He was a tall man, and slender and lithe as a boy, from much walking.
That kindly, weather-beaten face puzzled me. I could not tell whether or no traces of passionate human experience lay hidden under the look of absorbing interest in the specimens he held in his hand.
He would bend over the little gray winding-sheets, touch one with his finger, reverently, then look on in silence.
His butterfly!
CHAPTER XII
The Lad did not tell me how deeply he was interested in Janet. He simply talked about her a large part of the time when he was with me. At first it had been the book that filled his thought; now it was Janet and the book.
Perhaps he did not know how far he was taking me into his confidence. Perhaps he did not care.
Janet puzzled him. “I don’t understand,” he said one day when we were taking one of our long walks. “She seems to be an absolute pessimist, and yet she takes a strong interest in some things.”
“For instance?”