Yes,—when he had “lacerated” his hand among the roses, her manner towards him had been charmingly different from what it was now. She was then still under the glamour and delusion of his reported renown as a learned and brilliant personality. She looked at him with timid interest; she listened to him with a pretty reverence. But now her blue eyes studied him with a critical coolness,—and though she still listened to his talk, she was not, as before, earnestly attentive. Nothing seemed so impossible as to put his arm round her waist now,—and yet that was exactly what he had hoped to do on this winter’s afternoon by the fire. He took refuge in a few banalities. Heaving a deep sigh, he said suddenly:
“You are not as kind to me as you used to be! In fact you are cold!”
She smiled.
“It is cold!” she answered.
Here was a sort of five-barred gate, over which the ambling mule of the Philosopher’s philosophy could not easily jump. He thought a moment.
“Have I been so unfortunate as to displease you?” he asked, in his gentlest tone.
She was quite startled at the question and her sewing dropped from her hands.
“Displease me? Oh, no!—pray do not think such a thing! I am so sorry if I give you such an idea—you must not imagine—”
He watched her as he would have watched a butterfly writhing on a pin.
“I do not imagine,” he said. “Imagination is a kind of hysteria. I know there is something on your mind against me. Surely I may know what it is?”