It was a very studious face at that moment. Her arms stretched out at either side of a large volume, she read attentively. Other books were piled at right and left. Now and then she put her hand to her forehead, then made a note on a long strip of paper, writing with a serious carefulness.
She was preparing a lecture on history for the youngest class of girls in that study.
“It must be to the great complex subject what a globe with the great circles only is to the whole geography of the earth. It must be as though, on that globe with its few lines, you should draw at one point a little black circumflex, and say: ‘Here is found the asp of the Nile. The monarchs wore it in jewels on their diadem. One laid it alive on her breast, and died. And here, where this black line goes past, and never stops, but always returns, the Wise Men of the East found the Infant Christ. And here grow roses, oh, such roses! in full fields, to make the precious attar of. And here grows the pink coral, like that coral rose Iona wears. No; the lesson must not be dry, nor yet too rich. It must make them wish for more. Only a few sparse sweetnesses. O land of France, what noblest, fairest deed for children to hear was ever done on your soil since you were France?’”
So the young student was thinking, deep buried in her study, when she heard a voice say:—
“O Minerva, may I come in? Is there a gorgon on your shield of folios?”
She looked up with a glad welcome. “Not for you. You are come in good time, perhaps, to check my wild ambition. Do you know, prince, that I aspire to become an historian?”
“Then I come indeed in good time,” he said. “For it is a history which I wish you to write.”
She looked inquiringly; but he did not meet her glance.
“Will you come out to the terrace?” he said, indicating the one near them toward the college.
And as they went, he said reproachfully: “You hide yourself from me. I find you always surrounded. You seem to like me less and less every day.”