“But, my dear Claude, as you are always pointing out, the Professor has a special manner which he keeps exclusively for her.”
The special manner had already worked wonders. The Professor was to Hadria by far the most entertaining person of the party. He had always amused her, and even the first time she saw him, he had exercised a strange, unpleasant fascination over her, which had put her on the defensive, for she had disliked and distrusted him. The meetings in the Priory gardens had softened her hostility, and now she began to feel more and more that she had judged him unfairly. In those days she had a strong pre-occupying interest. He had arrived on the scene at an exciting moment, just when she was planning out her flight to Paris. She had not considered the Professor’s character very deeply. There were far too many other things to think of. It was simpler to avoid him. But now everything had changed. The present moment was not exciting; she had no plans and projects in her head; she was not about to court the fate of Icarus. That fate had already overtaken her. The waves were closing over-head; her wings were wet and crippled, in the blue depths. Why not take what the gods had sent and make the most of it?
The Professor had all sorts of strange lore, which he used, in his conversations with Hadria, almost as a fisherman uses his bait. If she shewed an inclination to re-join the rest of the party, he always brought out some fresh titbit of curious learning, and Hadria was seldom able to resist the lure.
They met often, almost of necessity. It was impossible to feel a stranger to the Professor, in these circumstances of frequent and informal meeting. Often when Hadria happened to be alone with him, she would become suddenly silent, as if she no longer felt the necessity to talk or to conceal her weariness. The Professor knew it too well; he saw how heavily the burden of life weighed upon her, and how it was often almost more than she could do, to drag through the day. She craved for excitement, no matter of what kind, in order to help her to forget her weariness. Her anxiety about Professor Fortescue preyed upon her. She was restless, over-wrought, with every nerve on edge, unable now for consecutive work, even had events permitted it. She followed the advice and took the medicines of a London doctor, whom Mrs. Fullerton had entreated her to consult, but she gained no ground.
“I begin to understand how it is that people take to drinking,” she said to Algitha, who used to bemoan this vice, with its terrible results, of which she had seen so much.
“Ah! don’t talk of it in that light way!” cried Algitha. “It is the fashion to treat it airily, but if people only knew what an awful curse it is, I think they would feel ashamed to be ‘moderate’ and indifferent about it.”
“I don’t mean to treat it or anything that brings harm and suffering ‘moderately,’” returned Hadria. “I mean only that I can see why the vice is so common. It causes forgetfulness, and I suppose most people crave for that.”
“I think, Hadria, if I may be allowed to say so, that you are finding your excitement in another direction.”
“You mean that I am trying to find a substitute for the pleasures of drunkenness in those of flirtation.”
“I should not like to think that you had descended to conscious flirtation.”