'Do you think that we poor people at Oxford are always condemned to works on the "enclitic δέ"?' he asked, his fine eyes lit up with gaiety, and his head, of which the Greek outlines were ordinarily so much disguised by his stoop and hesitating look, thrown back against the books behind him.
Natures like Langham's, in which the nerves are never normal, have their moments of felicity, balancing their weeks of timidity and depression. After his melancholy of the last two days the tide of reaction had been mounting within him, and the sight of Rose had carried it to its height.
She gave a little involuntary stare of astonishment. What had happened to Robert's silent and finicking friend?
'I know nothing of Oxford,' she said a little primly, in answer to his question. 'I never was there—but I never was anywhere, I have seen nothing,' she added hastily, and, as Langham thought, bitterly.
'Except London, and the great world, and Madame Desforêts!' he answered, laughing. 'Is that so little?'
She flashed a quick defiant look at him, as he mentioned Madame Desforêts, but his look was imperturbably kind and gay. She could not help softening towards him. What magic had passed over him?
'Do you know,' said Langham, moving, 'that you are standing in a draught, and that it has turned extremely cold?'
For she had left the passage-door wide open behind her, and as the window was partially open the curtains were swaying hither and thither, and her muslin dress was being blown in coils round her feet.
'So it has,' said Rose, shivering. 'I don't envy the Church people. You haven't found me a book, Mr. Langham?'