“What a strange thing light is,” said Miss Methvyn, as she looked at the flowers. “Light and colour. Not that one should call them things at all, I suppose. I wish I understood about it better. Why should the moonlight actually change, change colour, for instance? It is only faint sunlight really. I could understand its dimming colour, but not altering it.”
Mr. Guildford smiled. “You had better study optics,” he said.
“I wish I could,” she replied, quite simply, “but there are difficulties in the way of studying many things I should like to know about. I get all the books I can, but most scientific books take for granted a certain amount of preliminary, technical knowledge that I am deficient in. I had rather an irregular education too, even for a girl.”
“You are just about the age when your education should be beginning, according to some of the new lights on the subject,” observed Mr. Guildford. “Would you not like to go to college, Miss Methvyn?”
“I don’t know. Yes, perhaps I should if I were not needed at home,” she replied, in the last few words a sadness becoming perceptible in her tone. But looking up, she caught the expression on her companion’s face. “Are you laughing at me?” she said. “I dare say you are. I don’t mind. I am quite accustomed to it. My father laughs at me sometimes, and so does—” she stopped suddenly.
“Indeed, I wasn’t laughing, Miss Methvyn,” said Mr. Guildford. “I should be very sorry to be so impertinent.”
“It would not be impertinent,” said Cicely, seemingly rather incredulous, and she said no more about wishing to understand things.
“Are you not afraid of catching cold?” said Mr. Guildford presently. They were still standing in the same place, the sound of Geneviève’s music coming softly through the moonlight.
“I never catch cold, thank you,” said. Miss Methvyn. Mr. Guildford fancied she spoke stiffly, and was annoyed with himself for the suggestion. “That is not a bit of your business,” he imagined her manner to imply. But her next words reassured him. “Perhaps it is not wise to stand still so long,” she said, and she set off walking round the little garden.
There was an opening at the other side in the shrubs and trees that surrounded the enclosure of flower-beds. Here Miss Methvyn paused. “By daylight there is such a pretty view from here,” she said. “You can see Haverstock village, and the church, and the little river. Even now you can see it gleaming—over there to the right, over there where the railway bridge crosses it.”