“To be in the movement, in fact?” said the Professor.
“Yes,” she responded with an eager gesture; “that’s what I mean, but I didn’t know how to say it.”
There was a short silence. The flames sang a quick, murmuring little song, leaping round the coals as they whispered together. The warm, scented room was full of firelight and dancing shadows. Bridget stood in her soft gray gown, with one little foot on the fender, resting the tips of her fingers on the high white mantel-shelf. Ruddy lights and wavering shadows chased one another over her slender figure from head to foot, and played in her thick, curling hair, and lighted up her big, serious eyes.
Helen opened the door suddenly, and re-entered the room, followed by a tall man.
“Here’s Mr. Stevens, father,” she said.
The Professor rose hastily. “Stevens! Really you? Delighted!” he exclaimed with cordiality. Then after a word or two, “Let me present you to Miss Ruan.”
Bridget put out her hand, blushing a little nervously.
“Here’s a man who would be deeply grateful if half the people who at present ‘think things,’ and write books about the things they’ve thought, would refrain. He protests by holding them up to public scorn in the papers, you know,” he said.
Stevens laughed, and Bridget raised her eyes and gave him a quick, searching look, full of curiosity and interest. The two men fell into talk, in which the girls did not join, but the editor was conscious that they had an absorbed listener in one of them, as she sat quietly in her low chair before the fire opposite.
Helen took her friend off to her own room half an hour later. “We sha’n’t come back, father,” she said, as she passed him. “We’re going to try on frocks, and that will take us till bedtime. Good-night.”