If she desired to interest Jeffrey Ember, it appeared that she had succeeded. His attention was certainly arrested.
“Why too beautiful?”
Jane had an impulse towards frankness.
“I think she’s too ... everything. She has so many gifts, it does not seem as if there could be scope for them all.”
Ember looked at Jane for a moment. Then he looked away. In that moment Jane saw something—she could not really tell what. The nearest that she could get to it was “triumph.” Yes, that was it, triumph.
As he looked away he said, very low, “She will have scope enough,” and there was a little tingling silence.
He broke it in an utterly unforeseen manner. With an abrupt change of voice he asked:
“Ever learn chemistry?”
“No,” said Jane, and then wondered whether she was telling the truth about Renata.
“’M—know what a formula is?”