He scarcely heard her reply, for the thought came to him: "If he could only see her now!"
It was her pride and her wistfulness, her courage and her appeal, the union of defiance and tenderness which held one strangely in the face of Ernestine. She was as the figure of love standing there wounded but unvanquished before the blows of fate.
"Professor Hastings has come to see you, Karl," she said, as they entered the library; and as he rose she laid her hand very gently upon his arm, a touch which seemed more like an unconscious little movement of affection than an assistance.
"Good for Hastings!" said Karl, with genuine heartiness.
"And have a good many thought waves from me come to you this summer?" he asked, shaking Karl's hand with a warmth which conveyed the things he left unsaid.
"Yes, they've come," Karl replied. "Oh, we knew our friends were with us,"—a little hastily. "But we've had a pretty good summer—haven't we, Ernestine?" turning his face to her.
"In many ways it has been a delightful summer,"—her voice now had that blending of defiance and appeal, and as she looked at her husband and smiled it flashed through Professor Hastings' mind—"He knew she did that!"
"You see,"—after they were seated—"I was really very uneducated. Isn't it surprising, Hastings, how much some of us don't know? Now what do you know about the history of art? Could you pass a sophomore examination in it? Well, I couldn't until Ernestine began coaching me up this summer. Now I'm quite fit to appear before women's clubs as a lecturer on art. Literature, too, I'm getting on with; I'm getting acquainted with all the Swedes and the Irishmen and the Poles who ever put pen to paper."
"Karl," she protested—"Swedes and Irishmen and Poles!"
"Isn't that what they are?" he demanded, innocently.