They passed a delightful evening. But when Will went away, the girl became meditative. For, although he had talked without stopping, on every kind of subject, there was no hungry look in his eye, such as she had perceived with natural satisfaction in the morning. Every maiden likes that look of hunger, outward sign and indication of respect to her charms.
They were up in town for a month. Every morning Will called and sat glum but hungry-eyed, gazing on the girl and saying nothing. Every evening he called again and talked scholarship and politics with her father, his face changed, his whole manner different, and without any look of hunger in his eyes.
"WILL SAT GAZING ON THE GIRL."
One day after a fortnight or so of this, Will the Animal stood up after breakfast and spoke.
"There has got to be a change."
"You are changing, in fact," replied the other with a sneer.
"I am in love. I am going to marry a girl. Now hold your tongue," for the Intellectual Half bounded in his chair. "You have left me very little power of speech. Let me try to explain what I—I want to say." He spoke painfully and slowly. "Let me—try—I have lost, bit by bit, almost everything. I don't want to read—I can't play any more. I don't care about anything much. But this girl I do care about. I have always loved her, and you—you with your deuced intellect—cannot kill that part of me. Be quiet—let me try to think. She loves me, too. She loves me for myself, and not on account of you and your success. She is sorry for me. She has given me—I don't know how—the power of thinking a little. When I am married to her, she will give me more. Let us part absolutely. Take all my intellect and go. Nell will marry a stupid man, but he will get something from her—something I am sure. I feel different already; I said something to-day which made her laugh. What are you glaring at me for?"
"I am not glaring. I am thinking. Go on."
"This has got to stop. Now find some way of stopping it, or—or—"