And with a little persuasive motion he touched her hand.
“I should like it very much.”
He took her to a tiny room over a chemist’s shop, simply furnished as a study, with a low ceiling and panelled walls: these were decorated with a few photographs of pictures by Pietro Perugino, and there were a good many books.
“It’s rather poky, I’m afraid, but I live here, so that I can always see the gateway. I think it’s one of the finest things in Tercanbury.”
He made her sit down while he boiled water and cut bread-and-butter. Bella, at first somewhat intimidated by the novelty of the affair, was a little formal; but the boy’s manifest delight in her presence affected her so that she became gay and light-hearted. Then he displayed a new side of his character: the rather strenuous passion for the beautiful was momentarily put aside and he showed himself quite absurdly boyish. His laughter rang out joyously, and, feeling less shy now that Miss Langton was his guest, he talked unrestrainedly of a hundred topics that sprang up one after another in his mind.
“Will you have a cigarette?” he asked when they had finished their tea, and, on Bella’s laughing refusal: “You don’t mind if I smoke, do you? I can talk better.”
He drew their chairs to the open window, so that they could look at the massive masonry before them, and, as though he had known Bella all his life, chattered on. But when at last she rose to go, his eyes grew suddenly grave and sad.
“I shall see you again, shan’t I? I don’t want to lose you now I’ve found you so strangely.”
Really he was asking Miss Langton to make an assignation, but by now the Dean’s daughter had thrown all caution to the winds.
“I dare say we shall meet sometime in the cathedral.”