Instinct, too, thrust it into
the background; for as Raoul grew definite so must his youth, his
circumstances, the world's laughter, the barriers never to be overcome.
But merely to be loved, and to rest in that knowledge awhile--here
were no barriers. The thing had happened: it was: nothing could forbid
or efface it.
Yet when she reached home, after forcing the astonished Mercury to
canter up the entire length of Bayfield hill, she must walk straight
to her room, and study her face in the glass.
"It has happened to you--to you! Why has it not transfigured you?--
but then people would guess. Your teeth stand out--well, not so very
prominently--but they stand out, and that is why foreigners laugh at
Englishwomen. Yes, it has happened to you; but why? how?"
It so happened that she must meet him the next day. Narcissus had
engaged him to make drawings of the Bayfield pavement, a new series to
supersede hers in an enlarged edition of the treatise. Every one of
the _tessellae_ was to be drawn to scale, and she must meet him
to-morrow in the library with her brother and receive instructions, for
she had promised to help in taking measurements.
When the time came, and she entered the library, she did not indeed
dare to lift her eyes. But Narcissus, already immersed in calculations,
scarcely looked up from his paper. "Ah, there you are! Have you brought
the India-ink?" he asked, and after a minute she marvelled at her own
self-possession.
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