“No more do I. But I can tell you what you ought to have done.  You ought to have made up your mind last night.”

“Well, the fact is—­last night—­I hadn’t very much mind left to make up.”

“No, I remember.  You were rather done up.  I don’t want to bind you by last night, if it’s at all unfair to you.”

“It isn’t in the least unfair to me.  But I’m not sure that it mightn’t be very unfair to you; and, you see, I want to think it out.”

“Very well, think it out, and let me know some time to-night.  Will that satisfy you?”

“It ought to.”

And for the moment it did satisfy him.  He felt that conscience, that stern guardian of his conduct, was off duty for the day.  He was free (for the day) to abandon himself to the charm of Miss Harden’s society.  The experience, he told himself, would be altogether new and delightful.

New it undoubtedly was; but he remained a little uncertain as to the delight; the immediate effect of Miss Harden’s presence being an intellectual disturbance amounting almost to aberration.  It showed itself, first of all, in a frightful exaltation of the consciousness of self.  To Mr. Rickman, striving to be noiseless, it seemed that the sound of his boots, as he crossed the library, reverberated through the immensity of space, while the creaking of his new braces advertised in the most horrible manner his rising up and his sitting down.  Things were worse when he sat down; for then his breathing, light but noticeably frequent, made him the unquiet centre of the room.  In the surrounding stillness the blowing of his nose became a monstrous and appalling act.  And no sooner was his attention abstracted from his nose than it settled in his throat, producing a series of spasmodic contractions which he imagined to be distinctly audible.  It was really as if his body had somehow detached itself, and was rioting in a conspicuous and unseemly individuality of its own.  He wondered what Miss Harden thought of its behaviour.

This state of things was bad enough when he was separated from her by the entire length of the room; but their work required a certain collaboration, and there were occasions when he was established near her, when deliberately, in cold blood and of his own initiative, he was compelled to speak to her.  No language could describe the anguish and difficulty of these approaches.  His way was beset by obstacles and perils, by traps and snares; and at every turn there waited for him the shameful pitfall of the aitch.  He whose easy courtesy charmed away the shyness of Miss Flossie Walker, whose conversation (when he deigned to converse) was the wonder and delight of the ladies of his boarding-house, now blushed to hear himself speak.  The tones of his voice were hateful to him; he detected in them some subtle and abominable quality that he had not observed before.  How would they appeal to Miss Harden?  For this miserable consciousness of himself was pervaded, transcended by his consciousness of her.