All unconscious of the anxiety she was occasioning, Maud walked home with her feet scarcely aware of the pavement.  She felt happy through and through.  There was little thought, and we may say little selfishness in the vague joy that filled her.  The flowers she held in her hands recalled the faint odors she had inhaled in Farnham’s house; they seemed to her a concrete idea of luxury.  Her mind was crowded and warmed with every detail of her visit:  the dim, wide hall; the white cravat of Budsey; the glimpse she caught of the dining-room through the open door; the shimmer of cut glass and porcelain; the rich softness of the carpets and rugs, the firelight dancing on the polished brass, the tender glow of light and repose of shadow on the painted walls and ceilings; the walk in the trim garden, amid the light and fragrance of the spring; the hot air of the rose-house, which held her close, and made her feel faint and flushed, like a warm embrace; and through all the ever-present image of the young man, with his pleasant, unembarrassed smile, the white teeth shining under the dark mustache; the eyes that seemed to see through her, and yet told her nothing; and more than all this to poor Maud, the perfect fit and fashion of his clothes, filled her with a joyous trouble.  She could not dwell upon her plans for employment.  She felt as if she had found her mission, her true trade,—­which was to walk in gardens and smell hot-house roses.  The perplexities which filled Farnham’s head as to what he should do with her found no counterpart in hers.  She had stopped thinking and planning; things were going very well with her as it was.  She had lost the place she had wished and expected, and yet this was the pleasantest day of her life.  Her responsibility seemed shifted to stronger hands.  It had become Farnham’s business to find something nice for her:  this would be easy for him; he belonged to the class to whom everything is easy.  She did not even trouble herself to think what it would be as she loitered home in the sunshine.  She saw her father and informed him in a few words of her failure; then went to her room and sat down by her window, and looked for hours at the sparkling lake.

She was called to supper in the midst of her reverie.  She was just saying to herself, “If there was just one man and one woman in the world, and I had the picking out of the man and the woman, this world would suit me pretty well.”  She resented being called into other society than that of her idle thoughts, and sat silent through supper, trying to keep the thread of her fancies from breaking.  But she was not allowed to go back undisturbed to her fool’s paradise.

Sleeny, who had scarcely removed his eyes from her during the meal, rose with a start as she walked into the little sitting-room of the family, and followed her.  She went to the window with a novel to make use of the last moments of daylight.  He stood before her without speaking, until she raised her eyes, and said sharply: