“Yes, I think it might have,” replied Maria.

“Well, I suppose it would,” said Evelyn with a sigh, “and I know all the other girls are simply dying for him, but he asked us, after all.”  Evelyn said the last with an indescribable air of sweet triumph.  It was quite evident that she regarded the invitation as meant for herself alone, and that she took ineffable delight in it in spite of the fact that it had been refused.  She kept glancing out of the window as she ate.  Presently she looked at her sister and laughed.  “There he is coming now,” she said, “and he is all alone.  He didn’t take anybody else to luncheon.”

Chapter XXXIV

Wollaston Lee, approaching the academy on his return from his solitary lunch, was quite conscious of being commanded by the windows of Maria’s class-room.  He was so conscious that his stately walk became almost a strut.  He felt resentment at Maria.  He could not help it.  He had not been, in fact, so much in love with her, as in that attitude of receptivity which invites love.  He felt that she ought to be in love, and he wooed not only the girl but love itself.  Therefore resentment came more readily than if he had actually loved.  He had been saying to himself, while he was eating his luncheon which mortified pride had rendered tasteless, that if it had not been for the fact of his absurd alliance with Maria she was the last girl in the world to whom he would have voluntarily turned, now that he was fully grown, and capable of estimating his own character and hers.  He said to himself that she was pretty, attractive, and of undeniable strength of character, and yet that very strength of character would have repelled him.  He was not a man who needed a wife of great strength of character, of consistent will.  He himself had sufficient.  His chances of happiness would have been greater with a wife in whom the affections and emotions were predominant; there would have been less danger of friction.  Then, too, his wife would necessarily have to live with his mother, and his mother was very like himself.  He said to himself that there would certainly be friction, and yet he also said that he could not abandon his attitude of readiness to reciprocate should Maria wish for his allegiance.

Now, for the first time, Wollaston had Evelyn in his mind.  Of course he had noticed her beauty, and admired her.  The contrary would not have been possible, but now he was conscious of a distinct sensation of soothed pride, when he remembered how she had smiled and dimpled at his invitation, and jumped up to get her hat.

“That pretty little thing wanted to come, anyhow.  It is a shame,” he thought.  Then insensibly he fell to wondering how he should feel if it were Evelyn to whom he were bound instead of her sister.  It did not seem possible to him that the younger sister, with her ready gratitude and her evident ardor of temperament, could smile upon him at night and frown the next morning as Maria had done.  He considered, also, how Evelyn would get on better with his mother.  Then he resolutely put the thought out of his mind.