The book which she had been reading that day lay on the table, and taking it up he leisurely turned over the leaves.  A premonitory dread seized her, and she wrung her hands, which were lying cold in her lap.

“Ah!—­here is your mark; three purple pansies, crushed in the middle of ’Divided,’—­staining the delicate cream-tinted paper with their dark blood.  Probably you are familiar with this poem, consequently can interpret it for me without any great effort.  Commence at the first, and let me see what value Professor Chrysostom’s training possesses.  Not too fast; recollect Pegasus belongs to poets,—­never to readers.”

He leaned across the marble table, and placed the open book before her.

Did he intentionally torture her?  With those bright eyes reading her unwomanly and foolish heart, was he amusing himself, as an entomologist impales a feeble worm, and from its writhing deduces the exact character of its nervous and muscular anatomy?

The thought struck her more severely than the stroke of a lash would have done, and turning the page to the light, she said quickly: 

“‘Divided’ is not at all dramatic, and as an exercise is not comparable to ‘High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire,’ or ’Songs of Seven,’ or even that most exquisite of all, ’Afternoon at a Parsonage.’”

“Try ‘Divided.’”

She dared not refuse lest he should despise her utterly, interpreting correctly her reluctance.  For an instant the print danced before her, but the spirit of defiance was fast mastering her trepidation, and she sat erect, and obeyed him.

Thrusting one hand inside his vest, where it rested tightly clenched over his heart, Mr. Palma sat intently watching her, glad of the privilege afforded him to study the delicate features.  Her excessive paleness reminded him of the words: 

        “That white, white face, set in a night of hair,”

and though the chastening touch of sorrow and continued heart-ache—­that most nimble of all chisellers—­had strangely matured the countenance which when it entered that house was as free from lines and shadows as an infant’s, it still preserved its almost child-like purity and repose.

The proud fair face, with its firm yet dainty scarlet lips, baffled him; and when he reflected that a hundred contingencies might arise to shut it from his view in future years he suddenly compressed his mouth to suppress a groan.  His vanity demanded an assurance that her heart was as entirely his as he hoped, yet he knew that he loved her all the more tenderly, and reverently, because of the true womanly delicacy that prompted her to shroud her real feelings, with such desperate tenacity.

She read the poem with skill and pathos, but no undue tremor of the smooth, deliciously sweet voice betrayed aught save the natural timidity of a tyro, essaying her first critical trial.  Tonight she wore a white shawl draped in statuesque folds over her shoulders and bust, and the snowy flowers in her raven hair were scarcely purer than her full forehead, borne up by the airy arched black bows that had always attracted the admiration of her fastidious guardian; and as the soft radiance of the clustered lamps fell upon her, she looked as sweet and lovely a woman as ever man placed upon the sacred hearth of his home, a holy priestess to keep it bright, serene, and warm.