Ellen felt all this as she sat beside Cynthia, who was casting about in her mind, in rather an annoyed fashion, for something to say to this young beneficiary of hers which should not have anything to do with the benefit.

Finally she inquired if she were having a pleasant vacation, and Ellen replied that she was.  Risley looked at her beautiful face with the double radiance of the electric-light and the lamp-light from the window on it, giving it a curious effect.  It suddenly occurred to him to wonder why everybody seemed to have such an opinion as to the talents of this girl.  Why did Cynthia consider that her native ability warranted this forcible elevation of her from her own sphere and setting her on a height of education above her kind?  She looked and spoke like an ordinary young girl.  She had a beautiful face, it is true, and her shyness seemed due to the questioning attitude of a child rather than to self-consciousness, but, after all, why did she give people that impression?  Her valedictory had been clever, no doubt, and there was in it a certain fire of conviction, which, though crude, was moving; but, after all, almost any bright girl might have written it.  She had been a fine scholar, no doubt, but any girl with a ready intelligence might have done as well.  Whence came this inclination of all to rear the child upon a pedestal?  Risley wondered, looking at her, narrowing his keen, light eyes under reflective brows, puffing at his cigar; then he admitted to himself that he was one with the crowd of Ellen’s admirers.  There was somehow about the girl that which gave the impression of an enormous reserve out of all proportion to any external evidence.  “The child says nothing remarkable,” he told Cynthia, after she had gone that evening, “but somehow she gives me an impression of power to say something extraordinary, and do something extraordinary.  There is electricity and steel behind that soft, rosy flesh of hers.  But all she does which is evident to the eye of man is to worship you, Cynthia.”

“Worship me?” repeated Cynthia, vaguely.

“Yes, she has one of those aberrations common to her youth and her sex.  She is repeating a madness of old Greece, and following you as a nymph might a goddess.”

“It is only because she is grateful,” returned Cynthia, looking rather annoyed.

“Gratitude may be a factor in it, but it is very far from being the whole of the matter.  It is one of the spring madnesses of life; but don’t be alarmed, it will be temporary in the case of a girl like that.  She will easily be led into her natural track of love.  Do you know, Cynthia, that she is one of the most normal, typical young girls I ever saw, and that makes me wonder more at this impression of unusual ability which she undoubtedly gives.  She has all the weaknesses of her age and sex, she is much younger than some girls of her age, and yet there is the impression which I cannot shake off.”