That evening, however, she was truly surprised when, after a rather belated ring at the door, the card of Mr. Thomas Jefferson Durgin came up to her from the reception-room.  Her aunt had gone to bed, and she had a luxurious moment in which she reaped all the reward of self-denial by supposing herself to have foregone the pleasure of seeing him, and sending down word that she was not at home.  She did not wish, indeed, to see him, but she wished to know how he felt warranted in calling in the evening, and it was this unworthy, curiosity which she stifled for that luxurious moment.  The next, with undiminished dignity, she said, “Ask him to come up, Andrew,” and she waited in the library for him to offer a justification of the liberty he had taken.

He offered none whatever, but behaved at once as if he had always had the habit of calling in the evening, or as if it was a general custom which he need not account for in his own case.  He brought her a book which they had talked of at their last meeting, but he made no excuse or pretext of it.

He said it was a beautiful night, and that he had found it rather warm walking in from Cambridge.  The exercise had moistened his whole rich, red color, and fine drops of perspiration stood on his clean-shaven upper lip and in the hollow between his under lip and his bold chin; he pushed back the coarse, dark-yellow hair from his forehead with his handkerchief, and let his eyes mock her from under his thick, straw-colored eyebrows.  She knew that he was enjoying his own impudence, and he was so handsome that she could not refuse to enjoy it with him.  She asked him if he would not have a fan, and he allowed her to get it for him from the mantel.  “Will you have some tea?”

“No; but a glass of water, if you please,” he said, and Bessie rang and sent for some apollinaris, which Jeff drank a great goblet of when it came.  Then he lay back in the deep chair he had taken, with the air of being ready for any little amusing thing she had to say.

“Are you still a pessimist, Mr. Durgin?” she asked, tentatively, with the effect of innocence that he knew meant mischief.

“No,” he said.  “I’m a reformed optimist.”

“What is that?”

“It’s a man who can’t believe all the good he would like, but likes to believe all the good he can.”

Bessie said it over, with burlesque thoughtfulness.  “There was a girl here to-day,” she said, solemnly, “who must have been a reformed pessimist, then, for she said the same thing.”

“Oh!  Miss Enderby,” said Jeff.

Bessie started.  “You’re preternatural!  But what a pity you should be mistaken.  How came you to think of her?”

“She doesn’t like me, and you always put me on trial after she’s been here.”

“Am I putting you on trial now?  It’s your guilty conscience!  Why shouldn’t Mary Enderby like you?”

“Because I’m not good enough.”

“Oh!  And what has that to do with people’s liking you?  If that was a reason, how many friends do you think you would have?”