ever strives to endow a fair woman with a beautiful soul; he endeavoured to forget her body in contemplation of the spiritual excellencies that might lurk behind it.  To depreciate her was simpler, and had generally been his wont; but subjugation had reached another stage in him.  He summoned all possible pleadings on the girl’s behalf:  her talents, her youth, her grievous trials.  Devotion to classical music cannot but argue a certain loftiness of mind; it might, in truth, be somehow akin to ‘religion’.  Remembering his own follies and vices at the age of four-and-twenty, was it not reason, no less than charity, to see in Alma the hope of future good?  Nay, if it came to that, did she not embody infinitely more virtue, in every sense of the word, than he at the same age?

One must be just to women, and, however paltry the causes, do honour to the cleanliness of their life.  Nothing had suggested to him that Alma was unworthy of everyday respect.  Even when ill-mannered, she did not lose her sexual dignity.  And after all she had undergone, there would have been excuse enough for decline of character, to say nothing of a lapse from the articles of good breeding.  This letter of hers, what did it signify but the revolt of a spirit of independence, irritated by all manner of sufferings, great and small?  Ought he not to have replied in other terms?  Was it worthy of him —­ man of the world, with passions, combats, experience multiform, assimilated in his long, slow growth —­ to set his sarcasm against a girl’s unhappiness?

He was vexed with himself.  He had not behaved as a gentleman.  And how many a time, in how many situations, had he incurred this form of self-reproach!

When a week went by without anything more from Alma, Harvey ceased to trouble.  As the fates directed, so be it.  He began to pack the books which he would take with him into Wales.

One day he found himself at Kensington High Street, waiting for a City train.  In idleness, he watched the people who alighted from carriages on the opposite side of the platform, and among them he saw Alma.  On her way towards the stairs she was obliged to pass him; he kept his position, and only looked into her face when she came quite near.  She bent her head with a half-smile, stopped, and spoke in a low voice, without sign of embarrassment.

’I was quite wrong.  I found it out soon after I had written, and I have wanted to beg your pardon.’

‘It is my part to do that,’ Harvey replied.  ’I ought not to have answered as I did.’

’Perhaps not —­ all things considered.  I’m rather in a hurry.  Good-morning!’

As a second thought, she offered her hand.  Harvey watched her trip up the stairs.

Next morning he had a letter from her.  ‘Dear Mr. Rolfe,’ she wrote, ’did you let Mamma know of my hasty and foolish behaviour?  If not —­ and I very much hope you didn’t —­ please not to reply to this, but let us see you on Wednesday afternoon, just in the ordinary way.  If Mamma has been told, still don’t trouble to write, and in that case I dare say you will not care to come.  If you are engaged this Wednesday, perhaps you could come next.’  And she signed herself his sincerely.