Alan looked at her and mused.  She was tall and stately, but her figure was well developed, and her form softly moulded.  He admired her immensely.  How incongruous an outcome from a clerical family!  “It’s curious,” he said, gazing hard at her, “that you should be a dean’s daughter.”

“On the contrary,” Herminia answered, with perfect frankness, “I regard myself as a living proof of the doctrine of heredity.”

“How so?” Alan inquired.

“Well, my father was a Senior Wrangler,” Herminia replied, blushing faintly; “and I suppose that implies a certain moderate development of the logical faculties.  In his generation, people didn’t apply the logical faculties to the grounds of belief; they took those for granted; but within his own limits, my father is still an acute reasoner.  And then he had always the ethical and social interests.  Those two things—­a love of logic, and a love of right—­are the forces that tend to make us what we call religious.  Worldly people don’t care for fundamental questions of the universe at all; they accept passively whatever is told them; they think they think, and believe they believe it.  But people with an interest in fundamental truth inquire for themselves into the constitution of the cosmos; if they are convinced one way, they become what we call theologians; if they are convinced the other way, they become what we call free-thinkers.  Interest in the problem is common to both; it’s the nature of the solution alone that differs in the two cases.”

“That’s quite true,” Alan assented.  “And have you ever noticed this curious corollary, that you and I can talk far more sympathetically with an earnest Catholic, for example, or an earnest Evangelical, than we can talk with a mere ordinary worldly person.”

“Oh dear, yes,” Herminia answered with conviction.  “Thought will always sympathize with thought.  It’s the unthinking mass one can get no further with.”

Alan changed the subject abruptly.  This girl so interested him.  She was the girl he had imagined, the girl he had dreamt of, the girl he had thought possible, but never yet met with.  “And you’re in lodgings on the Holmwood here?” he said, musing.  “For how much longer?”

“For, six weeks, I’m glad to say,” Herminia answered, rising.

“At what cottage?”

“Mrs. Burke’s,—­not far from the station.”

“May I come to see you there?”

Herminia’s clear brown eyes gazed down at him, all puzzlement.  “Why, surely,” she answered; “I shall be delighted to see you!” She paused for a second.  “We agree about so many things,” she went on; “and it’s so rare to find a man who can sympathize with the higher longings in women.”

“When are you likeliest to be at home?” Alan asked.

“In the morning, after breakfast,—­that is, at eight o’clock,” Herminia answered, smiling; “or later, after lunch, say two or thereabouts.”