very calm, when the breakfast-bell rang. She
went down immediately; because she felt that there was less chance
of a recognition if she were already at her place beside the tea-urn,
and busied with the cups, than if she came in after all were settled.
Her heart seemed to stand still, but she felt almost a strange
exultant sense of power over herself. She felt, rather than saw,
that he was not there. Mr Bradshaw and Mr Hickson were, and so
busy talking election-politics that they did not interrupt their
conversation even when they bowed to her. Her pupils sat one on each
side of her. Before they were quite settled, and while the other two
gentlemen yet hung over the fire, Mr Donne came in. Ruth felt as if
that moment was like death. She had a kind of desire to make some
sharp sound, to relieve a choking sensation, but it was over in an
instant, and she sat on very composed and silent--to all outward
appearance the very model of a governess who knew her place. And
by-and-by she felt strangely at ease in her sense of power. She could
even listen to what was being said. She had never dared as yet to
look at Mr Donne, though her heart burnt to see him once again. He
sounded changed. The voice had lost its fresh and youthful eagerness
of tone, though in peculiarity of modulation it was the same. It
could never be mistaken for the voice of another person. There was a
good deal said at that breakfast, for none seemed inclined to hurry,
although it was Sunday morning. Ruth was compelled to sit there, and
it was good for her that she did. That half-hour seemed to separate
the present Mr Donne very effectively from her imagination of what Mr
Bellingham had been. She was no analyser; she hardly even had learnt
to notice character; but she felt there was some strange difference
between the people she had lived with lately and the man who now
leant back in his chair, listening in a careless manner to the
conversation, but never joining in, or expressing any interest in it,
unless it somewhere, or somehow, touched himself. Now, Mr Bradshaw
always threw himself into a subject; it might be in a pompous,
dogmatic sort of way, but he did do it, whether it related to himself
or not; and it was part of Mr Hickson's trade to assume an interest
if he felt it not. But Mr Donne did neither the one nor the other.
When the other two were talking of many of the topics of the day, he
put his glass in his eye, the better to examine into the exact nat