r."

"Ah, Lennan, you caught me! Fact is, term's fagged me out. We're going
to the mountains. Ever been to the mountains? What--never! You should
come with us, eh? What do you say, Anna? Don't you think this young man
ought to come with us?"

She got up, and stood staring at them both. Had she heard aright?

Then she answered--very gravely:

"Yes; I think he ought."

"Good; we'll get HIM to lead up the Cimone della Pala!"

III

When the boy had said good-bye, and she had watched him out into the
street, Anna stood for a moment in the streak of sunlight that came in
through the open door, her hands pressed to cheeks which were flaming.
Then she shut the door and leaned her forehead against the window-pane,
seeing nothing. Her heart beat very fast; she was going over and over
again the scene just passed through. This meant so much more than it had
seemed to mean. . . .

Though she always had Heimweh, and especially at the end of the summer
term, this year it had been a different feeling altogether that made her
say to her husband: "I want to go to the mountains!"

For twelve years she had longed for the mountains every summer, but had
not pleaded for them; this year she had pleaded, but she did not long for
them. It was because she had suddenly realized the strange fact that she
did not want to leave England, and the reason for it, that she had come
and begged to go. Yet why, when it was just to get away from thought of
this boy, had she said: "Yes, I think he ought to come!" Ah! but life
for her was always a strange pull between the conscientious and the
desperate; a queer, vivid, aching business! How long was it now since
that day when he first came to lunch, silent and shy, and suddenly
smiling as if he were all lighted up within--the day when she had said to
her husband afterwards: "Ah, he's an angel!" Not yet a year--the
beginning of last October term, in fact. He was different from all the
other boys; not that he was a prodigy with untidy hair, ill-fitting
clothes, and a clever tongue; but because of something--something--Ah!
well--different; because he was--he; because she longed to take his head
between her hands and kiss it. She remembered so well the day that
longing first came to her. She was giving him tea, it was quite early in
the Easter term; he was stroking her cat, who always went to him, and
telling her that he meant to be a sculptor, but that his guardian
objected, so that,