na, who had otherwise been
much more cautious, was not only in love, but actually felt that shadowy
ambitions from the past began to promise realisation. She was not vain,
but she knew herself a finer thing in mind and body than most of the
girls with whom she worked. She had read a great deal and learned much
from Mr. Churchouse, who delighted to teach her, and from Mr. Best, with
whom she was a prime favourite. She had refused several offers of
marriage and preserved a steady determination not to wed until there
came a man who could lift her above work and give her a home that would
embrace comfort and leisure. She waited, confident that this would
happen, for she knew that she could charm men. As yet none had come who
awakened any emotion of love in Sabina; and she told herself that real
love might alter her values and send her to a poor man's home after all.
If that happened, she was willing; but she thought it improbable;
because, in her experience, poor men were ignorant, and she felt very
sure no ignorant man would ever make her love him.

Then came into her life one very much beyond her dreams, and from an
attitude of utmost caution before a physical beauty that fascinated her,
she woke into tremendous excitation of mind at the discovery that he,
too, was interested. To her it seemed that he had plenty of brains. His
ideas were human and beautiful. He declared the conditions of the
workers to be not sufficiently considered. He was full of nebulous
theories for the amelioration of such conditions. The spectacle of women
working for a living caused Raymond both uneasiness and indignation. To
Sabina, it seemed that he was a chivalric knight of romance--a being
from a fairy story. She had heard of such men, but never met with one
outside a novel. She glorified Raymond into something altogether
sublime--as soon as she found that he liked her. He filled her head,
and while her common-sense vainly tried to talk as Sally Groves had
talked, each meeting with the young man threw her back upon the
tremendous fact that he was deeply interested in her and did not care
who knew it. Common-sense could not modify that; nor would she listen to
common-sense, when it suggested that Raymond's record was uninspiring,
and pointed to no great difference between him and other young men. She
told herself that he was misunderstood; she whispered to herself that
she understood him. It must be so, for he had declared it. He had said
that h