"Ah!--here is your mark; three purple pansies, crushed in the middle
of 'Divided,'--staining the delicate cream-tinted paper with their
dark blood. Probably you are familiar with this poem, consequently
can interpret it for me without any great effort. Commence at the
first, and let me see what value Professor Chrysostom's training
possesses. Not too fast; recollect Pegasus belongs to poets,--never
to readers."

He leaned across the marble table, and placed the open book before
her.

Did he intentionally torture her? With those bright eyes reading her
unwomanly and foolish heart, was he amusing himself, as an
entomologist impales a feeble worm, and from its writhing deduces the
exact character of its nervous and muscular anatomy?

The thought struck her more severely than the stroke of a lash would
have done, and turning the page to the light, she said quickly:

"'Divided' is not at all dramatic, and as an exercise is not
comparable to 'High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire,' or 'Songs of
Seven,' or even that most exquisite of all, 'Afternoon at a
Parsonage.'"

"Try 'Divided.'"

She dared not refuse lest he should despise her utterly, interpreting
correctly her reluctance. For an instant the print danced before her,
but the spirit of defiance was fast mastering her trepidation, and
she sat erect, and obeyed him.

Thrusting one hand inside his vest, where it rested tightly clenched
over his heart, Mr. Palma sat intently watching her, glad of the
privilege afforded him to study the delicate features. Her excessive
paleness reminded him of the words:

"That white, white face, set in a night of hair,"

and though the chastening touch of sorrow and continued
heart-ache--that most nimble of all chisellers--had strangely matured
the countenance which when it entered that house was as free from
lines and shadows as an infant's, it still preserved its almost
child-like purity and repose.

The proud fair face, with its firm yet dainty scarlet lips, baffled
him; and when he reflected that a hundred contingencies might arise
to shut it from his view in future years he suddenly compressed his
mouth to suppress a groan. His vanity demanded an assurance that her
heart was as entirely his as he hoped, yet he knew that he loved her
all the more tenderly, and reverently, because of the true womanly
delicacy that prompted her to shroud her real feelings, with such
desperate tenacity.

She read the poem with skill