ot Tennyson, you know. See
what I mean?"

"Yes, quite!" said Janet, smiling with continued and growing
appreciation. The reply struck her as very sagacious. She suddenly saw
in a new light her father's hints that there was something in this young
man not visible to everybody. She had a tremendous respect for her
father's opinion, and now she reproached herself in that she had not
attached due importance to what he had said about Edwin. "How right
father always is!" she thought. Her attitude of respect for Edwin was
now more securely based upon impartial intelligence than before; it owed
less to her weakness for seeing the best in people. As for Edwin, he
was saying to himself: "I wish to the devil I could talk to her without
spluttering! Why can't I be natural? Why can't I be glib? Some chaps
could." And Edwin could be, with some chaps.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

FOUR.

They were standing close together in the shop, Janet and Edwin, near the
cabinet of artists' materials. Janet, after her manner at once frank
and reassuring, examined Edwin; she had come on purpose to examine him.
She had never been able to decide whether or not he was good-looking,
and she could not decide now. But she liked the appeal in his eyes.
She did not say to herself that there was an appeal in his eyes; she
said that there was `something in his eyes.' Also he was moderately
tall and he was slim. She said to herself that he must be very well
shaped. Beginning at the bottom, his boots were clumsy, his trousers
were baggy and even shiny, and they had transverse creases, not to be
seen in the trousers of her own menkind; his waistcoat showed plainly
the forms of every article in the pockets thereof--watch, penknife,
pencil, etcetera, it was obvious that he never emptied his pockets at
night; his collar was bluish-white instead of white, and its size was
monstrous; his jacket had `worked up' at the back of his neck,
completely hiding his collar there; the side-pockets of his jacket were
weighted and bulged with mysterious goods; his fair hair was rough but
not curly; he had a moustache so trifling that one could not be sure
whether it was a moustache or whether he had been too busy to think of
shaving. Janet received all these facts into her brain, and then
carelessly let them all slip out again, in her preoccupation with his
eyes. She said they were sad eyes. The mouth, too, was