he had none who also knew him. Girls,
to be sure, had their own way of talking over delicate points, just as
married women had theirs, and with intimates of the ordinary kind
Cecily must have come by now to consider her guardian as a male
creature of flesh and blood. What did it mean, that she did not?

A question difficult of debate, involving much that the mind is wont to
slur over in natural scruple. Mallard was no slave to the imbecile
convention which supposes a young girl sexless in her understanding; he
could not, in conformity with the school of hypocritic idealism, regard
Cecily as a child of woman's growth. No. She had the fruits of a modern
education; she had a lucid brain; of late she had mingled and conversed
with a variety of men and women, most of them anything but crassly
conventional. It was this very aspect of her training that had caused
him so much doubt. And he knew by this time what his doubt principally
meant; in a measure, it came of native conscientiousness, of prejudice
which testified to his origin; but, more than that, it signified simple
jealousy. Secretly, he did not like her outlook upon the world to be so
unrestrained; he would have preferred her to view life as a simpler
matter. Partly for this reason did her letters so disturb him. No; it
would have been an insult to imagine her with the moral sensibilities
of a child of twelve.

Was she intellectual at the expense of her emotional being? Was she
guarded by nature against these disturbances? Somewhat ridiculous to
ask that, and then look up at her face effulgent with the joy of life.
She who could not speak without the note of emotion, who so often gave
way to lyrical outbursts of delight, who was so warm-hearted in her
friendship, whose every movement was in glad harmony with the
loveliness of her form,--must surely have the corresponding
capabilities of passion.

After all--and it was fetching a great compass to reach a point so near
at hand--might she not take him at his own profession? Might she not
view him as a man indeed, and one not yet past his youth, but still as
a man who suffered no trivialities to interfere with the grave objects
of his genius? She had so long had him represented to her in that
way--from the very first of their meetings, indeed. Grant her mature
sense and a reflective mind, was that any reason why she should probe
subtly the natural appearance of her friend, and attribute to him that
which he gave no sig