n he pointed out to himself that his imagination was
still held by, his nerves were still thrilling under, the mental
image of a girl looking up to him as no woman had ever looked--a girl,
white-armed, white-necked--with softened eyes of appeal and confidence.
He bade himself mark that during the whole of his morning walk with
Robert down to its last stage, his mind had been really absorbed in some
preposterous dream he was now too self-contemptuous to analyze. Pretty
well for a philosopher, in four days! What a ridiculous business is
life--what a contemptible creature is man, how incapable of dignity, of
consistency!

At luncheon he talked rather more than usual, especially on literary
matters with Robert. Rose, too, was fully occupied in giving Catherine a
sarcastic account of a singing lesson she had been administering in the
school that morning. Catherine winced sometimes at the tone of it.

That afternoon Robert, in high spirits, his rod over his shoulder, his
basket at his back, carried off his guest for a lounging afternoon along
the river. Elsmere enjoyed these fishing expeditions like a boy. They
were his holidays, relished all the more because he kept a jealous
account of them with his conscience. He sauntered along, now throwing a
cunning and effectual fly, now resting, smoking, and chattering, as the
fancy took him. He found a great deal of the old stimulus and piquancy
in Langham's society, but there was an occasional irritability in his
companion, especially toward himself personally, which puzzled him.
After a while, indeed, he began to feel himself the unreasonably
cheerful person which he evidently appeared to his companion. A mere
ignorant enthusiast, banished for ever from the realm of pure knowledge
by certain original and incorrigible defects--after a few hours' talk
with Langham Robert's quick insight always showed him some image of
himself resembling this in his friend's mind.

At last he turned restive. He had been describing to Langham his
acquaintance with the Dissenting minister of the place--a strong,
coarse-grained fellow of sensuous, excitable temperament, famous for
his noisy 'conversion meetings,' and for a gymnastic dexterity in the
quoting and combining of texts, unrivalled in Robert's experience. Some
remark on the Dissenter's logic, made, perhaps, a little too much in
the tone of the Churchman conscious of University advantages, seemed to
irritate Langham.

'You think your Anglica