e let his hat drop to the
floor and pushed it aside. There, that was better; he felt less of a
bumpkin.

Sidwell glanced at the glossy grotesque, but instantly averted her
eyes, and asked rather more gravely:

'Have you been in Exeter all the time?'

'Yes.'

'But you didn't spend your Christmas alone, I hope?'

'Oh, I had my books.'

Was there not a touch of natural pathos in this? He hoped so; then
mocked at himself for calculating such effects.

'I think you don't care much for ordinary social pleasures, Mr Peak?'

He smiled bitterly.

'I have never known much of them,--and you remember that I look forward
to a life in which they will have little part. Such a life,' he
continued, after a pause, 'seems to you unendurably dull? I noticed
that, when I spoke of it before.'

'You misunderstood me.' She said it so undecidedly that he gazed at her
with puzzled look. Her eyes fell.

'But you like society?'

'If you use the word in its narrowest meaning,' she answered, 'then I
not only dislike society, but despise it.'

She had raised her eyebrows, and was looking coldly at him. Did she
mean to rebuke him for the tone he had adopted? Indeed, he seemed to
himself presumptuous. But if they were still on terms such as these,
was it not better to know it, even at the cost of humiliation? One
moment he believed that he could read Sidwell's thoughts, and that they
were wholly favourable to him; at another he felt absolutely ignorant
of all that was passing in her, and disposed to interpret her face as
that of a conventional woman who had never regarded him as on her own
social plane. These uncertainties, these frequent reversions to a state
of mind which at other times he seemed to have long outgrown, were a
singular feature of his relations with Sidwell. Could such experiences
consist with genuine love? Never had he felt more willing to answer the
question with a negative. He felt that he was come here to act a part,
and that the end of the interview, be it what it might, would only
affect him superficially.

'No,' he replied, with deliberation; 'I never supposed that you had any
interest in the most foolish class of wealthy people. I meant that you
recognise your place in a certain social rank, and regard intercourse
with your equals as an essential of happiness.'

'If I understood why you ask'--she began abruptly, but ceased as she
met his glance. Again he thought she was asserting a distant dignity.

'The q