Superseded

Cautle

ckless ease. His very intellect (the most unrestful part of him) was at rest; all his weary being merged in a confused voluptuous sensation, a beatific state in which smoking became a higher kind of thinking, and thought betrayed an increasing tendency to end in smoke. The room was double-walled with book-shelves, and but for the far away underground humming of a happy maidservant the house was soundless. He rejoiced to think that there was not a soul in it above stairs to distu

ng now. He turned we

damned patient,"

ime. He sat up with his irritable nerves on edge. The servant was certainly letting somebody in, and from the soft rustling sounds in the hall he gat

n the card that was brought to him

business of the place, he was prepared for her terse and lucid statement of somebody else's case. He said he would look round early in the morning (Miss Vivian looked dissatisfied); or perhaps that evening (Miss Vivian was dubious); or possibly at once (Miss Vivian smiled in hurried approval). She was eager to be gone. And when she h

to be a perpetual invalid. She thought of several likely illnesses, beginning with general paralysis and ending with anemia of the brain. It might be anemia of the brain, but she rather thought it would be general paralysis, because this would be so much the more disagreeable of the two. Anyhow Rhoda Vivian must hav

. And yet it was amazing the amount of observation, and insight, and solid

tell her more about it in the morning. Meanwhile she had nothing to do but to do what he told her an

presence had given her a rare and curiously agreeable sense of protection, but she had to think of

t, as a deliberate back-handed blow struck at the memory of Tollington Moon. With all t

said, "Juliana has never

had taken upon herself to bring the doctor into the hou

ying encounter. Her manner suggested that she took him under he

black woollen mittens. Her very face seemed to be vanishing under the immense shadow of her black net cap. Spirals of thin grey hair stuck flat to her forehead; she wore other and similar spirals enclosed be

ild goose chase, doctor," said she, "the

hat he would be delighted if it were so; adding that a w

's gaze had embraced them in a common condemnation, and the subtle sympathy of the

octors were never happy until you'd found some mare's nest i

Cautley with recovered gravity, "and I ra

Moon was slowly taking in the idea of disaster, and it sent her poor wits wandering

s side, Dr. Quincey, Dr. Arnold Quincey, Juliana's father and Louisa's. He was a medical man. He wrote a book, I daresay you've heard of i

e one now?" said he, cheerfully taking his le

in the morning and sat

ad time to take a

at his youth would have been terrible to her. As it was, Miss Quincey felt a little bit in awe of this clever doctor, who in spite of his cleverness looked so young, and not only so young but so formidably fastidious and refined. She had not expected him to look like that. All the clever young men she had met had displayed a noble contempt for appearances. To be sure, Miss Quincey knew but little of the world of men; for at St. Sidwell's the types were limited to three little eccentric professors, and the plaste

noticed the stain on the carpet and the dust on the book-shelves, and if he would be likely to mistake the quinine tabloids for vulgar liver pills, or her bottle of hair-wash for hair-dye. Once released from its unnatural labours, her mind returned i

of writing it). And when he had finished the biography he talked to her about her work (nobody else had ever been the least interested in Miss Quincey's work). Then Miss Quincey sat up in bed and became lyrical as she described the delirious joy of decimals-recurring decimals-and the rapture of cube-root. She herself had never got farther than cube-root; but it was enough. Beyond that, she hinted, lay the infinite. And Dr. Cautley laughed at her defence of the noble science. Oh yes, he could understand its fascination, its irresistible appeal to the emo

mpossible! It w

o be fit for cube-root and decimals again, she positively an

ll up with Miss Quincey; a hundred eager applicants were ready to fill her empty place. It was as if she heard the hungry, leapin

to him; she seemed to have shrunk into her bed, and lay there staring with dilated eyes like a hare crouched flat and trembling in her form. From the other side

her use for people like Miss Quincey; that she, Rhoda Vivian, belonged to the new race whose eternal destiny was to precipitate their doom. It was the first time that Rhoda had thought of it in that light; the first time indeed that she had greatly concerned herself with any career beside her own. She sat for a few minutes talking to Miss Quincey and thinking as she talked. Perhaps she was wond

ward, one elbow bent on her knee, her chin propped on her hand, her lips pouting, her forehea

ide, I see. I'll leave

e lef

Quincey's hand as it wildly reconnoitred

," she said, "I'll sp

ownstairs and the front door opening and closing upon her. With a little haste and discretion he

expect

ed, "it is over

der. I knew she was a St. Sidwe

do you always know a St. Sidw

ll's sacrifices its women to its girls, and its girls to itself. I don't

d a little

t deal for granted. As i

ess t

annoyed with himself for his blunder and with her

frankly at h

s are deceitful. I'm gl

Still, Miss Quincey i

s never fit

the swift and your

traight before her, her nostrils slightly distended, her g

ke her stro

impulse of energy and will. Suddenly at the door

will you not?" Her voice was

enough and cool enough; but when she looked straight through your eyes

stive of impertinent coquetry, the beautiful woman's assumption that he would do for her what he would not d