THE Professor’s presence in the house had a profound influence on the inmates, one and all. The effect upon his hostess was startling. He drew forth her intellect, her sense of humour, her starved poetic sense; he probed down among the dust and rust of years, and rescued triumphantly the real woman, who was being stifled to death, with her own connivance.

Hadria was amazed to see how the new-comer might express any idea he pleased, however heterodox, and her mother only applauded.

His manner to her was exquisitely courteous. He seemed to understand all that she had lost in her life, all its disappointments and sacrifices.

On hearing that Miss Du Prel was among the Professor’s oldest friends, Mrs. Fullerton became suddenly cordial to that lady, and could not show her enough attention. The evenings were often spent in music, Temperley being sometimes of the party. He was the only person not obviously among the Professor’s admirers.

“However cultivated or charming a person may be,” Temperley said to Hadria, “I never feel that I have found a kindred spirit, unless the musical instinct is strong.”

“Nor I.”

“Professor Fortescue has just that one weak point.”

“Oh, but he is musical, though his technical knowledge is small.”

But Temperley smiled dubiously.

The Professor, freed from his customary hard work, was like a schoolboy. His delight in the open air, in the freshness of the hills, in the peace of the mellow autumn, was never-ending.

He loved to take a walk before breakfast, so as to enjoy the first sweetness of the morning; to bathe in some clear pool of the river; to come into healthy contact with Nature. Never was there a brighter or a wholesomer spirit. Yet the more Hadria studied this clear, and vigorous, and tender nature, the more she felt, in him, the absence of that particular personal hold on life which so few human beings are without, a grip usually so hard to loosen, that only the severest experience, and the deepest sorrow have power to destroy it.

Hadria’s letters to her sister, at this time, were full of enthusiasm. “You cannot imagine what it is, or perhaps you can imagine what it is to have the society of three such people as I now see almost every day.

“You say I represent them as impossible angels, such as earth never beheld, but you are wrong. I represent them as they are. I suppose the Professor has faults—though he does not show them to us—they must be of the generous kind, at any rate. Father says that he never could keep a farthing; he would always give it away to undeserving people. Miss Du Prel, I find on closer acquaintance, is not without certain jealousies and weaknesses, but these things just seem to float about as gossamer on a mountain-side, and one counts them in relation to herself, in about the same proportion. Mr. Temperley—I don’t know quite what to say about him. He is a tiny bit too precise and finished perhaps—a little wanting in Élan—but he seems very enlightened and full of polite information; and ah, his music! When he is playing I am completely carried away. If he said then, ‘Miss Fullerton, may I have the pleasure of your society in the infernal regions?’ I should arise and take his arm and reply, ‘Delighted,’ and off we would march. But what am I saying? Mr. Temperley would never ask anything so absurd.

“You would have thought that when Miss Du Prel and Professor Fortescue arrived on the scene, I had about enough privileges; but no, Destiny, waking up at last to her duties, remembers that I have a maniacal passion for music, and that this has been starved. So she hastens to provide for me a fellow maniac, a brother in Beethoven, who comes and fills my world with music and my soul with——But I must not rave. The music is still in my veins; I am not in a fit state to write reasonable letters. Here comes Mr. Temperley for our practice. No more for the present.”

Temperley would often talk to Hadria of his early life, and about his mother and sister. Of his mother he spoke with great respect and affection, the respect perhaps somewhat conventional, and allowing one to see, through its meshes, the simple fact that she was looked up to as a good and dutiful parent, who had worshipped her son from his birth, and perfectly fulfilled his ideas of feminine excellency. From her he had learnt the lesser Catechism and the Lord’s Prayer, since discarded, but useful in their proper season. Although he had ceased to be an orthodox Christian, he felt that he was the better for having been trained in that creed. He had a perfect faith in the system which had produced himself.

“I think you would like my mother,” said Temperley.

Hadria could scarcely dispute this.

“And I am sure she would like you.”

“On that point I cannot offer an opinion.”

“Don’t you ever come to town?” he asked.

“We go to Edinburgh occasionally,” she replied with malice, knowing that he meant London.

He set her right.

“No; my father hates London, and mother never goes away without him.”

“What a pity! But do you never visit friends in town?”

“Yes; my sister and I have spent one or two seasons in Park Lane, with some cousins.”

“Why don’t you come this next season? You ought to hear some good music.”

The tÊte-a-tÊte was interrupted by the Professor. Temperley looked annoyed. It struck Hadria that Professor Fortescue had a very sad expression when he was not speaking. He seemed to her lonely, and in need of the sort of comfort that he brought so liberally to others.

Although he had talked to Hadria about a thousand topics in which they were both interested, there had been nothing personal in their conversation. He was disposed, at times, to treat her in a spirit of affectionate banter.

“To think that I should ever have dared to offer this young lady acidulated drops!” he exclaimed on one occasion, when Hadria was looking flushed and perturbed.

“Ah! shall I ever forget those acidulated drops!” she cried, brightening.

“You don’t mean to say that you would stoop to them now?”

“It is not one’s oldest friends who always know one best,” she replied demurely.

“I shall test you,” he said.

And on that same day, he walked into Ballochcoil, and when he returned, he offered her, with a solemn twinkle in his eye, a good-sized paper bag of the seductive sweetmeat; taking up his position on the top of a low dyke, and watching her, while she proceeded to make of that plump white bag, a lank and emaciated bag, surprising to behold. He sat and looked on, enjoying his idleness with the zest of a hard worker. The twinkle of amusement faded gradually from his face, and the sadness that Hadria had noticed the day before, returned to his eyes. She was leaning against the dyke, pensively enjoying her festive meal. The dark fresh blue of her gown, and the unwonted tinge of colour in her cheeks, gave a vigorous and healthful impression, in harmony with the weather-beaten stones and the windy breadth of the northern landscape.

The Professor studied the face with a puzzled frown. He flattered himself that he was a subtle physiognomist, but in this case, he would not have dared to pronounce judgment. Danger and difficulty might have been predicted, for it was a moving face, one that could not be looked upon quite coldly. And the Professor had come to the conclusion, from his experience of life, that the instinct of the average human being whom another has stirred to strong emotion, is to fasten upon and overwhelm that luckless person, to burden him with responsibilities, to claim as much of time, and energy, and existence, as can in any way be wrung from him, careless of the cost to the giver.

Professor Fortescue noticed, as Hadria looked down, a peculiar dreaminess of expression, and something indefinable, which suggested a profoundly emotional nature. At present, the expression was softened. That this softness was not altogether trustworthy, however, the Professor felt sure, for he had seen, at moments, when something had deeply stirred her, expressions anything but soft come into her face. He thought her capable of many things of which the well-brought-up young Englishwoman is not supposed to dream. It seemed to him, that she had at least two distinct natures that were at war with one another: the one greedy and pleasure-loving, careless and even reckless; the other deep-seeing and aspiring. But which of these two tendencies would experience probably foster?

“I wonder what you like best, next to acidulated drops,” he said at length, with one of his half-bantering smiles.

“There are few things in this wide world that can be mentioned in the same breath with them, but toffy also has its potency upon the spirit.”

“I like not this mocking tone.”

“Then I will not mock,” she said.

“Yes, Hadria,” he went on meditatively, “you have grown up, if an old friend may make such remarks, very much as I expected, from the promise of your childhood. You used to puzzle me even then.”

“Do I puzzle you now?” she asked.

“Inexpressibly!”

“How amusing! But how?”

“One can generally see at a glance, or pretty soon, the general trend of a character. But not with you. Nothing that I might hear of you in the future, would very much surprise me. I should say to myself, ‘Yes, the germ was there.’”

Hadria paled a little. “Either good or bad you mean?”

“Well——”

“Yes, I understand.” She drew herself together, crossing her arms, and looking over the hills, with eyes that burned with a sort of fear and defiance mingled. It was a singular expression, which the Professor noted with a sense of discomfort.

Hadria slowly withdrew her eyes from the horizon, and bent them on the ground.

“You must have read some of my thoughts,” she said. “I often wonder how it is, that the world can drill women into goodness at all.” She raised her head, and went on in a low, bitter tone: “I often wonder why it is, that they don’t, one and all, fling up their rÔles and revenge themselves to the best of their ability—intentionally, I mean—upon the world that makes them live under a permanent insult. I think, at times, that I should thoroughly enjoy spending my life in sheer, unmitigated vengeance, and if I did”—she clenched her hands, and her eyes blazed—“if I did, I would not do my work by halves!”

“I am sure you would not,” said the Professor dryly.

“But I shall not do anything of the kind,” she added in a different tone; “women don’t. They always try to be good, always, always—the more fools they! And the more they are good, the worse things get.”

“Ah! I thought there was some heterodox sentiment lurking here at high pressure!” exclaimed the Professor.

Hadria sighed. “I have just been receiving good advice from Mrs. Gordon,” she said, flushing at the remembrance, “and I think if you knew the sort of counsel it was, that you would understand one’s feeling a little fierce and bitter. Oh, not with her, poor woman! She meant it in kindness. But the most cutting thing of all is, that what she said is true!”

“That is exactly the worst thing,” said the Professor, who seemed to have divined the nature of Mrs. Gordon’s advice.

Hadria coloured. It hurt as well as astonished her, that he should guess what had been said.

“Ah! a woman ought to be born without pride, or not at all! I wish to heaven that our fatal sex could be utterly stamped out!”

The Professor smiled, a little sadly, at her vehemence.

“We are accused of being at the bottom of every evil under heaven,” she added, “and I think it is true. That is some consolation, at any rate!”

In spite of her immense reverence for the Professor, she seemed to have grown reckless as to his opinion.

The next few days went strangely, and not altogether comprehensibly. There was a silent warfare between Professor Fortescue and Hubert Temperley.

“I have never in my life before ventured to interfere in such matters,” the Professor said to Miss Du Prel; “but if that fellow marries Hadria, one or both will live to rue it.”

“I think it’s the best thing that could happen to her,” Miss Du Prel declared.

“But they are not suited to one another,” said the Professor.

“Men and women seldom are!”

“Then why——?” the Professor began.

“He is about as near as she will get,” Valeria interrupted. “I will never stand in the way of a girl’s marrying a good, honest man. There is not one chance in ten thousand that Hadria will happen to meet exactly the right person. I have made a mistake in my life. I shall do all in my power to urge her to avoid following in my footsteps.”

It was useless for the Professor to remonstrate.

“I pity Mr. Temperley, though I am so fond of Hadria,” said Miss Du Prel. “If he shatters her illusions, she will certainly shatter his.”

The event that they had been expecting, took place. During one of the afternoon practices, when, for a few minutes, Mrs. Fullerton had left the room, Temperley startled Hadria by an extremely elegant proposal of marriage. He did not seem surprised at her refusal, though he pleaded his cause with no little eloquence. Hadria found it a painful ordeal. She shrank from the ungracious necessity to disappoint what appeared to be a very ardent hope. Happily, the interview was cut short by the entrance of Mr. Fullerton. The old man was not remarkable for finesse. He gave a dismayed “Oh!” He coughed, suppressed a smile, and murmuring some lame enquiry as to the progress of the music, turned and marched out of the room. The sound of laughter was presently heard from the dining-room below.

“Father is really too absurd!” cried Hadria, “there is no tragedy that he is incapable of roaring at!”

“I fear his daughter takes after him,” said Temperley with a tragi-comic smile.

When Hadria next met her father, he asked, with perfect but suspicious gravity, about the music that they had been practising that afternoon. He could not speak too highly of music as a pastime. He regretted having rushed in as he did—it must have been so disturbing to the music. Why not have a notice put up outside the door on these occasions: “Engaged”? Then the meanest intelligence would understand, and the meanest intelligence was really a thing one had to count with, in this blundering world!