He left behind a gay, unconscious trio. The professor and Frances and Edward Montague were walking briskly homeward, when they glimpsed him. The professor's face, when interested, was strangely frank and boyish; Lawson was used to seeing him look a trifle bored and a trifle more absorbed. To see him, as he had done that one swift instant, alert, wide-awake, to see a tall, fair, young man talking to him with careless ease--the University men were always in awe of him--to see Frances between them, laughing, rosy, her coat collar turned high about her head, framing her bright face distractingly--the trio shut him out. They were quite sufficient to themselves, or seemed so. "You will come in, Edward," the professor said at the door. The young man looked at the fading sunset lights of the sky and hesitated. He thought of the ride before him and he thought of the empty house awaiting him; he looked in at the cheer of the house showing through the open door and at the young woman standing in the hall listening for his answer. Her face neither invited nor forbade; he followed the professor. But the contrast he had drawn for a minute haunted him. He cared not a whit for fine furnishings, scarce knowing them when he saw them, except for the air of comfort and the atmosphere of home they might give; but those two were requirements. He was too busied all the days and too tired all the nights to think how they were now denied him, but while he had no time to bemoan a loss, he had time for dreamings. The vision of a sweet, frank face beset him oftener than he knew; he was building castles taller than he thought and frailer than the castled clouds of sunset beyond the mountains. This reality was charming. "What's the use of going home, now?" the professor reassured him as they went in to the fireside; "it would be dark when you got there. You couldn't do anything; just have an evening all to yourself." "And father wants to talk grapes to you," Frances added gayly; "he's just gotten some pamphlets--" The professor looked guilty. "Well, I chanced on an advertisement--" "And he hasn't had a chance to bring them out all day--" "Frances!" "Here they are," teased his daughter, "with your report on agriculture," she held up dramatically the big book she had dragged from beneath the papers on the table. "I have been listening to hear him begin talking of it every moment. He's just been waiting the right time,--you know you have," to her father. The professor fingered the pamphlet nervously. "You know, here--the secretary says--" "There, he has begun; I am going to see about supper."