‘A fortnight ago to-day. I have not forgotten it.’ ‘I looked upon you as my friend before I saw you. I had heard your history--the history, it would seem, of your cousin Gaston! I honoured a man who had had the courage of his opinions. I respected, I drew to you on account of the wife you had chosen. And now, Mr. Arbuthnot,’ exclaimed Marjorie hotly, ‘the comedy of errors is finished. I have learned my mistake, you see. And I trust that my apology has been sufficient.’ This time Geoffrey broke into a fit of wholesome, unconstrained laughter. ‘I am afraid I see through everything, Miss Bartrand. Your apologies say too much. I have been treated with humanity by accident, and may count upon dark days for the future. That I am not married is my misfortune,’ he added, watching her face,--‘a misfortune which, if I could only thereby re-establish myself in your favour, I would gladly remedy.’ ‘Would you?... do you mean ...’ And then, looking up into her tutor’s eyes, Marjorie knew that they were both of them talking unwisdom, were trenching as nearly on the forbidden ground of sentiment as a young man and woman who had met for the hard study of classics and mathematics could well do. ‘I believe I got through some fair work yesterday,’ she remarked, with an air of cold business. ‘As to-morrow is to be wasted on folly, we may as well lose no time now. It is your system never to praise, sir,--a good one, doubtless. Yet I hope you will think my Virgil passable. I _promise_ you it was done without the crib.’ Geff read the halting translation aloud, no longer holding the manuscript upside down. He did not think Marjorie’s Virgil passable, and put the copy-book aside without a word of comment. He showed himself severer than usual over Greek aorists, was stringent, to cruelty, in regard of Marjorie’s shakiest point--her mathematics. But at last, when the professional work was over, when he had risen to take leave, Geoffrey Arbuthnot extended his hand to his pupil as the girl’s heart knew he had never done before. ‘You have tolerated me hitherto,’ he observed, ‘for my imaginary wife’s sake. Do you think you can tolerate me, in future, for my own?’ With his eyes fixed on her face, her small fingers crushed in his grasp, Marjorie’s cheeks turned the colour of a pomegranate. ‘You know ... you ought to have been the other Arbuthnot cousin,’ she stammered, glancing up under her long lashes, then drawing her hand away warily. ‘I ought, you think, to have been Gaston? He would never have pleaded, as I plead, for toleration. Every woman living would tolerate Gaston of her own free will.’ ‘Save Marjorie Bartrand! Pray make one exception to your rule. I come of an arbitrary and stiff-necked race. We--we Tintajeux people belong to minorities. We like, in most cases dislike, where we can.’