“It is strange that you have remained so fond of one another all this long time.” “Do you think so? Oh, no!” replied Miss Bunter, with a convinced shake of her head. “When one loves really, it lasts for ever. But,” she added, sighing, “it has been a long engagement.” So Felicia parted with Miss Bunter rather more depressed than before. She had thought to get outside the range of such things, but she had been brought only the closer within it. She could not sleep that night. Many things troubled her, causing her cheek to burn in the darkness--the sudden rekindling within her of feelings against which her young maiden pride had ever revolted; the shame at having revealed them for the second time; the hope suggested by Raine's letter, to which it seemed a joy and a humiliation to cling; the discovery of Katherine's love. She buried her face in her pillow, trying to hide from herself her self-abasement. So does it happen to many women, when their sudden investiture of womanhood comes to them, with its thoughts and sorrows, and, unaware, they still regard it with the eyes of a young girl. CHAPTER V.--THE PUZZLE OF RAINE CHETWYND. |Then you won't join us?” said the Junior Dean. “I can't say definitely,” replied Raine Chetwynd, rubbing his meerschaum bowl on his coat-sleeve. “You had better,” urged the other. “We can make our arrangements fit into yours, if you'll give us timely notice. Put aside a fortnight in July or August, and we will keep all the plums for then. You see we must have dates beforehand, on account of the guides.” “Quite so,” Raine assented; “and it's very good of you, Rogers. But somehow I shouldn't care to tie myself down. I am not certain how long I may be likely to stay in Switzerland; and I have half promised the Professor to take him away somewhere, if he has had enough of Geneva. No; you fellows make your own arrangements without reference to me. Tell me your dates, and I'll very probably happen upon you and take my chance of what's going.” The Junior Dean did not press the matter. Chetwynd was not a man to be governed by caprice, and doubtless had excellent reasons for not wishing to make a specific engagement. But Raine thought it necessary to apologize. He got up, and walked to the open window. “Don't think me a disagreeable beast.” The Junior Dean, laughed, and came and leant on the sill by his side. “No one could be disagreeable on a day like this.” The window gave upon the College Gardens. The lawn was flooded with sunlight, save for the splashes of shade under the two flowering chestnut-trees. The fresh voices of some girls up for Commemoration rose through the quiet afternoon air; the faint tinkle of a piano was heard from some rooms in the grey pile on the left that stood cool in shadow.