him--to turn to her, whose mind must be entirely single and simple, torn by no conflict. He did not know why he wanted to speak to her, what he wanted to say to her; but he stepped into her way with a certain imperiousness, making her stop short in her rapid career. Janet, thus arrested, gave a sudden cry. She stopped, the breath coming quick on her lips, and put her hand to her breast; her heart gave a sudden leap, the colour flew over her face in a sudden wave of crimson. “Oh, Mr. Markham!” she said. “Where are you going so fast?” Somehow it seemed to him, with a half-consolatory sense of proprietorship, that here was a creature who belonged to him, who would find no fault with him as the others did, who was his. He put himself in her way, stopping her--not as if by accident, but of set purpose--assuming the right which she for her part never resisted. There were troubles and difficulties with every one else; but with her no difficulties, no troubles. She acknowledged his sway at once, stopped herself, blushed, and drooped her head. There was no question of approving or disapproving here. She answered his voice instantly, like a slave. There are many people who only see a thing in its best aspect when it becomes their own. For the moment Paul Markham became one of those. He had never thought her so handsome before; perhaps indeed in all her life she had never been so handsome as when she stopped all blushing and glowing at his call, acknowledging in her every look the proprietorship which it gave him a sort of pleasure to claim. “Where are you going so fast?” he said. “Oh, Mr. Markham, I am in a great hurry! I don’t know what Miss Stichel will say: I never was so late before in my life!” “What has kept you so late?” He was far more imperious in his tone than he had ever been when she was nothing to him. Then he had been courtly and polite, frightening the girl with a courtesy which she did not understand. She liked this roughness much better. It meant--it would be impossible to tell all it meant. “I was kept by--visitors. Oh, Mr. Markham! don’t keep me any longer now. I don’t know what Miss Stichel will say to me. She will be so angry.” “She must not be angry. How does she dare to show her anger to you? You had visitors. I know: my mother.” “Oh, Mr. Markham!” Janet said again, faintly, drooping her head; and then there was a momentary pause. “I know,” he said. He did not know, and could not tell afterwards by what impulse he did it. Some infatuation took possession of him. He took her hand in the middle of the street, in sight of any one that might be looking. There was nobody looking, which vexed Janet, but he did it without thought of that. It would have made no difference if all the world had been there. “That is how it is, I suppose,” he said, holding her hand. And then he added, somewhat drearily, “If there is anything wrong in it, it is their own doing, there is always that to be said.”