‘A look! Yes, Davoren. Such a look—sorrow and tenderness, regret, despair, all blended in one swift glance from those divine eyes—a look that might madden a man. Such a look as Paris may have seen in Helen’s eyes before he planned the treason that ended in flaming Troy. But after all it may have meant nothing; it may have existed only in my wild imagining. When a man is as deep in love as I am, Heaven only knows to what hallucinations he may be subject.’ ‘Well,’ said Lucius cheerily, with that practical spirit which men bring to bear upon other men’s passions, ‘I shall see the lady, and be able at least to form some opinion as to whether she loves you or not. Whether she be worthy of your love is a question I would not attempt to solve, but the other is easier. I think I shall discover if she loves you. What a pleasant smell of the country—newly-turned earth and budding hedgerows—there is about here! It refreshes my senses after the odours of the Shadrack-road, where we have a wonderful combination of bone-burning, tan-yard, and soap-caldron.’ ‘I am glad you enjoy the country air,’ said Geoffrey, in a somewhat sheepish tone, ‘and I do hope you’ll be able to spare to-morrow for a dog-cart exploration of the neighbourhood, as that may atone for my having brought you here somewhat on a fool’s errand. The fact is, Mrs. Bertram would rather not see you.’ ‘Rather not see the doctor who has come from London to attend her sick child! An odd kind of mother.’ ‘You’re wrong, Lucius; she’s a most devoted mother. I never saw any one so broken down as she was this morning, before the little thing took a turn for the better. Don’t run away with any false notion of that kind; she idolises that child. Only she has knocked herself up with nursing; and she has been alarmed, and agitated, and, in short, isn’t in a fit state to see any one.’ ‘Except you,’ said Lucius. ‘My dear fellow, in her distress about the child she has thought no more of me than if I were—a—a gingham umbrella,’ said Geoffrey, after casting about wildly for a comparison. ‘She thinks of nothing but that red-legged angel. And you can imagine that at such a moment she would shrink from seeing a stranger.’ ‘Even the doctor who comes to see her child. She is the first mother I ever knew to act in such a manner. Don’t be angry with me, Geoff, if I say that this looks to me very much as if your divinity feared to trust herself to eyes less blind than yours—as if she knew there is that in herself, or in her life, which would not impress a dispassionate observer favourably. Your blind worship has made her a goddess. She doesn’t want to come down from her pedestal in the shadowy temple of your imagination into the broad glare of every-day life.’ Of course Geoffrey was angry. Was he a fool, or a schoolboy, to be caught by meretricious charms—to take tinsel for gold?