‘I know nothing of Oxford,’ she said a little primly, in answer to his question. ‘I never was there--but I never was anywhere, I have seen nothing,’ she added hastily, and, as Langham thought, bitterly. ‘Except London, and the great world, and Madame Desforêts!’ he answered, laughing. ‘Is that so little?’ She flashed a quick, defiant look at him, as he mentioned Madame Desforêts, but his look was imperturbably kind and gay. She could not help softening toward him. What magic had passed over him? ‘Do you know,’ said Langham, moving, ‘that you are standing in a draught, and that it has turned extremely cold?’ For she had left the passage-door wide open behind her, and as the window was partially open the curtains were swaying hither and thither, and her muslin dress was being blown in coils round her feet. ‘So it has,’ said Rose, shivering. ‘I don’t envy the Church people. You haven’t found me a book, Mr. Langham!’ ‘I will find you one in a minute, if you will come and read it by the fire,’ he said, with his hand on the door. She glanced at the fire and at him, irresolute. His breath quickened. She too had passed into another phase. Was it the natural effect of night, of solitude, of sex? At any rate, she sank softly into the armchair opposite to that in which he had been sitting. ‘Find me an exciting one, please.’ Langham shut the door securely, and went back to the bookcase, his hand trembling a little as it passed along the books. He found ‘Villette’ and offered it to her. She took it, opened it, and appeared deep in it at once. He took the hint and went back to his Montaigne. The fire crackled cheerfully, the wind outside made every now and then a sudden gusty onslaught on their silence, dying away again as abruptly as it had risen. Rose turned the pages of her book, sitting a little stiffly in her long chair, and Langham gradually began to find Montaigne impossible to read. He became instead more and more alive to every detail of the situation into which he had fallen. At last seeing, or imagining, that the fire wanted attending to, he bent forward and thrust the poker into it. A burning coal fell on the hearth, and Rose hastily withdrew her foot from the fender and looked up. ‘I am so sorry!’ he interjected. ‘Coals never do what you want them to do. Are you very much interested in “Villette”?’ ‘Deeply,’ said Rose, letting the book, however, drop on her lap. She laid back her head with a little sigh, which she did her best to check, half way through. What ailed her to-night? She seemed wearied; for the moment there was no fight in her with anybody. Her music, her beauty, her mutinous, mocking gayety--these things had all worked on the man beside her; but this new softness, this touch of childish fatigue, was adorable. ‘Charlotte Bronté wrote it out of her Brussels experience, didn’t She?’ she resumed languidly. ‘How sorry she must have been to come back to that dull home and that awful brother after such a break!’