"Advances? Rather not. But if I thought he was thinking things--he isn't, you know, he's not that sort; still, if I thought it I should have it out with him." "How could you have it--'out with him'?" "Oh I should just ask him what he thought of me; or better still, tell him what I thought of him." Miss Quincey shrank visibly from the bold suggestion. "Would you? Oh, that would never do. You won't mind my saying so, but I think it would look a little indelicate. Of course it would be very different if it were a woman; if it were you for instance." "I should do it any way. It's the straightest thing." "I daresay, dear, in your friendships it is. But I think you can hardly judge of this. You do not know Dr. Cautley as I do." "No," said Rhoda meekly, "perhaps I don't." Not for worlds would she have destroyed that beautiful illusion. "It has been," continued Miss Quincey, "a very peculiar, a very interesting relationship. Strange too--considering. If you had asked me six months ago I should have told you that the thing was impossible, or rather, that in nine cases out of ten--I mean I should have said it was highly improbable that Dr. Cautley would take the faintest interest in me, let alone like me." "He does like you, dear Miss Quincey, I know he does." "How do you know?" "He told me so." (Miss Quincey quivered and a faint flush worked up through the sallow of her cheek.) "And I'm sure he would be most distressed to think you were unhappy." "It is not unhappiness; certainly not unhappiness. On the contrary I have been happy, quite happy lately. And I think it has been bad for me. I wasn't used to it. Perhaps, if it had happened five-and-twenty years ago--Do not misunderstand me, I am merely speaking of friendship, dear; but it might--I mean I might--" Far back in the chair and favoured by Rhoda's silence, Miss Quincey dropped into a dream. Presently she woke up as it were with a start. "What am I thinking of? Let us be reasonable; let us reduce it to figures. Forty-five--thirty--he is thirty. Take twenty-five from thirty and five remain. Why, Rhoda, he would have been--" They looked at each other, but neither said: "He would have been five years old." Miss Quincey seemed quite prostrated by the result of her calculations. To everything that Rhoda could urge to soothe her she answered steadily: "You do not know him as I do." The voice was not Miss Quincey's voice; it was the monotonous, melancholy voice of the Fixed Idea. Her knowledge of him. After all, nothing could take from her the exquisite privacy of that possession. * * * * * "_Eros anikate machan_," said Rhoda. Miss Quincey was gone and the Classical Mistress was in school again, coaching a backward student through the "Antigone." "Oh Love, unconquered in fight. Love who--Love who fliest, who fliest about among things," said the student. And the teacher laughed.