He was perfectly sure that he loved her, and for proof there was his sleeplessness. It occurred to him that as he could not sleep, and was only thinking in circles, he might as well do something to hasten the time when he could see Ada again. He could not return “Marcus Aurelius” to Peter until he had read it, and if he returned it with unexpected promptitude, he must be ready to face a stiff examination in it; therefore he lit the gas and read “Marcus Aurelius” by way of serving Ada, whom he loved. Hard service, too, for there was not much in Sam’s philosophy which agreed with the Emperor’s, but two nights later he was ringing Peter’s bell with the book under his arm, an ordered précis of it in his mind, and some selected passages from it on his tongue. They were not selected because Sam liked them, but because he thought Peter liked them. Peter was out, but Ada was in, and, curiously enough for one who was not an optimist either by nature or experience, dressed again in her Sunday clothes. She opened the door to him. “Father is out, Mr. Branstone,” she said. “I only called to return him this book.” “I do not think he will be long,” said Ada promptly, who knew very well that Peter would certainly be late. “Will you not come in and wait for him?” He came, crossing his Rubicon. The unchaperoned intimacy of that night struck both of them as a daring short cut to a position to which they were not entitled--a thing properly done only by the engaged and the maturely and securely engaged. Luck fought for Ada. “I’m afraid I can’t stay very long,” he hedged desperately. Ada sat down and crossed her knees. A neat ankle was effectively on exhibition. “That chair of father’s,” she said, “is fairly comfortable.” Also, it faced Ada’s, and he drew up another, less inviting, chair, and placed it flush with the fire. Except by a side-glance, he could not see her ankle now, and evaded that aphrodisiac, while Peter’s chair, though empty, completed the semi-circle, and seemed to give a sort of countenance to their interview. Sam drew much comfort from that chair, and tried to guide their conversation into literary paths of which the chair would have approved. He discoursed of “Marcus Aurelius,” and he was very dull, but felt virtuous. Ada did not believe that it was virtuous to be dull, and mentally cursed that _tertium quid_, the ghost of Peter Struggles, whom Sam had so firmly established in his chair; but she saw that the pace was not to be quickened here, under Peter’s roof. “I think your knowledge of books is wonderful, Mr. Branstone,” she said, when Sam had exhausted his ideas about “Marcus Aurelius.”