He told himself, in the moments when he reacted from the abandonment of his soul to dreaming, that he was sentimental, that he loved too readily, that beauty stirred him more than it ought, that life was too vividly emotional, too mighty a conqueror of his senses. But then, in the calm midst of reasoning, that same wild, tremulous consciousness of wonder and romance would envelop him afresh like a strong flood; it was a fierce, passionate ache in his bones, only to be forgotten for unreal, unliving instants. And one moment, when he sat by the window hearing the far-off murmur of Chopin on the Head's piano, he knew most simply and perfectly why it was that all this was so. It was because he was very deeply and passionately in love. In his dreams, his wild and bewitching dreams, she was a fairy-child, ethereal and half unreal, the rapt half-embodied spirit of Millstead itself, luring him by her sweet and fragrant vitality. He saw in the sunlight always the golden glint of her hair; in music no more than subtle and exquisite reminders of her; in all the world of sights and sounds and feelings a deep transfiguring passion that was his own for her. And in the flesh he met her often in the school grounds, where she might say: "Oh, Mr. Speed, I'm so glad I've met you! I want you to come in and hear me play something." They would stroll together over the lawns into the Head's house and settle themselves in the stuffy-smelling drawing-room. Doctor and Mrs. Ervine were frequently out in the afternoons, and Potter, it was believed, dozed in the butler's pantry. Speed would play the piano to the girl and then she to him, and when they were both tired of playing they talked awhile. Everything of her seemed to him most perfect and delicious. Once he asked her tactfully about reading novelettes, and she said: "I read them sometimes because there's nothing in father's library that I care for. It's nearly all sermons and Latin grammars." Immediately it appeared to him that all was satisfactory and entrancingly explained; a vague unrestfulness in him was made suddenly tranquil; her habit of reading novelettes made her more dear and lovable than ever. He said: "I wonder if you'd like me to lend you some books?--_Interesting_ books, I promise you."--She answered, with her child-like enthusiasm: "Oh, I'd love that, Mr. Speed!" He lent her Hans Andersen's fairy tales. Once in chapel, as he declaimed the final verse of the eighty-eighth Psalm, he looked for a fraction of a second at the Head's pew and saw that she was watching him. "Lover and friend hast Thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness."--He saw a blush kindle her cheeks like flame. One week-day morning he met the Head in the middle of the quadrangle. The Head beamed on him cordially and said: "I understand, Mr. Speed, that you--um--give my daughter--occasional--um, yes--assistance with her music. Very kind of you, I'm sure--um, yes--extremely kind of you, Mr. Speed."