The obvious course would have been to address myself to my tutor, and several times I was on the point of doing so, but on each occasion he seemed so absorbed in the day’s exercises, that I decided to postpone the experiment. In the end, however, I should no doubt have opened my mind to him--had not chance intervened and sent me a more charming informant. I had of course not forgotten that entrancing Madonna-like woman who was Stranahan’s tutor. Indeed, I could not easily have forgotten her, for her exquisite features and bright eyes kept flashing before me at all hours of the day and night; and already I felt myself as completely subject to her spell as Dante to the spell of a Beatrice. Under the witchery of her influence, Alma Huntley was becoming no more than the figment of a remote and misty past--and yet I was not even acquainted with the fair unknown, I had never exchanged more than a formal greeting with her. I scarcely knew how to sow the seeds even for a casual friendship, and what she was like at heart and how she would react to my advances, were matters of pure conjecture. But the time was to come when she would be more to me than one to be admired at a distance. She was, in fact, to serve in a double rôle: for not only was she to fascinate me with her companionship, but she was to cast light upon those problems which were tantalizing me. Although I caught glimpses of her almost every morning when she came as Stranahan’s instructor, yet I would have had little chance to speak with her even had I chosen, since (as I have already related) she ordinarily arrived and left in the company of the other tutors. But one day--perhaps because she had some particularly difficult bit of grammar to explain--she lingered over her work much longer than usual, and was so absorbed in it that she did not appear to notice that her fellow teachers had left. At the moment I did not perceive that this was my opportunity; but good fortune was to be with me, and when she emerged from the marble doors of our home, I happened to be strolling along the colonnade not a hundred yards away. At first it was almost a shock to me to see her come unaccompanied toward me--a shock in which intense pleasure was mingled with something akin to dread. For a moment I had an impulse to hide behind one of the great stone columns; fortunately, I thrust this foolish desire from me, and, after a few seconds, had almost regained my composure. As she approached, I could scarcely take my gaze from her. Upon her face was a serene, placid expression, such as she almost always wore; but the shadow of a smile flickered about her lips, and her great blue eyes were withdrawn as if they saw not the world wherein she walked but only some calm and perfect inner vision.