“I see,” Alan replied. “You wouldn’t let your schooling interfere with your education. And now you support yourself?” he went on quite frankly. Herminia nodded assent. “Yes, I support myself,” she answered; “in part by teaching at a high school for girls, and in part by doing a little hack-work for newspapers.” “Then you’re just down here for your holidays, I suppose?” Alan put in, leaning forward. “Yes, just down here for my holidays. I’ve lodgings on the Holmwood, in such a dear old thatched cottage; roses peep in at the porch, and birds sing on the bushes. After a term in London, it’s a delicious change for one.” “But are you alone?” Alan interposed again, still half hesitating. Herminia smiled once more; his surprise amused her. “Yes, quite alone,” she answered. “But if you seem so astonished at that, I shall believe you and Mrs Dewsbury have been trying to take me in, and that you’re not really with us. Why shouldn’t a woman come down alone to pretty lodgings in the country?” “Why not, indeed?” Alan echoed in turn. “It’s not at all that I disapprove, Miss Barton; on the contrary, I admire it; it’s only that one’s surprised to find a woman, or for the matter of that anybody, acting up to his or her convictions. That’s what I’ve always felt; ’tis the Nemesis of reason; if people begin by thinking rationally, the danger is that they may end by acting rationally also.” Herminia laughed. “I’m afraid,” she answered, “I’ve already reached that pass. You’ll never find me hesitate to do anything on earth, once I’m convinced it’s right, merely because other people think differently on the subject.” Alan looked at her and mused. She was tall and stately, but her figure was well developed, and her form softly moulded. He admired her immensely. How incongruous an outcome from a clerical family! “It’s curious,” he said, gazing hard at her, “that you should be a dean’s daughter.” “On the contrary,” Herminia answered, with perfect frankness, “I regard myself as a living proof of the doctrine of heredity.” “How so?” Alan inquired.