And there was an innocent, unconsciously expressed touch of disappointment in her tone, which was a sharp pleasure to him, though he was in too chaotic a mental condition to call it either pleasure or pain. "I may be ordered away at any moment," he said. He could never exactly remember afterward how it came about, that in a few moments more he was sitting in the professor's arm-chair, and she had taken a seat on a hassock near him, with some of his heliotrope in the knot of her hair, some fastened against her pale gray dress, and some loosely clasped in the hand which rested on her lap. He did not know how it happened, but she was there, and the scent of the heliotrope floated about her in the warmth of the fire, and she was talking in the bright, fanciful way which entertained the professor, and he knew that this brief moment he came for the first time within the charmed circle of her girlish life and pleasures, and, though he was conscious that his nearness moved her no more than the professor's would have done, he was content. There was a softness in her manner which was new to him, and which had the effect of giving him courage. It was a result partly of the pleasure he had given her and partly of the good resolution she had made, of which he knew nothing. He only saw the result, and enjoyed it. She even showed a pretty interest in his future. "She is what the Italians call _simpatica_," had been one of her father's observations concerning her, and Tredennis thought of it as he listened and watched her. It was her gift to say well all she had to say. Her simplest speech produced its little effect, because all her heart was with her hearer. Just now she thought only of Tredennis, and that she wished to show her interest in him. So she sat with her flowers upon her knee and talked, and it was an enchanted hour for Tredennis, who felt like a creature slowly awakening to the light of day. "I suppose we may not see you again for several years," she said. "I do not like to think of that, and I am sure papa won't, but"--and she turned, smiling into his eyes, her chin resting in the hollow of her palm, her elbow on her knee--"when we _do_ see you, of course you will be a most distinguished person, entirely covered with stars and ribbons and--scalps!" "And you," he said; "I wonder what will have happened to you?" "Oh, a great many things, of course," she answered; "but only the unimportant things that happen to all girls--though they will be important enough to me. I dare say I shall have had a lovely time, and have been very happy." And she turned her little smile upon the fire and brooded for a few seconds--still in her pretty attitude. It was such a pretty attitude and her look was so sweet that both together wrought upon Tredennis strongly, and he felt himself awakening a little more. "I wish," he said, breaking the brief silence in a low voice,--"I wish that _I_ could insure the--happiness for you."