She gave me a half-friendly, half-stately little bow, and walked into the house. In a few moments the gardener returned with the mare, and I mounted and rode home in anything but a pleasant mood. Having stabled her, I roamed about the fields till it was dark, thinking for the first time in my life I preferred woods to open grass. When I went in at length I did my best to behave as if nothing had happened. My uncle must, however, have seen that something was amiss, but he took no notice, for he never forced or even led up to confidences. I retired early to bed, and passed an hour or two of wretchedness, thinking over everything that had happened---the one moment calling her a coquette, and the next ransacking a fresh corner of my brain to find fresh excuse for her. At length I was able to arrive at the conclusion that I did not understand her, and having given in so far, I soon fell asleep. CHAPTER XXVII. A DISAPPOINTMENT. I trust it will not be regarded as a sign of shallowness of nature that I rose in the morning comparatively calm. Clara was to me as yet only the type of general womanhood, around which the amorphous loves of my manhood had begun to gather, not the one woman whom the individual man in me had chosen and loved. How could I _love_ that which I did not yet know: she was but the heroine of my objective life, as projected from me by my imagination--not the love of my being. Therefore, when the wings of sleep had fanned the motes from my brain, I was cool enough, notwithstanding an occasional tongue of indignant flame from the ashes of last night’s fire, to sit down to my books, and read with tolerable attention my morning portion of Plato. But when I turned to my novel, I found I was not master of the situation. My hero too was in love and in trouble; and after I had written a sentence and a half, I found myself experiencing the fate of Heine when he roused the Sphinx of past love by reading his own old verses:-- Lebendig ward das Marmorbild, Der Stein begann zu ächzen. In a few moments I was pacing up and down the room, eager to burn my moth-wings yet again in the old fire. And by the way, I cannot help thinking that the moths enjoy their fate, and die in ecstasies. I was, however, too shy to venture on a call that very morning: I should both feel and look foolish. But there was no more work to be done then. I hurried to the stable, saddled my mare, and set out for a gallop across the farm, but towards the high road leading to Minstercombe, in the opposite direction, that is, from the Hall, which I flattered myself was to act in a strong-minded manner. There were several fences and hedges between, but I cleared them all without discomfiture. The last jump was into a lane. We, that is my mare and I, had scarcely alighted, when my ears were invaded by a shout. The voice was the least welcome I could have heard, that of Brotherton. I turned and saw him riding up the hill, with a lady by his side.