and will be all the better for one. He's but a boy, after all, and may be much improved by training."
The result of this brief meditation was that when Maxwell attained sufficient composure by dint of hard rowing for ten minutes to lift his head and look at his companion, which he did with a curious sense of complicity in something unorthodox, he knew not what, he saw the Mrs. Penrhyn of an hour ago, whom he almost disliked, and altogether disapproved of—the woman against whom he had been protesting in season and out of season—had come back, and the creature of the last half hour had gone like a wreath of mist. What it was that made the difference he knew not. Only a few moments ago he had felt every drop of blood in his body tingle to his finger-tips as he looked into her eyes and but his lips to her hand. It had been sudden, unforeseen and brief as summer lightning; and now he was again the Maxwell Floyd of the morning, who would willingly have walked five miles in the sun to escape a tête-à-tête row with Mrs. Penrhyn. And she? An impenetrable veil had been drawn over her face as it was in the wood, and the same slight mocking, haughty smile played over her lips that he had seen there that very morning, when he had been inveighing against some breach of decorum committed by a woman of fashion at Newport, of which he had heard at second hand through a friend's letter.
Before he could think it out, while the blood was still in his cheeks that had risen to them as he saw her old look come back again, she spoke, but with what a different voice from the siren tone with which she had lured him into the boat! "She only wanted a boatman," he thought instantly, "and so made me think she wanted me."
"Mr. Floyd, I meant to tell you that I have some books at the Lodge—not many, but quite at your service, and all in your line, I believe. I suppose you read all sides of a subject, and won't object to a little heterodox theology? I happen to have been reading in that direction this summer, and as I'm slightly omnivorous and very desultory, have a little of every shade of opinion."
Yes, it had been a dream. TheipK cold, courteous tone of her voice, Utfi definable hauteur of her manner, pa space between them that even a i little boat, with his feet grazing the as of her dress as she half reclined, ti sat watching the water sparkle, be ad not bridge over. All his pnde ca mustering fast to his rescue, and he -^i with a very good attempt at indifea-n] "Thank you very much, but I fct£» am doomed to drier stuff for my mer's reading than Mrs. Penrhyn care to digest for a caprice." "Well, that may be : there ;s nodi patristic about my collection, cerjyal and nothing very old. I never obsolete books : I like those hcsi i have their raison d'etre in the 6»l which they are written ; and then, Ti it amuses and interests me to read a< cm religious books, because they jss all consist of more or less clever ana| to put new wine into old bonks;* that is an instructive experiment tortl especially when the wine ferments 1 bursts the bottles. But come an-i H at my collection before you despise M " I will, certainly," he said wiii embarrassment. "You read everything, don't ym she went on. " I mean, that ts »fl theory of reading, is it not?—a d"J not the segment of one ?" " I suppose it is my theory, bat practice, I fear." " That is because no one can rt« read at college—only learn how tc rti she said. " When you have more > you can read what other people i1 not what somebody over you thiE**' ought to think. The terrible poll orthodox course of reading is tha : 31 you formed and definite opinions. ing is so much to be deprecated : ±* as one begins to crystallize, oat a* to ferment." Maxwell drew a long breadi ai 2^ tranquilly uttered these, to ium.iS^ ing heresies. Limitation was tk * of the teaching he had received, *^ must be of all dogmatism.
