Satisfied with the probability of this solution, I dismissed the first
view of the subject and gave my thought and attention to that other
more interesting one, which compromised, to all appearances, my little
friend's affections. There was no doubting her sentiment. All the
artful veneering she could ever put upon her words or actions had no
power to deceive me. There was no indifference in her indifferent
attitudes, none at least that was real. Who could tell better than I,
who had myself gone through the ordeal? I knew too well what the
nature of such a conflict was, not to have detected its workings when
they were going on under my very eyes. Besides, was there not some
strange new feeling awakened within my own breast, by this unexpected
turn of the tide; and was I not striving to guard it and hide it,
maybe as vainly as my friend, for all I knew.
I had been making vague conjectures about Ernest Dalton for some time,
wooing the possibility if not the probability of being more closely
associated with his life some day, than I was at this period. His
words had always an underlying signification for me apart from that
which any casual listener would detect, and I had studied him so!
Every outline of his face and figure was engraven upon my memory, the
very curves of his ears, the shape of his figure, the form of his
eye-brows, the fit of his collar, the pattern of his neck-ties, all
were quite familiar to me. I had taken a pleasure in noticing them,
and a still greater pleasure in telling them to myself over and over
again.
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