men, her attitude seemed purely intellectual; no one
had ever so much as suspected a warmer interest. A hint of things
forbidden with regard to any male acquaintance caused her to turn away,
silent, austere. That such things not seldom came to her hearing was a
motive of troubled reflection, common enough in all intelligent girls
who live in touch with the wider world. Men puzzled her, and Irene did
not like to be puzzled. As free from unwholesome inquisitiveness as a
girl can possibly be, she often wished to know, once for all, whatever
was to be learnt about the concealed life of men; to know it and to
have done with it; to settle her mind on that point, as on any other
that affected the life of a reasonable being. Yet she shrank from all
such enquiry, with a sense of womanly pride, doing her best to believe
that there was no concealment in the case of any man with whom she
could have friendly relations. She scorned the female cynic; she
disliked the carelessly liberal in moral judgment. Profoundly
mysterious to her was everything covered by the word "passion"--a word
she detested.

Her way of seeing life on the amusing side aided, of course, her
maidenly severity against trouble of sense and sentiment. This she had
from her father, a man of quips and jokes on the surface of his
seriousness. As she grew older, it threatened a decline of intimacy
between her and her cousin Olga, who, never naturally buoyant, was
becoming so cheerless, so turbid of temper, that Irene found it
difficult to talk with her for long together. Domestic miseries might
greatly account for the girl's mood, but Irene had insight enough to
perceive that this was not all. And she felt uncomfortably helpless. To
jest seemed unfeeling; sympathy of the sentimental sort she could not
give. She feared that Olga was beginning to shrink from her.

Since the Hannaford's removal to London, they had not been able to see
much of each other. Irene understood that she was not very welcome in
the little house at Hammersmith, even before her aunt wrote to ask her
not to come. Lee Hannaford's aloofness from his wife's relatives had
turned to hostility; he spoke of them with increasing bitterness, threw
contempt on Dr. Derwent's scientific work, and condemned Irene as a
butterfly of fashion. Olga ceased to visit the house in Bryanston
Square, and the cousins only corresponded. It was Dr. Derwent's opinion
that Hannaford could not be quite sane; he was much trouble