the smile. When Geoffrey looked that
way, which was not often, for Elizabeth--old Elizabeth, as he always
called her to himself--did not attract him, all he saw was her sharp but
capable-looking form bending over her work, and the light of the candle
gleaming on her straw-coloured hair and falling in gleaming white
patches on her hard knuckles.

And so the happy day would pass and bed-time come, and with it unbidden
dreams.

Geoffrey thought no ill of all this, as of course he ought to have
thought. He was not the ravening lion of fiction--so rarely, if ever, to
be met with in real life--going about seeking whom he might devour. He
had absolutely no designs on Beatrice's affections, any more than she
had on his, and he had forgotten that first fell prescience of evil to
come. Once or twice, it is true, qualms of doubt did cross his mind in
the earlier days of their intimacy. But he put them by as absurd. He
was no believer in the tender helplessness of full-grown women, his
experience having been that they are amply capable--and, for the most
part, more than capable--of looking after themselves. It seemed to him
a thing ridiculous that such a person as Beatrice, who was competent to
form opinions and a judgment upon all the important questions of life,
should be treated as a child, and that he should remove himself from
Bryngelly lest her young affections should become entangled. He felt
sure that they would never be entrapped in any direction whatsoever
without her full consent.

Then he ceased to think about the matter at all. Indeed, the mere
idea of such a thing involved a supposition that would only have been
acceptable to a conceited man--namely, that there was a possibility of
this young lady's falling in love with him. What right had he to suppose
anything of the sort? It was an impertinence. That there was another
sort of possibility--namely, of his becoming more attached to her than
was altogether desirable--did, however, occur to him once or twice. But
he shrugged his shoulders and put it by. After all, it was his look out,
and he did not much care. It would do her no harm at the worst. But very
soon all these shadowy forebodings of dawning trouble vanished quite.
They were lost in the broad, sweet lights of friendship. By-and-by, when
friendship's day was done, they might arise again, called by other names
and wearing a sterner face.

It was ridiculous--of course it was ridiculous; he was not going to f