rplexed him, it was outside his
habits, it was unreasonable. "Not unreasonable to think it might be fun
to talk to a pretty woman," he discriminated, "but unreasonable to yearn
to talk to her as if your life hung in the balance." And in some
measure, too, it humiliated him: it was a confession of weakness, of
insufficiency to himself, of dependence for his contentment upon
another. He tried to stifle it; he tried to fix his mind on subjects
that would lead far from it. Every subject, all subjects, subjects the
most discrepant, seemed to possess one common property, that of leading
straight back to it. Then he said, "Well, if you can't stifle it, yield
to it. Go down into the garden--hunt her up--boldly engage her in
conversation." Assurance was the note of the man; but when he pictured
himself in the act of "boldly engaging her in conversation," his
assurance oozed away, and he was conscious of a thrice-humiliating
shyness. Why? What _was_ there in the woman that should turn a brave man
shy?

However, the stars were working for him. That afternoon, coming home
from a stroll among the olives, he met her face to face at the gate of
the garden, whither she had arrived from the direction of the village.
Having made his bow, which she accepted with a smile, he could do no
less than open the gate for her; and as their ways must thence lie
together, up the long ilex-shaded avenue to the castle, it would be an
awkward affectation not to speak. And yet (he ground his teeth at having
to admit it) his heart had begun to pound so violently, (not from
emotion, he told himself,--from a mere ridiculous sort of nervous
excitement: what _was_ there in the woman that should excite a sane man
like that?) he was afraid to trust his voice, lest it should quaver and
betray him. But fortunately this pounding of the heart lasted only a few
seconds. The short business of getting the gate open, and of closing it
afterwards, gave it time to pass. So that now, as they set forwards
towards the house, he was able to look her in the eye, and to observe,
with impressiveness, that it was a fine day.

She had accepted his bow with a smile, amiable and unembarrassed; and at
this, in quite the most unembarrassed manner, smiling again,--perhaps
with just the faintest, just the gentlest shade of irony, and with just
the slightest quizzical upward tremor of the eyebrows,--"Isn't it a day
rather typical of the land and season?" she inquired.

It was the fi