s which kept him from coming in sooner.

He did not say what the engagements were, and they did not recur to the
things they had last spoken of. Westover could not do so without Jeff's
leading, and he was rather glad that he gave none. He stayed only a
little time, which was spent mostly in a show of interest on both sides,
and the hollow hilarities which people use to mask their indifference
to one another's being and doing. Jeff declared that he had never seen
Westover looking so well, and said he must go up to Lion's Head again;
it had done him good. As for his picture, it was a corker; it made him
feel as if he were there! He asked about all the folks, and received
Westover's replies with vague laughter, and an absence in his bold eye,
which made the painter wonder what his mind was on, without the wish to
find out. He was glad to have him go, though he pressed him to drop in
soon again, and said they would take in a play together.

Jeff said he would like to do that, and he asked at the door whether
Westover was going to the tea at Mrs. Bellingham's. He said he had to
look in there, before he went out to Cambridge; and left Westover in
mute amaze at the length he had apparently gone in a road that had once
seemed no thoroughfare for him. Jeff's social acceptance, even after the
Enderby ball, which was now some six or seven weeks past, had been slow;
but of late, for no reason that he or any one else could have given, it
had gained a sudden precipitance; and people who wondered why they met
him at other houses began to ask him to their own.

He did not care to go to their houses, and he went at first in the hope
of seeing Bessie Lynde again. But this did not happen for some time, and
it was a mid-Lenten tea that brought them together. As soon as he caught
sight of her he went up to her and began to talk as if they had been in
the habit of meeting constantly. She could not control a little start at
his approach, and he frankly recognized it.

"What's the matter?"

"Oh--the window!"

"It isn't open," he said, trying it. "Do you want to try it yourself?"

"I think I can trust you," she answered, but she sank a little into the
shelter of the curtains, not to be seen talking with him, perhaps, or
not to be interrupted--she did not analyze her motive closely.

He remained talking to her until she went away, and then he contrived
to go with her. She did not try to escape him after that; each time
they met she had t