to do these things," his father
protested.

"But it doesn't want learning; it's all so simple--not like painting,
you know."

Mr. Frank had been corresponding with the boy's headmaster. "Yes, he is
a good fellow," said one of the letters; "just a gentle clear-minded
boy, with courage at call when he wants it, and one really remarkable
talent. You may not have discovered it, but he is a mathematician; and
as different from the ordinary book-made mathematician--from the dozens
of boys I send up regularly to Cambridge--as cheese is from chalk.
He has a sort of passion for pure reasoning--for its processes.
Of course he does not know it; but from the first it has been a pleasure
to me (an old pupil of Routh's) to watch his work. 'Style' is not a
word one associates as a rule with mathematics, but I can use no other
to express the quality which your boy brings to that study. . . ."

"Good Lord!" groaned Mr. Frank, who had never been able to add up his
washing bills.

He read the letter to Miss Bracy, and the pair began to watch Victor
with a new wonder. They were confident that no Bracy had ever been a
mathematician; for an uncle of theirs, now a rector in Shropshire and
once of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where for reasons best known to
himself he had sought honours in the Mathematical Tripos and narrowly
missed the Wooden Spoon, had clearly no claim to the title. Whence in
the world did the boy derive this gift? "His mother--" Miss Bracy
began, and broke off as a puff of smoke shot out from the fireplace.
It was late September; Deborah had lit the fire that morning for the
first time since May, and the chimney never drew well at starting.
Miss Bracy took the tongs in hand, but she was not thinking of the
smoke; neither was Mr. Frank, while he watched her. They were both
thinking of the dead woman. The thought of her--the ghost of her--was
always rising now between them and her boy; _she_ was the impalpable
screen they tried daily and in vain to pierce; to _her_ they had come to
refer unconsciously all that was inexplicable in him. And so much was
inexplicable! They loved him now; they stretched out their hands to
him: behind _her_ he smiled at them, but through or across _her_ their
hands could never reach.

As at first they had avoided all allusion to her, and been thankful that
the boy's reticence made it easy, so now they grew almost feverishly
anxious to discover how he felt towards his mother's memory