had Maud been
only her friend.

"Yes. If he should notice me, may I introduce him to you? He was at the
school where I taught a year ago."

"Why, certainly, my love," replied her mother, with cheerful assent.
"It is quite natural that you should have acquaintances I should like
to know. Shall I ask him to come and see us?"

There was no opportunity of answering. Waymark, in moving on, had
glanced round at the groups of people, and his eye had fallen on Maud.
He seemed uncertain; looked quickly away; glanced again, and, meeting
her eyes, raised his hat, though still without conviction in his face.
Maud came naturally forward a step or two, and they shook hands; then
at once she introduced him to her mother. No one ever experienced
awkward pauses in Mrs. Enderby's presence; conversation linked itself
with perfect ease, and in a minute they were examining the pictures
together. Mrs. Enderby had made up her mind with regard to her new
acquaintance in one or two gleams of her quick eyes, and then talked on
in an eager, intelligent way, full of contagious enthusiasm, which soon
brought out Waymark's best powers. Maud said very little. Whenever it
was possible unobserved, she gazed at Waymark's face. She found herself
thinking that, in external appearance, he had improved since she last
saw him. He had no longer that hungry, discontented look to which she
had grown accustomed in the upper schoolroom at Dr. Tootle's; his eye
seemed at once quieter and keener; his complexion was brighter; the
habitual frown had somewhat smoothed away. Then, he was more careful in
the matter of dress. On the whole, it seemed probable that his
circumstances had changed for the better.

Waymark, on his side, whilst he talked, was not less full of
speculation about Maud. For the change in her appearance was certainly
much more noticeable than it could be in his own. Not only that she had
put aside her sad-coloured and poor raiment for a costume of tasteful
and attractive simplicity--this, of course, her mother's doing--but the
look of shrinking, almost of fear, which he had been wont to see on her
face, was entirely gone. Her eyes seemed for ever intelligent of new
meanings; she was pale, but with the pallor of eager, joy-bringing
thought. There was something pathetic in this new-born face; the lips
seemed still to speak of past sorrows, or, it might be, to hold
unspoken a sad fate half-foreseen.

If this renewal of acquaintanceship came just