do those of
the Roman poets of whom we know nothing but that they lived, I still
think she will not stick to you through, say, three years of absence in
India.'

'But she will!' cried Stephen desperately. 'She is a girl all delicacy
and honour. And no woman of that kind, who has committed herself so into
a man's hands as she has into mine, could possibly marry another.'

'How has she committed herself?' asked Knight cunously.

Stephen did not answer. Knight had looked on his love so sceptically
that it would not do to say all that he had intended to say by any
means.

'Well, don't tell,' said Knight. 'But you are begging the question,
which is, I suppose, inevitable in love.'

'And I'll tell you another thing,' the younger man pleaded. 'You
remember what you said to me once about women receiving a kiss. Don't
you? Why, that instead of our being charmed by the fascination of
their bearing at such a time, we should immediately doubt them if their
confusion has any GRACE in it--that awkward bungling was the true charm
of the occasion, implying that we are the first who has played such a
part with them.'

'It is true, quite,' said Knight musingly.

It often happened that the disciple thus remembered the lessons of the
master long after the master himself had forgotten them.

'Well, that was like her!' cried Stephen triumphantly. 'She was in such
a flurry that she didn't know what she was doing.'

'Splendid, splendid!' said Knight soothingly. 'So that all I have to say
is, that if you see a good opening in Bombay there's no reason why you
should not go without troubling to draw fine distinctions as to reasons.
No man fully realizes what opinions he acts upon, or what his actions
mean.'

'Yes; I go to Bombay. I'll write a note here, if you don't mind.'

'Sleep over it--it is the best plan--and write to-morrow. Meantime, go
there to that window and sit down, and look at my Humanity Show. I
am going to dine out this evening, and have to dress here out of my
portmanteau. I bring up my things like this to save the trouble of going
down to my place at Richmond and back again.'

Knight then went to the middle of the room and flung open his
portmanteau, and Stephen drew near the window. The streak of sunlight
had crept upward, edged away, and vanished; the zoophytes slept: a dusky
gloom pervaded the room. And now another volume of light shone over the
window.

'There!' said Knight, 'where is there in England a spec