suspected, or existed no longer. She looked at him attentively
as if this discovery of hers must show traces in his face. Never had she
seen so much to respect in his appearance, so much that attracted her by
its sensitiveness and intelligence, although she saw these qualities as
if they were those one responds to, dumbly, in the face of a stranger.
The head bent over the paper, thoughtful as usual, had now a composure
which seemed somehow to place it at a distance, like a face seen talking
to some one else behind glass.

He wrote on, without raising his eyes. She would have spoken, but could
not bring herself to ask him for signs of affection which she had no
right to claim. The conviction that he was thus strange to her filled
her with despondency, and illustrated quite beyond doubt the infinite
loneliness of human beings. She had never felt the truth of this so
strongly before. She looked away into the fire; it seemed to her that
even physically they were now scarcely within speaking distance; and
spiritually there was certainly no human being with whom she could
claim comradeship; no dream that satisfied her as she was used to be
satisfied; nothing remained in whose reality she could believe, save
those abstract ideas--figures, laws, stars, facts, which she could
hardly hold to for lack of knowledge and a kind of shame.

When Rodney owned to himself the folly of this prolonged silence, and
the meanness of such devices, and looked up ready to seek some excuse
for a good laugh, or opening for a confession, he was disconcerted by
what he saw. Katharine seemed equally oblivious of what was bad or
of what was good in him. Her expression suggested concentration upon
something entirely remote from her surroundings. The carelessness of her
attitude seemed to him rather masculine than feminine. His impulse to
break up the constraint was chilled, and once more the exasperating
sense of his own impotency returned to him. He could not help
contrasting Katharine with his vision of the engaging, whimsical
Cassandra; Katharine undemonstrative, inconsiderate, silent, and yet so
notable that he could never do without her good opinion.

She veered round upon him a moment later, as if, when her train of
thought was ended, she became aware of his presence.

"Have you finished your letter?" she asked. He thought he heard faint
amusement in her tone, but not a trace of jealousy.

"No, I'm not going to write any more to-night," he sa