on a point like
this. In spite of his life in society, books and ideas were at this
moment much more real to him than men and women. He judged life from the
standpoint of the student and the man of letters, in whose eyes
considerations, which would have seemed abstract and unreal to other
people, had become magnified and all-important. In this matter of Wallace
and Miss Bretherton he saw the struggle between an ideal interest, so to
speak, and a personal interest, and he was heart and soul for the ideal.
Face to face with the living human creature concerned, his principles, as
we have seen, were apt to give way a little, for the self underneath was
warm-hearted and impressionable, but in his own room and by himself they
were strong and vigorous, and would allow of no compromise.

He ruminated over the matter during his solitary meal, planning his line
of action. 'It all depends,' he said to himself, 'on that,--if what
Wallace says about her is true, if my opinion has really any weight with
her, I shall be able to manage it without offending her. It's good of her
to speak of me as kindly as she seems to do; I was anything but amiable
on that Surrey Sunday. However, I felt then that she liked me all the
better for plain-speaking; one may be tolerably safe with her that she
won't take offence unreasonably. What a picture she made as she pulled
the primroses to pieces--it seemed all up with one! And then her smile
flashing out--her eagerness to make amends--to sweep away a harsh
impression--her pretty gratefulness--enchanting!'

On Saturday, at lunch-time, Wallace rushed in for a few minutes to say
that he himself had avoided Miss Bretherton all the week, but that things
were coming to a crisis. 'I've just got this note from her,' he said
despairingly, spreading it out before Kendal, who was making a scrappy
bachelor meal, with a book on each side of him, at a table littered with
papers.

'Could anything be more prettily done? If you don't succeed to-morrow,
Kendal, I shall have signed the agreement before three days are over!'

It was indeed a charming note. She asked him to fix any time he chose for
an appointment with her and her business manager, and spoke with
enthusiasm of the play. 'It cannot help being a great success,' she
wrote; 'I feel that I am not worthy of it, but I will do my very best.
The part seems to me, in many respects, as though it had been written for
me. You have never, indeed, I remember, consent