o
the table.

Since Number Five had dreamed about the Tutor, he had been more in her
waking thoughts than she was willing to acknowledge. These thoughts
were vague, it is true,--emotions, perhaps, rather than worded trains of
ideas; but she was conscious of a pleasing excitement as his name or
his image floated across her consciousness; she sometimes sighed as
she looked over the last passage they had read from the same book, and
sometimes when they were together they were silent too long,--too long!
What were they thinking of?

And so it was all as plain sailing for Number Five and the young Tutor
as it had been for Delilah and the young Doctor, was it? Do you think
so? Then you do not understand Number Five. Many a woman has as many
atmospheric rings about her as the planet Saturn. Three are easily to be
recognized. First, there is the wide ring of attraction which draws into
itself all that once cross its outer border. These revolve about her
without ever coming any nearer. Next is the inner ring of attraction.
Those who come within its irresistible influence are drawn so close that
it seems as if they must become one with her sooner or later. But within
this ring is another,--an atmospheric girdle, one of repulsion, which
love, no matter how enterprising, no matter how prevailing or how
insinuating, has never passed, and, if we judge of what is to be by what
has been, never will. Perhaps Nature loved Number Five so well that
she grudged her to any mortal man, and gave her this inner girdle of
repulsion to guard her from all who would know her too nearly and love
her too well. Sometimes two vessels at sea keep each other company for
a long distance, it may be daring a whole voyage. Very pleasant it is to
each to have a companion to exchange signals with from time to time; to
came near enough, when the winds are light, to hold converse in ordinary
tones from deck to deck; to know that, in case of need, there's help at
hand. It is good for them to be near each other, but not good to be too
near. Woe is to them if they touch! The wreck of one or both is likely
to be the consequence. And so two well-equipped and heavily freighted
natures may be the best of companions to each other, and yet must never
attempt to come into closer union. Is this the condition of affairs
between Number Five and the Tutor? I hope not, for I want them to be
joined together in that dearest of intimacies, which, if founded in true
affinity, is