d broken his tutor's leg there, and presenting (with the bored
reluctance of a boy) a letter of introduction from his guardian to Mrs.
Newbolt--when Maurice met Mrs. Newbolt's niece, something happened.
Perhaps because he felt her starved longing for personal happiness, or
perhaps her obvious pleasure in listening, silently, to his eager talk,
touched his young vanity; whatever the reason was, the boy was
fascinated by her. He had ("cussing," as he had expressed it to himself)
accepted an invitation to dine with the "ancient dame" (again his
phrase!)--and behold the reward of merit:--the niece!--a gentle,
handsome woman, whose age never struck him, probably because her mind
was as immature as his own. Before dinner was over Eleanor's
silence--silence is very moving to youth, for who knows what it
hides?--and her deep, still eyes, lured him like a mystery. Then, after
dinner ("a darned good dinner," Maurice had conceded to himself) the
calm niece sang, and instantly he knew that it was Beauty which hid in
silence--and he was in love with her! He had dined with her on Tuesday,
called on Wednesday, proposed on Friday;--it was all quite like Solomon
Grundy! except that, although she had fallen in love with him almost as
instantly as he had fallen in love with her, she had, over and over
again, refused him. During the period of her refusals the boy's love
glowed like a furnace; it brought both power and maturity into his
fresh, ardent, sensitive face. He threw every thought to the
winds--except the thought of rescuing his princess from Mrs. Newbolt's
imprisoning bric-a-brac. As for his "cramming" the tutor into whose
hands Mr. Houghton had committed his ward's very defective trigonometry
and economics, Mr. Bradley, held in Mercer because of an annoying
accident, said to himself that his intentions were honest, but if Curtis
didn't turn up for three days running, he would utilize the time his
pupil was paying for by writing a paper on "The Fourth Dimension."

Maurice was in some new dimension himself! Except "old Brad," he knew
almost no one in Mercer, so he had no confidant; and because his
passion was, perforce, inarticulate, his candid forehead gathered
wrinkles of positive suffering, which made him look as old as Eleanor,
who, dazed by the first very exciting thing that had ever happened to
her,--the experience of being adored (and adored by a boy, which is a
heady thing to a woman of her age!)--Eleanor was saying to herse