eeling wind.

CHAPTER VIII

A Painful Misunderstanding

And now, on early evenings and Saturday afternoons when the weather was
fine, Miss Quincey was to be found in Primrose Hill Park. Not that
anybody ever came to look for Miss Quincey. Nevertheless, whether she was
walking up and down the paths or sitting on a bench, Miss Quincey had a
certain expectant air, as if at any moment Dr. Cautley might come tearing
round the corner with his coat-tails flying, or as if she might look up
and find him sitting beside her and talking to her. But he did not come.
There are some histories that never repeat themselves.

And he had never called since that day--Miss Quincey remembered it well;
it was Saturday the thirteenth of March. April and May went by; she had
not seen him now for more than two months; and she began to think there
must be a reason for it.

At last she saw him; she saw him twice running. Once in the park where
they had sat together, and once in the forked road that leads past that
part of St. Sidwell's where Miss Cursiter and Miss Vivian lived in state.
Each time he was walking very fast as usual, and he looked at her, but he
never raised his hat; she spoke, but he passed her without a word. And
yet he had recognised her; there could be no possible doubt of it.

Depend upon it there was a reason for _that_. Miss Quincey was one of
those innocent people who believe that every variety of human behaviour
must have a reason (as if only two months ago she had not been favoured
with the spectacle of an absolutely unreasonable young man). To be sure
it was not easy to find one for conduct so strange and unprecedented, and
in any case Miss Quincey's knowledge of masculine motives was but small.
Taken by itself it might have passed without any reason, as an oversight,
a momentary lapse; but coupled with his complete abandonment of Camden
Street North it looked ominous indeed. Not that her faith in Bastian
Cautley wavered for an instant. Because Bastian Cautley was what he was,
he could never be guilty of spontaneous discourtesy; on the other hand,
she had seen that he could be fierce enough on provocation; therefore,
she argued, he had some obscure ground of offence against her.

Miss Quincey passed a sleepless night reasoning about the reason, a
palpitating never-ending night, without a doze or a dream in it or so
much as the winking of an eyelid. She reasoned about it for a week
between the classes, and in