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head. He is quite a distinguished art critic in London, and he met her
at that celebrated lady novelist's, her stepmother, and here you have
them well embarked upon the Adventure. Both are in the first stage of
repentance, which consists, as you have probably found for yourself, in
setting your teeth hard and saying' "I WILL go on."
Things, you see, have jarred a little, and they ride on their way
together with a certain aloofness of manner that promises ill for
the orthodox development of the Adventure. He perceives he was too
precipitate. But he feels his honour is involved, and meditates the
development of a new attack. And the girl? She is unawakened. Her
motives are bookish, written by a haphazard syndicate of authors,
novelists, and biographers, on her white inexperience. An artificial
oversoul she is, that may presently break down and reveal a human being
beneath it. She is still in that schoolgirl phase when a talkative old
man is more interesting than a tongue-tied young one, and when to be an
eminent mathematician, say, or to edit a daily paper, seems as fine an
ambition as any girl need aspire to. Bechaniel was to have helped her to
attain that in the most expeditious manner, and here he is beside her,
talking enigmatical phrases about passion, looking at her with the
oddest expression, and once, and that was his gravest offence, offering
to kiss her. At any rate he has apologised. She still scarcely realises,
you see, the scrape she has got into.
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