sentiments which she herself would not confess? For the first time that indefinable oppression she always experienced in his presence, found a decided reason; she felt dimly that in some way danger threatened her from this man; that she must at any price hold herself far from him, even on account of this one provocation.
Miss Forest drew herself up with her utmost dignity, and measured the professor from head to foot. "I regret, Mr. Fernow," she said, "that your penetrating glance has so deceived you. I alone am accountable for my sympathies and antipathies; besides, I assure you that I thoroughly detest sentimentality and revery in whatever form and that to me nothing in the whole world is so antagonistic as–a hero of the pen."
The word was spoken, and, as if he had received a wound, the professor trembled under this irony. The flame again flashed up in his face, and from his blue eyes darted a lightning glance that would have made any other than Jane tremble. For an instant a passionate, indignant reply seemed to quiver on his lips; then he suddenly averted his face, and placed his hand over his eyes.
Jane stood immovable. Now she had her will. The storm was invoked. She had made him angry, angry as he had been that day when he had so hastily lifted and carried her in his arms to disprove her insinuation of his want of physical strength.
What now?
After a momentary pause, Fernow turned to her. His face was pale but perfectly calm, and his voice lacked that peculiar vibration it had possessed during the whole interview.
"You seem to forget, Miss Forest, that even a lady's privileges have their limit," he said. "If the social circle in which you move, allows you so free an expression of your opinions, I beg leave to remind you that I do not belong to that circle, and will not tolerate direct insults. I should have answered a man otherwise. As for you, I can only assure you that it will henceforth be my especial care that our paths do not again cross."
And with a bow just as cold and distant, just as haughty as Miss Forest herself had at her command for persons not agreeable to her, he turned away and vanished behind the wall.
Jane remained standing there motionless, in a sort of bewilderment, which gradually yielded to the consciousness of what this man had presumed to say to her. He had mortified, chided, repulsed her! Her, Jane Forest! This pitiable scholar, upon whom until this hour she had looked with sympathetic contempt! The contempt indeed was over, but who could have dreamed that this man, so timid, so helpless in every-day life, could in a moment, when the conventional barriers fell, become so unmasked! In the midst of her resentment, Jane experienced something like a deep satisfaction, that he to her and to her alone, had shown himself in this light; but that did not lessen her exasperation, neither did the consciousness that she had driven him to extremities, and that the rebuke was just, in the least console her.
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