Before the hour at which we usually stopped work I arose from my chair, and stated that that would be all for the day. My secretary looked at me quickly.
"All for to-day?" she asked, a little smile of disapprobation upon her brow. "It cannot be twelve o'clock yet."
"No," I answered, "it is not; but it is not easy to work out the answer which Lucilla ought now to make to Tomaso, and I shall have to take time for its consideration."
"I shouldn't think it would be easy," said she, "but I hoped you had it already in your mind."
"Then you are interested in it?" I asked.
"Of course I am," she answered,--"who wouldn't be? And just at this point, too, when everything depends on what she says; but it is quite right for you to be very careful about what you make her say," and she gathered her sheets together to lay them away.
Now I wanted to say something to her. I stopped work for that purpose, but I did not know what to say. An apology for my conduct of the day before would not be exactly in order, and an explanation of it would be exceedingly difficult. I walked up and down my study, and she continued to arrange her pages. When she had put them into a compact and very neat little pile, she opened the table drawer, placed them in it, examined some other contents of the drawer, and finally closed it, and sat looking out of the window. After some minutes of this silent observation, she half turned toward me, and without entirely removing her gaze from the apple-tree outside, she asked:--
"Indeed I do!" I exclaimed, stepping quickly to the grating.
At this moment we heard the footsteps of Sister Sarah in the hall, at least two minutes before the usual time.
When they had gone, I stood by my study table, my arms folded and my eyes fixed upon the floor.
"Horace Vanderley," I said to myself, "you are in love;" and to this frank and explicit statement I answered, quite as frankly, "That is certainly true; there can be no mistake about it."
A Saturday afternoon, evening, and night, the whole of a Sunday and its night, with some hours of a Monday morning, intervened between the moment at which I had acknowledged to myself my feelings toward my secretary and the moment at which I might expect to see her again, and nearly the whole of this time was occupied by me in endeavoring to determine what should be my next step. To stand still in my present position was absolutely impossible: I must go forward or backward. To go backward was a simple thing enough; it was like turning round and jumping down a precipice; it made me shudder. To go forward was like climbing a precipice with beetling crags and perpendicular walls of ice.