“I have made up my mind,” said Raine. “I go to-morrow.”
Just then a rap was heard at the door, and a moment afterwards Felicia appeared, bringing her daily task of copy. She handed the professor the manuscript--and while he looked through it mechanically, she stood like a school-girl before her master, with clasped hands, waiting pleasurably for the little word of praise.
“There is going to be a specially gorgeous _fête_ on the lake to-night, Mr. Chetwynd,” she said brightly, turning to Raine.
“Oh, much more so! There is a royal Duke of somewhere or other staying at the National, and the municipality mean to show him what they can do. I am so fond of these _fêtes venétiennes_. You're coming, aren't you, professor?”
“I don't know, my dear,” replied the old man. “The night air isn't good for me.” Then he added, closing the manuscript, “It is beautifully done. I shall grudge giving it to the printers.”
“But you'll get it all back again,” said Felicia. “Send it to me afterwards, and I'll bind it up beautifully with blue ribbon.”
She gave them each a little nod of farewell and tripped lightly out of the room. The two men looked at each other, rather sadly.
“Oh, Raine--is it too late? Couldn't you?”
“No, dad,” said Raine. “I am afraid other things are too serious.”
Later in the day he opened his note-book and his eye fell upon the last fragment he had scribbled. He threw it upon his dressing-table with an exclamation of impatience. The personal application of his aphorisms was too sudden and obvious to be pleasant.
There was no doubt now in his mind as to the face that attracted him to Geneva. It had vanished on the first day of his arrival, when he had seen Katherine comforting the hurt child. He was conscious too that it had been Katherine all along, at Oxford, whose memory had haunted him, that he had only evoked that of Felicia in order to enable him to deceive himself. He had practised the self-delusion systematically, whenever his thoughts had drifted away from the work and interests that surrounded him. He had made light of the matter, treated it jestingly, grown angry when it obtruded itself seriously on his thoughts. For he had shrunk, with the instinctive fear of a man of strong nature, from exposing to the touch a range of feelings which had once brought him great sorrow. To love meant to bring into play a man's emotions, infinitely deeper than those of a boy, and subject to far more widely-reaching consequences. For this reason he had mocked at the idea of being in love with Katherine, had forced himself, since the power that drew him to Geneva could not be disregarded, to consider Felicia as an equal component, and at the time of his light confidence to Mrs. Monteith, had almost persuaded himself that he was indulging in a whimsical holiday fancy.