"We must settle something--we must take a line," he declared, passing
his hand through his hair and giving a glance at the long narrow
mirror which adorned the space between the two windows, and which had
at its base a little gilded bracket covered by a thin slab of white
marble, supporting in its turn a backgammon board folded together in
the shape of two volumes, two shining folios inscribed in letters of
greenish gilt, History of England. If Morris had been pleased to
describe the master of the house as a heartless scoffer, it is
because he thought him too much on his guard, and this was the
easiest way to express his own dissatisfaction--a dissatisfaction
which he had made a point of concealing from the Doctor. It will
probably seem to the reader, however, that the Doctor's vigilance was
by no means excessive, and that these two young people had an open
field. Their intimacy was now considerable, and it may appear that
for a shrinking and retiring person our heroine had been liberal of
her favours. The young man, within a few days, had made her listen
to things for which she had not supposed that she was prepared;
having a lively foreboding of difficulties, he proceeded to gain as
much ground as possible in the present. He remembered that fortune
favours the brave, and even if he had forgotten it, Mrs. Penniman
would have remembered it for him. Mrs. Penniman delighted of all
things in a drama, and she flattered herself that a drama would now
be enacted.
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