"Or, one of the trio being absent,
did you feel yourself excused?"
Mr. Carlyon glanced at her sharply, and then broke into a smile.
"Young woman, I do not think I have ever allowed you to read the
Judgment of Paris," he said. "Wherefore your question is ill-timed and
irrelevant."
Then they laughed together. How well they knew one another!--not only
over things Greek. And presently they began their reading. They were in
the middle of Symonds' "Renaissance," and so forgot the outer world.
But after Halcyone had gone in the dusk through the park, the Professor
sat in the firelight for a while, and did not ring for lights. He was
musing deeply, and his thoughts ran something in this line:
"John must dree his weird. Nothing anyone could say has ever influenced
him. If he marries this woman she will eat his soul; having only a sham
one of her own, she will devour his. She'll do very well to adorn the
London house and feed his friends. He'll find her out in less than a
year--it will kill his inspirations. Well, Zeus and all the gods cannot
help a man in his folly.
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