saw her, and yet be insensible to the spiritual toughness of Jeff, because of her love for him.  Her very goodness might make his badness unimaginable to her, and if her refinement were from the conscience merely, and not from the tastes and experiences, too, there was not so much to dread for her in her marriage with such a man.  Still, he would have liked, if he could, to tell her what he had told her father of Durgin’s behavior with Lynde, and let her bring the test of her self-devotion to the case with a clear understanding.  He had sometimes been afraid that Whitwell might not be able to keep it to himself; but now he wished that the philosopher had not been so discreet.  He had all this so absorbingly in mind that he started presently with the fear that she had said something and he had not answered, but when he asked her he found that she had not spoken.  They were standing at an open window looking out upon Lion’s Head, when he said:  “I don’t know how I shall show my gratitude to Mrs. Durgin and you for thinking of having me up here.  I’ve done a picture of Lion’s Head that might be ever so much worse; but I shouldn’t have dreamed of getting at it if it hadn’t been for you, though I’ve so often dreamed of doing it.  Now I shall go home richer in every sort of way-thanks to you.”

She answered, simply:  “You needn’t thank anybody; but it was Jeff who thought of it; we were ready enough to ask you.”

“That was very good of him,” said Westover, whom her words confirmed in a suspicion he had had all along.  But what did it matter that Jeff had suggested their asking him, and then attributed the notion to them?  It was not so malign for him to use that means of ingratiating himself with Westover, and of making him forget his behavior with Lynde, and it was not unnatural.  It was very characteristic; at the worst it merely proved that Jeff was more ashamed of what he had done than he would allow, and that was to his credit.

He heard Cynthia asking:  “Mr. Westover, have you ever been at Class Day?  He wants us to come.”

“Class Day?  Oh, Class Day!” He took a little time to gather himself together.  “Yes, I’ve been at a good many.  If you care to see something pretty, it’s the prettiest thing in the world.  The students’ sisters and mothers come from everywhere; and there’s fashion and feasting and flirting, from ten in the morning till ten at night.  I’m not sure there’s so much happiness; but I can’t tell.  The young people know about that.  I fancy there’s a good deal of defeat and disappointment in it all.  But if you like beautiful dresses, and music and dancing, and a great flutter of gayety, you can get more of it at Class Day than you can in any other way.  The good time depends a great deal upon the acquaintance a student has, and whether he is popular in college.”  Westover found this road a little impassable, and he faltered.

Cynthia did not apparently notice his hesitation.  “Do you think Mrs. Durgin would like it?”