They had drifted up the stairs after the other two
men with the wandering gregariousness of the male.
"Hope there's no intrusion," said the beaming Moses with a glow
of good nature, but not the airiest tinge of apology.
"The truth is," said Michael Moon with comparative courtesy,
"we thought we might see if they had made you comfortable.
Miss Duke is rather--"
"I know," cried the stranger, looking up radiantly from his bag;
"magnificent, isn't she? Go close to her--hear military music going by,
like Joan of Arc."
Inglewood stared and stared at the speaker like one who has
just heard a wild fairy tale, which nevertheless contains
one small and forgotten fact. For he remembered how he had
himself thought of Jeanne d'Arc years ago, when, hardly more
than a schoolboy, he had first come to the boarding-house. Long
since the pulverizing rationalism of his friend Dr. Warner had
crushed such youthful ignorances and disproportionate dreams.
Under the Warnerian scepticism and science of hopeless
human types, Inglewood had long come to regard himself as
a timid, insufficient, and "weak" type, who would never marry;
to regard Diana Duke as a materialistic maidservant;
and to regard his first fancy for her as the small,
dull farce of a collegian kissing his landlady's daughter.
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