Page:Out of due time, Ward, 1906.djvu/59

Rh late. It is serious for many reasons. I have been too much amused, too forgetful. Could I not have spared just one hour a day and copied the article? Then, too, I forgot to practise some music for Benediction. I am discouraged with myself."

She looked quite forlorn.

"When ought the article to have gone?" I asked.

"It ought to go at half-past ten o'clock this morning."

"And now it is half-past seven. How long is it? May I help? Could we not manage it between us?"

Marcelle leapt up at the suggestion, and ran screaming about the house demanding coffee and rolls, demanding Paul, and even the sleeping Mr. Sutcliffe. By half-past eight we four were sitting at a big oak table in the Count's study writing for dear life. I was immensely excited. George was obviously bored, but worked doggedly, and Marcelle was in the fever of repentance. Happily for me, my German was the best part of my education. At first I hardly noticed what I was copying; but as I went on the words caught hold of me. There was a cold passion about them, a curiously abstract fervour. They had an intensity of feeling for ideas so abstract that the feeling became a thing too mental to be called feeling. The article made on me a new impression; it touched some facet of my young mind that had never reflected anything before. I looked up, half-puzzled, half-admiring, wholly happy in the sense of expansion, and glanced towards the Count. I expected to see nothing but his forehead and hair as he bent over his copying, but I found, to my surprise, that he was watching me. I coloured, but he did not look away; his quiet scrutiny rested on me as if he were quite indifferent to any sensation it might produce on my part. To relieve myself I looked quickly at the others and saw that they too had become excited. Marcelle made one or two incoherent mutterings.

"I would put the reference to Comte here," George