whenever he turned, as one does with a vivid light after looking at it.




XXIX

When Jeff reached his room he felt the need of writing to Cynthia, with
whatever obscure intention of atonement. He told her of the college tea
he had just come from, and made fun of it, and the kind of people he had
met, especially the affected girl who had tried to rattle him; he said he
guessed she did not think she had rattled him a great deal.

While he wrote he kept thinking how this Miss Lynde was nearer his early
ideal of fashion, of high life, which Westover had pretty well snubbed
out of him, than any woman he had seen yet; she seemed a girl who would
do what she pleased, and would not be afraid if it did not please other
people. He liked her having tried to rattle him, and he smiled to himself
in recalling her failure. It was as if she had laid hold of him with her
little hands to shake him, and had shaken herself. He laughed out in the
dark when this image came into his mind; its intimacy flattered him; and
he believed that it was upon some hint from her that Mrs. Bevidge had
asked his address. She must be going to ask him to her house, and very
soon, for it was part of Jeff's meagre social experience that this was
the way swells did; they might never ask you twice, but they would ask
you promptly.

The thing that Mrs. Bevidge asked Jeff to, when her note reached him the
second day after the tea, was a meeting to interest young people in the
work at the North End, and Jeff swore under his breath at the