he might perhaps at this very moment be within seeing and speaking
distance of this tall girl of the scarlet ribbons, the very same
whose presence he had vaguely felt about the place all that morning,
in the occasional sound of a distant song, or the rush of feet upon
the gallery, or the whisk of skirts frequently heard. The memory of
that picture clung fast and would not vanish. She was so very
beautiful, he reflected. It had been pleasanter to sit at table in
such company than thus here alone, hungry, like an outcast.

He felt his gaze, like that of a love-sick boy, turning again and
again toward the spot where he had seen her last. The realization of
this angered him. He rebuked himself sternly, as having been unworthy
of himself, as having been light, as having been unmanly, in thus
allowing himself to be influenced by a mere irrational fancy. He
summoned his strength to banish this chimera, and then with sudden
horror which sent his brow half-moist, he realized that his faculties
did not obey, that he was thinking of the same picture, that his eyes
were still coveting it, his heart--ah, could there be truth in these
stories of sudden and uncontrollable impulses of the heart? The very
whisper of it gave him terror. His brow grew moister. For him, John
Eddring--what could the world hold for him but this one thing of
duty?

Duty! He laughed at the thought. These two iron bands before his eyes
irked his soul, binding him, as they did, hard and fast to another
world full of unwelcome things. There came again and again to his
mind this picture of the maid with the bright ribbons. He gazed at
the distant spot beneath the evergreens where he had seen her. He
could picture so distinctly her high-headed carriage, the straight
gaze of her eyes, the glow on her cheeks; could restore so clearly