In fact this heavy, stolid prime-minister both amused and annoyed her,
and she treated him with the caprice of a child toward an elephant
--at times giving him the sugar-plum of a compliment, and oftener
pricking him with the pin of some caustic remark. To him she was the
perfection of womankind--her reserved, dispassionate manner, her steady,
unwearied prosecution of a purpose, being just the qualities that he
most honored; and he worshipped her reverently at a distance, like an
old astrologer adoring some particularly bright fixed star. No whisking
comets or changing satellites for old Schwartz.

As for Dennis, she treated him as she probably had treated Pat Murphy,
and for several days had no occasion to notice him at all. In fact he
kept out of her way, choosing at first to observe rather than be
observed. She became an artistic study to him, for her every movement
was grace itself, except that there was no softness or gentleness in
her manner. Her face fascinated him by its beauty, though its expression
troubled him--it was so unlike his mother's, so unlike what he felt
a woman's ought to be. But her eager interest in that which was becoming
so dear to him--art--would have covered a multitude of sins in his
eyes, and with a heart abounding in faith and hope, not yet diminished
by hard experience, he believed that the undeveloped angel existed
within her. But he remembered her frown when she had first noticed his
observation of her. The shrewd Yankee youth saw that her pride would
not brook even a curious glance. But while he kept at a most respectful
distance he felt that there was no such wide gulf between them as she
imagined. By birth and education he was as truly entitled to her
acquaintance as the young men who sometimes came into the store with
her and whom she met in society. Position and wealth were alone wanting,
and in spite of his hard experience and lowly work he felt that there
must be some way for him, as for others, to win these.