There was nothing for any one else to
notice, and yet she knew perfectly well that she never came into the
room without his being instantly conscious that she was there; that
she never left a room, without being at once missed by him. His
attentions were so unobtrusive and tactful that no one else realised
them. They called forth no chaff from friends and no "Hoity-toity!
What now?" from the duchess. And yet his devotion seemed always
surrounding her. For the first time in her life Jane was made to
feel herself FIRST in the whole thought of another. It made him seem
strangely her own. She took a pleasure and pride in all he said, and
did, and was; and in the hours they spent together in the music-room
she learned to know him and to understand that enthusiastic beauty-
loving, irresponsible nature, as she had never understood it before.
The days were golden, and the parting at night was sweet, because it
gave an added zest to the pleasure of meeting in the morning. And
yet during these golden days the thought of love, in the ordinary
sense of the word, never entered Jane's mind.
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