Before she got back to her
seat, he was very nearly in love with her. I suspect that those
generally who fall in love at first sight have been in love before. At
least such was Romeo's case. And certainly it was not Alec's. Yet I
must confess, if he had talked stupidly before, he talked worse now;
and at length went home with the conviction that he had made a great
donkey of himself.
As he walked the lonely road, and the street now fast closing its
windows and going to sleep, he was haunted by a very different vision
from that which had accompanied him a few hours ago. Then it was the
dead face of a man, into which his busy fancy had reset the living eyes
that he had seen looking in at the window of the dissecting room; now
it was the lovely face of his new-found cousin, possessing him so that
he could fear nothing. Life had cast out death. Love had cast out fear.
But love had cast out more. For he found, when he got home, that he
could neither read nor think. If Kate could have been _conscious_ of
its persistent intrusion upon Alec's thoughts, and its constant
interruption of his attempts at study, she would have been ashamed of
that pretty face of hers, and ready to disown it for its forwardness.
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