Could he win that right? Did he wish to win it? As day after day
passed he felt this question to be growing more and more vitally
important.
He was not one he believed who, like Stanton, could be carried away
by a sudden and absorbing passion. In any and every case, reason,
judgment, and taste would offer their counsel, and their advice
would be carefully weighed. With increasing distinctness, this
cabinet within his own breast urged him to observe this maiden well
lest the chief opportunity of his life pass beyond recall.
And he did study her character carefully. Stanton, with the keen
pain of jealousy, and Ida Mayhew with a disquiet and sinking of
heart that she could not understand, noted that he very quietly
and unobtrusively sought her society. When she spoke, he listened.
When it was possible without attracting attention his eyes followed
her, and yet his conduct was governed so thoroughly by good taste
and chivalric regard for the lady herself, that only eyes rendered
penetrating by the promptings of the heart would have seen anything
more than the general friendliness which she inspired on every
side.
Stanton, on the contrary, grew more undisguised and demonstrative
in his attentions, although he aimed to conceal his feeling under
the humorous and bantering style of address that was habitual with
him.
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