But what's the use of it? it never really waked them up."
"Perhaps they're waiting for another kind of earthquake," Winslow had
responded sententiously.
In six weeks it had been forgotten, except by three people--Miss Keene,
James Hurlstone, and Padre Esteban. Since Hurlstone had parted with
Miss Keene on that memorable afternoon he had apparently lapsed into his
former reserve. Without seeming to avoid her timid advances, he met
her seldom, and then only in the presence of the Padre or Mrs. Markham.
Although uneasy at the deprivation of his society, his present shyness
did not affect her as it had done at first: she knew it was no longer
indifference; she even fancied she understood it from what had been her
own feelings. If he no longer raised his eyes to hers as frankly as he
had that day, she felt a more delicate pleasure in the consciousness of
his lowered eyelids when they met, and the instinct that told her
when his melancholy glance followed her unobserved. The sex of these
lovers--if we may call them so who had never exchanged a word of
love--seemed to be changed. It was Miss Keene who now sought him with a
respectful and frank admiration; it was Hurlstone who now tried to
avoid it with a feminine dread of reciprocal display.
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