 melted into each other.«
    He had assumed a bantering air: a light, half-caressing half-ironic, shone
aslant in his eye. Ah, Graham! I have given more than one solitary moment to
thoughts and calculations of your estimate of Lucy Snowe: was it always kind or
just? Had Lucy been intrinsically the same, but possessing the additional
advantages of wealth and station, would your manner to her, your value for her
have been quite what they actually were? And yet by these questions I would not
seriously infer blame. No; you might sadden and trouble me sometimes; but then
mine was a soon-depressed, an easily-deranged temperament - it fell if a cloud
crossed the sun. Perhaps before the eye of severe equity, I should stand more at
fault than you.
    Trying then to keep down the unreasonable pain which thrilled my heart, on
thus being made to feel that while Graham could devote to others the most grave
and earnest, the manliest interest, he had no more than light raillery for Lucy,
the friend of lang syne, I inquired calmly, -
    »On what points are we so closely in accordance?«
    »We each have an observant faculty. You, perhaps, don't give me credit for
the possession; yet I have it.«
    »But you were speaking of tastes: we may see the same objects, yet estimate
them differently?«
    »Let us bring it to the test. Of course, you cannot but render homage to the
merits of Miss Fanshawe: now, what do you think of others in the room? - my
mother, for instance; or the lions, yonder. Messieurs A-- and Z--; or, let us
say, that pale little lady, Miss de Bassompierre?«
    »You know what I think of your mother. I have not thought of Messieurs A--
and Z--.«
    »And the other?«
    »I think she is, as you say, a pale little lady - pale, certainly, just now,
when she is fatigued with over-excitement.«
    »You don't remember her as a child?«
    »I wonder, sometimes, whether you do?«
    »I had forgotten her; but it is noticeable, that circumstances, persons,
even words and looks, that had slipped your memory, may, under certain
conditions, certain aspects of your own or another's mind, revive.«
    »That is possible enough.«
    »Yet,« he continued, »the revival is
