The business on which Harney had come was authentic; Charity had seen
the letter from a New York publisher commissioning him to make a study
of the eighteenth century houses in the less familiar districts of New
England. But incomprehensible as the whole affair was to her, and hard
as she found it to understand why he paused enchanted before certain
neglected and paintless houses, while others, refurbished and "improved"
by the local builder, did not arrest a glance, she could not but suspect
that Eagle County was less rich in architecture than he averred, and
that the duration of his stay (which he had fixed at a month) was not
unconnected with the look in his eyes when he had first paused before
her in the library. Everything that had followed seemed to have grown
out of that look: his way of speaking to her, his quickness in catching
her meaning, his evident eagerness to prolong their excursions and to
seize on every chance of being with her.
The signs of his liking were manifest enough; but it was hard to guess
how much they meant, because his manner was so different from anything
North Dormer had ever shown her.
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