Had he been alone with Miss Derwent, he might have asserted his manhood, and it would have been _her_ turn to blush, to be confused.

He had a couple of years more than she.

The trouble was that he could not feel this superiority of age; she treated him like a schoolboy, and to himself he seemed one.

Even more than Irene's, he avoided Olga's look, and walked on shamefaced.
The remaining days, until Miss Derwent departed, were to him a mere blank of misery.

Impossible to open a book, and sleep came only with uttermost exhaustion.