During his absence from home he had seen no woman's face that for a moment rivalled Ida's portrait.

Shy and fastidious, he had found no pleasure in ladies' society, and had listened to his classmates' talk of flirtations and conquests with secret contempt.

What did they know of love?
What had their coarse and sensuous ideas in common with the rare and delicate passion to which his heart was dedicated--a love asking and hoping for no reward, but sufficient to itself?
He had spent but a few weeks at home when Miss Ludington began to talk quite seriously to him about studying for some profession.

He was rather surprised at this, for he had supposed she would be glad to have him at home, for a while at lease, now that he had done with college.

To Paul, at this time, the idea of any pursuit which would take him away from the village was extremely distasteful, and he had no difficulty in finding excuses enough for procrastinating a step for which, indeed, no sort of urgency could be pretended.
He was to be Miss Ludington's heir, and any profession which he might adopt would be purely ornamental at most.
Finding that he showed no disposition to consider a profession she dropped that point and proposed that he should take six months of foreign travel, as a sort of rounding off of his college course.